The Newark Advocate from Newark, Ohio • 15

ST" THURSDAY February 6, 1997 MIS EOT EETAIMENT Faulkner UM Mam7 is IFeed tine amiiiiiiaills in the with emotions Iff W' i HI Ml attlesnakes and grizzly bears are critters that shouldn't be taken lightly, even if they IV; ppear as pixels on a computer screen. Maxis, the makers of the Sim" series, has a new educational game out that teaches youngsters (ages 8 to maybe 80) how to manage a park and deal with those pesky pests that tip over garbage cans and eat helpless big-eyed rabbits. Animals may be the least of your worries in this simulation called SimPark. People can wreak even more havoc by turning a beautiful park into an instant landfill of garbage. SimPark starts with a clean slate of land that's a few hundred acres in size.

You're given a budget and several species of trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses to plant. After placing vegetation you'll invite various mammals, birds and amphibians to live in your park, but be sure you have the right kinds of plants for those animals to eat. Take the next bold step and place "people stuff" in your park and the real management begins. Sure, the more "people stuff" you build the more money you'll make, but you'll also have more garbage. Small shrubs may cost you 50 bucks a pop, then they'll be eaten by elk.

Never mind the elk because you've been overrun by a huge population of salamanders. And, all of that's after agreeing to rent the gazebo to a wild bunch of wedding guests. The biggest trick in SimPark is taking it slow. If a huge population of black bears seem to show up you can spend all day netting them, or just wait for them to run out of garbage cans to pilfer. This game is really quite simplistic.

A quick multimedia introduction will show you all you need to know. After placing a few items, check the Park Census window and Population Graphs to get updated info on your parks progress. That will keep a nagging boss from complaining about bio-diversity. You'll also never lose, be fired or run out of money at SimPark. If only life jr f4'4 flooded By JOSEPH WILLIAMS JR.

Advocate Reporter Fighting both God and the government may seem a fool's errand. J. Taylor tries his best to avoid that battle by following his conscience, sticking to his word and obeying his orders. Oddly enough, he both wins and loses. Life is like that sometimes.

Convicted of train robbery 1 1 years back, Taylor and another prisoner have been ordered to save two people caught in the Mississippi River flood of 1927. The other convict sees this as an opportunity to escape. Taylor sees it as a job he's agreed to complete, nothing more. Now at first blush it does seem a bit odd that a convicted train robber listens to the powers that be. But Taylor may be smarter than he looks.

He may realize you can't fight both the Lord and Uncle Sam and expect to win or he just may be an honorable man. We find out just what he is by the end of "Old Man," the 191st production of Hallmark Hall of Fame, scheduled to air from 9 to 11 p.m. Sunday on WBNS-10 TV. Based on a story by Nobel Prizewinner William Faulkner, the film tells the tale of Taylor and Addie, the woman he saves from that flood. Horton Foote, a two-time Academy Award winner for To Kill A Mockingbird" and his own "Tender Mercies," wrote the strong script.

John Kent Harrison directs this dignified tale of two simple people caught up in an act of God and the forces of government. Arliss Howard (from Full Metal stars as J. Taylor. Jeanne Tripplehorn (of "The Firm" and costars as Addie, the abandoned pregnant woman doomed to die if not for one man's integrity. Yes, even a convict can have integrity, Faulkner tells us.

This one doesn't say much and he can't even swim but when he does talk he says what he means. If Taylor says he's going to do something, he'll do it come hell or high water. Even though he faces the hell of nine more years in prison if he returns and the high water of Old Man River the Mississippi if he stays, Taylor pledges to finish what he begins. It's too bad if the warden thinks he either took off for higher ground or died a hero. And if too bad if we think he should grab the girl and start over.

Taylor has other plans. Although trying his best to stick to those plans oftenlooks like extreme stubbornness, we eventually learn exactly what Taylor is made of. Jeanne Tripplehorn, left, and Arliss Howard star in 'Old which airs from 9 to 11 p.m. Sunday on WBNS-10 TV. 9 Flint Carlton were so simple.

Move up through the ranks and you may receive a Ranger Award statue, perfect for any well-managed park. SimPark keeps track of plants and animals placed in your park and will ask you to name them in the Identa-Species window. If a certain population seems to dwindle you'll check the field guide, see what they like to eat, then purchase whatever that may be. You really won't see animals eat each other, the weaker ones simply disappear. The real beauty in SimPark is watching nature take its course after you've planted various species (about 130 in all) Trees will turn bright colors and lose their leaves in the fall.

After winter's snow, things will green back up and wildflowers will spread across open meadows. A few giant sunflowers can literally turn into thousands. Trees will grow so tall you won't be able to see the swing sets, hotdog stands and outhouses that were carefully placed. You can always push a button to briefly hide the trees. An entire year unfolds in about four minutes.

There are many avenues to take in SimPark. Each family member will tackle a parcel of land in their own unique way AND every family member will offer advice on how it should be done, believe me. Maybe it will be a nature preserve in the tropical tip of Florida or a people park in the cooler state of North Dakota. Whatever you choose you really can't go wrong with SimPark. Visit Maxis at www.maxis.com.

Flint Carlton writes a weekly software column for The Advocate. li Afi r-i comes with impeccable references. Catherine and her family are immediately thrilled with the maid's cooking and cleaning abilities. Chabrol drops hints that there is something seriously wrong with Sophie, but we also sympathize with her terrible fear that the family will learn she is illiterate. The rich family is attractive and charming, but there is a strong element of condescension and snobbery in their relations with the new maid.

