Petaluma Argus-Courier from Petaluma, California • 41

Wednesday, May 5, 1999 'eXistenZ' offers a warped good time 42 Petaluma Argus-Courier By Joe Holleman Post-Dispatch Film Critic "eXistenZ" is the typical David Cronenberg movie: visually inventive and darkly attractive science fiction with conspiratorial voices warning the watcher that this world may not be what it seems. One's enjoyment is in direct proportion to his or her feelings about Cronenberg's work in general. If throbbing body parts and slime-covered things don't throw you off your beam, there is a warped good time to have here. Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is the world's most famous, and revered, computer game designer. Taking place mWM I mm js I C2SSI BBSS 1 -I i I til "OS 1 many different dangerous paths (or are Eventually, the game, the couple and the assassins all have to come together and come to an end (or do It doesn't really matter.

Just like Cronenberg's "Video-drome," made in 1984, this movie deals with alternate realities that cross and collide and fade in and out. The general message of how the media (in this case, the computer industry) control our lives is made to good effect. To get that message from Cronenberg, one has to be prepared to look at, for Gulli ArnasonArgus-Courier staff Mary Fuller McChesney with the two seating sculptures she created for a school in Utah. Sculptor's animal forms will grace school for blind kids Fans of writer-director David Cronenberg will welcome his return to the modern, independent movie peoples backs; or SCienCe-fiCtiOn WOrld he numerous scenes that appear to has helped create. have taxed the ability of the prop sand, cement and water.

She mixes and pours it in the evening and it is still soft enough in the morning for her to carve. She starts with a sketch, than makes a model made from linoleum tiles supported by concrete blocks. A native of Kansas, McChesney grew up in California's Central Valley, studied philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, apprenticed at the California Faience Co. in ceramics and welded in the Richmond shipyards during World War II. She has published three mystery novels, short stories, poems and articles about art in several magazines.

She has exhibited her sculpture at the Syracuse Museum in New York, the San Francisco Museum, the Oakland Museum, Sonoma State University, Santa Rosa Civic Center, San Jose State University, the University of Oaxaca and many for nearly half a century, is no stranger to public art projects. Her lion sculpture has graced the children's area of the Petaluma Library for nearly 20 years. She has created a play sculpture for San Francisco's Portsmouth Square, an animal totem for the Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek and a falcon for Andrew Hill High School in San Jose. Her latest work will be placed in an open courtyard at the Utah school, located in a new office park near the Salt Lake City airport. Both the lamb and bear are about four feet long and will be placed six feet apart.

She describes the new pieces as more geometric than the lion at the local library. Her animal sculptures, often whimsical, have a bold, geometric style reminiscent of pre-Columbian art in Mexico. She creates her sculptures using a mixture of vermiculite, example, a lunch special that looks like a throbbing, lung; or gaping, swollen holes in crew to round up cow entrails. The movie is fun, not the least because of a spirited performance from Law as Ted, a nerdish guy who is one of the few people on Earth who never have had a port installed in his back. Law has turned in several top-notch performances in the last two years "Wilde" and "Midnight in the Garden of Good and and continues here with some very good work.

Willem Dafoe also has a juicy cameo role. Although I still think "Dead Ringers" is Cronenberg's best movie, fans of the writer-director's earlier works such as "Videodrome," "Scanners" and "The Fly" will welcome his return to the modern, independent movie science-fiction world he has helped create ever the last 15 or 20 years. call 878-2570. ONLY THE GOOD: Five years ago that great friend and former scenester Jimmy Schow (who later upgraded to the moniker James Zaremba) tragically died co-piloting a vehicle in the Dirt Bag 500 rally race. He was only 22.

What follows is a poem culled from an epony-mously-titled edition of his early poetry posthumously dubbed "No. 3." Me back's to the wall ands I gots nowhere to be runnin' to. I thoughts I's a goner but then I got think'n and I remembas I can fly, fly, fly away From all this white trash. Daedalus Howell is the Argus-Courier entertainment editor. E-mail daedalusscam By Chris Samson Argus-Courier Staff A lamb and a bear created from concrete by an artist on Sonoma Mountain will soon delight children at a special school in Utah.

