The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • E1

THE JBfk SUN www.sunspot.nettoday Section TODAY Wednesday, December 18, 2002 Movie Review Tanner painting 'comes home' Browns give BMA 'important' portrait Sam (Sean Astin, left) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) are captured by Gondorian soldiers. we feel tingles on top of tingles. These poetic bits of storytelling are like glittering punctuation marks in a feature-length spell. And when the proliferating forces of destruction swirl around the fragile remnants of hu 7VPreview In "The Two Towers," the second part of the "Lord of the Rings" saga, members of the Fellowship prepare for battle. A TOWERING SUCCESS PETER JACKSON TRIUMPHS IN HIS EPIC UNDERTAKING, TURNING J.R.R.

TOLKIEN'S SECOND PART OF THE 'LORD OF THE RINGS' SAGA INTO ANOTHER MASTERPIECE. Susan Reimer Hands that now console might have helped teen Ciara Jobes' relatives clasped each other as if at any moment their grief might carry them away. Her grandmother, Iva Cruse, stood near her white casket on the altar of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church and embraced a steady stream of mourners. They hugged and rocked and whispered into each other's ears. In the pews behind Iva Cruse, who buried Ciara's mother from this church in July, and before that another grandchild, sat sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, neighbors, friends and her fellow church members.

They comforted each other with their hands. They pulled the heads of children to their breasts. They ran their hands across the shoulders of grown men as those shoulders shook with sobs. Each clasped a neighbor's hand as they prayed. And they put their hands together in applause at the mention of Jesus' name.

They were there to bury a 15-year-old girl who died while in the guardianship of a family friend. Ciara Jobes was found starved and beaten to death in the home of Satrina Roberts, who had taken custody of the child three years ago when Ciara's mother, Jackie Cruse, had begun to fail with AIDS and cancer. Ciara weighed 73 pounds when she was found. She was judged too emaciated to have been able to stand on her own. Her body was covered with cuts and bruises.

Roberts is now in custody facing charges of first-degree murder. Social workers lost touch with Ciara after a judge granted custody to Roberts. No one in her family had seen Ciara in months, and their phone calls went unanswered. She had not been to school or church or been seen outside the home by her neighbors since at least last summer. Perfunctory attempts by school officials to contact her were unsuccessful.

Police found evidence that she had been locked in a room without heat, light, a bed or toilet facilities and forced to go to the bathroom in a hole in the dry-wall. Roberts reportedly told police that when Ciara soiled a comforter, she beat her with a leather belt until the child vomited and died, and then waited several hours before calling paramedics. The funeral for this young girl was compounded by all these horrible details, and the family and parishioners of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church were beyond consolation. Four church nurses, dressed in crisp white uniforms and wearing old-fashioned caps, stood close with water, tissues and, always, comforting hands. On the al- See Reimer, 4e INSIDE Liz Smith: Trying to squeeze info out of Barbara Walters.

Page2E Comics 6e Crossword 6e, 7e Movies 4e Television 5e Horoscope 5e Bridge 5e Coming tomorrow Live: The best Christmas CDs take a bow. yule music By Linell Smith SUN STAFF The newest portrait at the Baltimore Museum of Art reveals a man of God, quietly searching his soul, perhaps contemplating the tasks ahead. It is a small painting, a remarkably private view of a very public man. In 1897, when Benjamin Tucker Tanner posed for this painting, the 62 -year-old minister was one of the most renowned church leaders and intellectuals in the African-American community. Bishop Tanner's face, bathed in a warm, loving light, is the face of a leader, a thinker and a poet, but also of a father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

It was a portrait painted for love, not money, by the bishop's eldest son, Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), who was then becoming an internationally acclaimed artist. This rare visual record of the spirit of two prominent 19th-century African-American men will go on display at the BMA thanks to Baltimore philanthropists Eddie and Sylvia Brown. A painting of "enormous importance," Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tan- See Tanner, 3e Henry Ossawa Tanner's painting captures dignity of his father Benjamin Tucker Tanner. TVRadio Column WMAR pulls curtain on playwrights' competition By David Folkenflik SUN TELEVISION WRITER Each December for the past two decades, a group of actors from Arena Players could be found busily learning lines from a play that won an annual contest for the region's black writers. The production was prepared for broadcast the following February on WMAR-TV.

Those activities won't be happening this winter. Station officials have canceled the competition, saying that they haven't been able to find any advertisers in recent years to help defray the $20,000 to $25,000 cost of the awards and of producing the play. Those expenses covered building the sets, creating the costumes, and paying the Arena Players' actors and crew. "We kept carrying it for several years, and kept hoping we'd get some good sponsorship for it," says Drew Berry, general manager for WMAR. "Believe me, it's really tough to be doing this." Ed Terry, artistic director of Arena Players, says he appreciates the station's efforts over the years, which gave his organization a burst of visibility each year.

"What kind of collaborations do you know of that last that length of time?" Terry asks. "We are both sad for this to come to an end." Berry and other station officials say they intend to maintain ties with Arena Players. WMAR has donated $5,000 for the community theater group in honor of its 50th anniversary. The station has committed itself to air a series of public service announcements sin- See TV, 3e By Michael Sraqow SUN MOVIE CRITIC Some people would pay to hear actor Ian McKellen read the phone book. I'd pay to see Peter Jackson who is directing him in the Lord of the Rings trilogy film anything from the Gilgamesh Epic to Roberts' Rules of Order.

In The Two Towers, Jackson paints a world in upheaval and depicts the drastic revamping of its codes and traditions. The result is harrowing and inspiring. As escapist entertainment, it's the movie of the year. This is the rare picture that evokes and revives the spirit of classics from The Wizard of Oz to The Seven Samurai. It thrives on small moments as well as sweeping set pieces.

When a snow-white horse answers the call of a Wizard, or a proud brown stallion nuzzles a fallen warrior back to life, mans, Elves and Dwarfs, our pulses quicken, and our sympathies enlarge to include admiration for tainted champions who redeem themselves in action. In lesser hands, The Two Towers, the second chapter in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, would merely be a multiple chase film. Jackson makes it a mammoth thing of kinetic beauty. He plummets headlong into a series of moral cliffhangers both suspenseful and suffused with tests of character, ethics and loyalty.

The first movie ended with the sundering of the Fellowship of the Ring. This movie puts the surviving members through a whole new set of hoops. Our hobbit heroes, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin), stumble by themselves toward the forbidding realm of Mordor, where they mean to destroy See Towers, 8e Life of prophet, lives of today's Muslims PBS' 'Muhammad' takes a needed look at Islam By David Zurawik SUN TELEVISION CRITIC Of all the networks and cable channels on American television, none has offered more programs on Islam than PBS. From Islam: Empire of Faith, by Baltimore filmmaker Rob Gardner, in May 2001, to Frontline's "Islam" last May, public television has been the one network clearly trying to make sure Muslim understanding and concerns are part of its mix. In September amid the deluge of Sept.

11-related anniversary programs, PBS was the only outlet to try to articulate what some American Muslims were feeling in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center with Caught in the Crossfire: Arab Americans in Wartime. The commitment continues tonight with Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, a two-hour biography of the man who founded the religion of Islam "Muhammad" delves into the life story of Islam's founder and takes viewers into the lives of present-day Muslims, including Najah Bazzy, a critical care nurse. of his image makes for about as tough a television biography as you can imagine. That is surely one reason PBS is able to claim this film See Islam, 4e 1,400 years ago. Doing a biography of someone who not only lived in the pre-photograph era but also founded a system of belief that prohibits the showing.