We can see that they think nothing of discussing Sophie while she is still within earshot. Up until about the halfway point, "La Ceremonie" is more a slice-of-life drama about class differences than anything resembling a thriller. We learn that Jeanne was once accused of murdering her own infant daughter, but charges were dropped when the police couldn't find enough evidence to build a case. It would be wrong of me to divulge more of the plot of "La Ceremonie" but it would also be a disservice to timid moviegoers not to point out that the last half hour of this film is almost unbearably suspenseful and i r- Is this a love story? Yes, but in an unconventional way. Truthfully, it is a story of boy finding girl, boy losing girl and boy finding girl again.

But it continues on from there: Girl also loses boy again before finding where he will remain for quite some time. If plenty more than that, too. Faulkner covered all the bases to give us plenty of conflict. We've got man versus himself, man versus man, man versus nature and man versus God. Guess who triumphs in the end? Humanity does.

They don't often make intelligent, adult films like this anymore. Thank God Hallmark Hall of Fame does. Oh, by the way, there's great photography, wonderful period music and exquisite scenery, too. My part is little else than high notes," she said. Bart is one of the oppressed Jews in the chorus.

It is not a large role, he says, but nonetheless involves a great deal of acting and motion. Opera may seem high-brow and stuffy to a lot of people, Belinda says, but OperaColumbus" is out to prove it doesn't need to be. In "Nabucco," there is a suicide, a hostage-taking, and an attempt to usurp the throne of Babylon. People always loved melodrama," she said. Also, an image of the god Baal blows apart on stage.

It's all a well-planned high-tech stunt, but Belinda says it is still frightening. "Huge pieces are coming down," she adds. Besides the motion and emotion, there is beautiful music, says Bart. "There are a lot of hummable tunes," he says. OperaColumbus will perform "Nabucco" 7:30 p.m.

tonight and 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Tickets, are available at the OperaColumbus box office (461-0022) and Ticketmaster outlets (431-3600). Joined by Rob Wasserman on bass and Gary Burton on vibes, Cockburn stretches out his songs in a way that highlights his tasteful, intricate guitar playing. Yet except for solos on "Night Train" and "Strange Waters," the passion he feels for life's injustices fails to come through in his playing.

It all makes for a boring, depressing musical experience. Newark couple keeps vocal chords humming in OperaColumbus' 'Nabucco' SimPark features a carousel near the water front (Flint Carlton, The Advocate) Howard and Tripplehorn bring their characters to life with simplicity and gentle dignity, while not forgetting their most basic natures. Howard may have the tougher job. Our hearts go out immediately to Addie. After all, she's a pregnant woman facing almost certain death.

Sure, we're sympathetic toward the guy who is trying to save her. But he's a little squirrelly, isn't he? Mighty quiet, too, and maybe a little dumb and willful. And hey, he is a convict, right? But as the story unfolds, peeling away the layers of Taylor's past and uniting the two through their efforts to live, we come to understand genuinely like him and even admire him. BART AND BELINDA SMITH longer had to commute. The opera is based on the story of Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco), King of Babylon, who captures and enslaves the Jews and marches them back to Babylon.

Much of the text is about enslaved Jews dreaming of their homeland. Belinda sings the soprano role of the sister of the spiritual leader of the Jews. She backs up Abigaille, Nabuc-co's daughter, who tries to steal the throne from him. Belinda said Verdi created the part she sings to take some of the high notes away from the lead soprano and rest her voice. travelogue of horror a gunshot to the head in the Baltics, limbless children in Mozambique, a drunken rape.

Cockburn's ability to paint evocative word pictures also frequently gives way to overwriting: "In the muddy street a pig suddenly screams" sounds like a laughable first line to a novel that one prays will never be written. 2. French 'La Ceremonie' is understatement of horror By BRIAN MILLER Advocate Reporter NEWARK The day-in, day-out life of the opera didn't suit Newark residents Belinda and Bart Smith. But it's not stopping them from keeping alive their love of opera. Tonight, Friday night and Saturday night they will appear in OperaColumbus' production of Verdi's "Nabucco" in the Palace Theatre, 34 W.

Broad St. With careers outside of opera, and a child on the way, the Smiths are balancing roles in opera with other aspects of their life. OperaColumbus offers people with talent who live locally the chance to stay involved and keep that creative outlet in a highly professional situation," said Belinda. Belinda teaches voice at Kenyon College and has about 30 voice students of her own in the Newark area. Bart is a speech pathologist with J.

Worth Associates in Newark. They moved to Newark from Lancaster last July when Bart got his job. That worked well for Belinda, too because she had been working with the Newark High School choral department and no By JOE MEYERS Thomson News Service The new French thriller "La Ceremonie" could be used as a textbook example of how an understated approach to horror is still more effective than the buckets of blood and gore utilized in such current major studio fare as "The Relic" and "Turbulence." Director Claude Chabrol is a disciple of Alfred Hitchcock, who likes to soften audiences up for the kill. He knows that the violence which erupts on a sunny day in a brightly lit kitchen is far more unnerving than anything that might transpire in a dark alley on a rainy night. "La Ceremonie" starts simply with an attractive middle-aged and upper class woman named Catherine (Jacqueline Bisset) hiring the quiet and rather mousy Sophie (Sandrine Bon-naire) to handle the housekeeping chores in the remote country house Catherine shares with her husband Georges (Jean-Pierre Cassel) and their two children, Melinda (Virginie Ledoyen) and Gilles (Valentin Mer-let).

Sophie is strangely distant, but she Cockburn's latest album is no compliment By The Associated Press "The Charity of Night" (Rykodlsc) Bruce Cockburn This is a relentless album and that's no compliment. Earnest Canadian Bruce Cockburn is usually able to leaven his desolate lyrical landscapes with moments of beauty or warmth, anything to break the tension. Here there's little relief from his i -rw'je- (nf 'fw.