Mary Fuller McChesney, a local sculptor and writer, was commissioned to create a seating sculpture for the Utah State School for Blind and Disabled Children in North Salt Lake City. McChesney was one of two artists selected for the project from more than 200 applicants nationwide. Her animal designs were a hit with the selection committee. "They liked the simplicity of the animal forms," said McChesney. "They thought that visually impaired kids could get a sense of the nature of the animal form." McChesney, who has lived with her husband Robert on the mountainside east of Petaluma Waits from page 41 out on the street." Other songs are drawn from stories, observations, newspaper clippings or an overheard phrase.

Waits' appreciation of American roots music Lead-belly, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson and other Library of Congress recordings inspired some of the songs on "Mule Variations." "Get Behind the Mule," which has a straight-ahead blues feel, came from a comment that the father of legendary bluesman Robert Johnson made about his son: "Trouble with Robert is he wouldn't get behind the mule in the morning and plow." The last track on the CD, "Come On To The House," sounds like it could be from the repertoire of a gospel church choir. "Picture in a Frame" and "Take It With Me" are soft, tender ballads just Waits singing sometime in the future, these games are played by people who literally hook themselves into the game with a port installed at the base of their spine. Geller's newest game, "eXistenZ," promises to be the most involving, realistic game ever made. But someone obviously has a problem with Geller's role of a programmermessiah and tries to kill her at a public preview of the game. Coming to the rescue is Ted Pikul (Jude Law), a peon who is working the preview for the company that owns Geller's game.

Soon the two are running away from unknown assassins and playing this new game. From this point on, the plot becomes, well, a fluid thing as in other Cronenberg flicks. Allegra and Ted meet numerous people while inside the game (or are they?) and are led down Of Note from page 41 T-TOWN ART: Tomales artist Byron Randall shows oil paintings, woodcuts and linocuts through May at the Rose Cottage, 140 John Tomales. A reception for the artist commences at 1 p.m., May 8. Randall, now 80, has enjoyed a prolific career (often producing more than 100 works per that reaches back over 60 years.

At 21 the brushman was dubbed "find of the season" by Newsweek magazine and has continued to keep the promise of his talent. Though Randall shuns the toplofty mechanisms that still plague much of the urban art scene, his work, nevertheless, has earned much acclaim and recognition, most recently with retrospectives in San Francisco and Scotland. For more information, definite has been announced. Meanwhile, he can be seen on the big screen in July when "Mystery Men" is released. Waits plays the part of Doc Heller, a weapons designer.

Directed by Kinka Usher, the film is based on the Dark Horse comic of the same name and co-stars Geoffrey Rush, Ben Stiller, William H. Macy and Paul Reubens. Waits' previous film credits include "Short Cuts," "Iron-weed," "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and "Down By Law." His 17 albums include 12 studio albums, one theatrical and two movie soundtracks, a live album and a "best of" retrospective. (Tom Waits was not available for an interview for this story. Quotes attributed to him were taken from a written transcript of a question-and-answer session supplied by his and playing piano.

A few of the songs are reminiscent of earlier Waits tunes. The poignant "Pony," for example has the same feel of "Jitterbug Boy." "Hold On" has echoes of "Downtown Train" and "Time." Characters with colorful names like Burn-Face Jake, Blind Darby, Jimmy the Harp and the Eyeball Kid pop up throughout the album. Each song has a distinctive texture and atmosphere, but the most unusual cut of all is "What's He Building?" It's a spoken-word piece, with radio static and other strange sounds in the background, in which Waits asks questions about a mysterious neighbor about whom he has only bits of information. Waits, who has only performed a handful of concerts in the last several years, may tour to promote the new album, but nothing.