Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • 37

y- 'ft THE WAY WE LIVE DETROIT FREE PRESS WWW.FREEP.COM 4E TUESDAY, NOV. 12, 2002 TERRY LAWS ON NEW DVD RELEASES 4-disc 'Kings' could take up a whole weekend First, a confession: Even if "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Platinum Series Extended Edition" (, New Line Home Entertainment, $39.99) hadn't arrived too late to be reviewed in toto, I'm not sure I would be up for 4 num Series Extended Edition Collector's Gift Set, priced at $79.92 and packaged with "exclusive Ar-gonath book-ends" designed by the film's visual-effects artists, as well as assorted other trinkets. if fir 'Star Wars' While the success of "Rings" surpassed that of "Star Wars Episode II: At the job. There are more than 30 hours of material on the four-DVD set that follows the two-DVD edition released this summer and precedes the second installment of the movie, to be released Dec. 18.

I assigned priority to watching the new extended version of the film, which adds 30 Most of the extended scenes strengthen the bond among the fellowship and add yet more detail to a story that was already rich with the stuff. Though the Internet has been rife with rumors that Part One's climactic battle would be even more gruesome, it seemed only slightly extended; the original cut was about as gory as I expect any PG-13 to be, and this new set retains that rating. I can't say this is a better the repetitive structure is unaltered, and while fans may argue, it seems less an improvement than an extension. If you loved the film, you'll love this more; if you thought it was too long, you'll find this only longer. There does seem to have been some tinkering with the sound mix, which now seems more naturalistic.

None of the features or add-ons from the original DVD release is repeated, save the "National Geographic" special on Tolkien and Middle-earth, which has also been extended. Extended Edition "Rings" will please fans; "Clones" won't win any. tack of the Clones" in theaters, the two-DVD "Clones" (, 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment, $29.98) is unlikely to go begging for customers. But unlike the "Phantom Menace" DVD which contained an hour-long making-of documentary that was superior Of the four documentaries, my favorite was "The Director and Writers," in which director Peter Jackson, his wife, Fran Walsh, and their screenplay collaborator, Phillipa Boyens, explore the making of the film and its aftermath with a sense of wonder that indicates they're as surprised as anyone that they pulled off such a mammoth undertaking. "Mammoth," of course, applies to this DVD set; the still-photo section alone contains some 200 images.

The same material is also available as a Plati- zingers that Lucas had better hope this series is never revived. Boxed sets The pre-Christmas boxed set brigade marches on with "Highlander The Series: Season One" (, Anchor Bay Entertainment, the syndicated fantasy series based on the Sean Connery film about an ancient Scottish warrior transported to the future. Rumors that Kenny is to be resurrected any day now make the release of "South Park The Complete First Season" (, Warner Home Video, $39.98) even more meaningful or not. The original season of the cartoon series was the best, containing the episodes we still snicker over: "Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo," "Tom's Rhinoplasty," "Mecha-Streisand" and "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut." Straight to video While the world fawns over "8 Mile," another Detroit-shot movie gets sent straight to video.

To further the indignity, director Shawn Woodard couldn't even get a review copy of his surprisingly well-made-on-a-shoestring gangsta drama "R.I.C.C.O." (, York Urban, $14.99) to send to this reviewer; he had to buy it on Amazon.com. Woodard shows real promise in this story of the head of an elite government task force assigned to take down Detroit gang lord Ricco. Shot on the cheap and on the run, "R.I.C.C.O." has a raw, gritty energy in step with its Detroit backdrop. "Under Hellgate Bridge" (, Trimark Home Video, $24.99) has similar B-movie energy. With Michael Rodrick as a falsely imprisoned man who returns to settle scores with the girlfriend (Jordan Bayne) who set him up and her new husband (Jonathan LaPaglia), its cast includes "Sopranos" wise guys Vincent Pastore and Dominic Chianese Jr.

playing, of all things, a priest. A similar plot drives "Urban Jungle" (, Artisan Home Entertainment, with Frank John Hughes as the ex-con whose attempt to live the straight life is tested by the streets. Recent releases This week's theatrical releases are a sad bunch. To whoever had the idea of pairing Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock in the noisy and cliched action caper "Bad Company" (, Touchstone Home Entertainment, Bad idea. To director Oliver Parker, who somehow made a bungle of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" (, Miramax Home Entertainment, What were you thinking? And to whoever thought the world was waiting to see Tony Goldwyn as a modern Jesus figure in "Joshua" (, Artisan I'll stick with the original version, thanks.

FOER I Trip becomes a comic first novel to the actual movie and integrated excised scenes back into the film "Clones" is a more traditional package. It's distinguished primarily by its amazing sound mix, startling even on my antiquated home theater system. Disc 1 contains the cut of the film screened digitally in select theaters, with a few tweaks for geeks; otherwise, it's the same story great action, silly script, bad acting with commentary by director George Lucas and other principals. Disc 2's showpieces are the 56-minute "From Puppets to Pixels" and eight deleted scenes. These include Padme's speech to the Senate, which, you may remember, was the reason she risked her life by coming back to Coruscant in the first place; a tour of Padme's parents' home, and the trial of Padme and Anakin, which would have preceded the gladiator scene.

Not only was Lucas right to scuttle these, but the shorter IMAX edition proves he should have been even more ruthless. The Easter Egg here is a gag reel, most of it devoted to Hayden Christensen screwing up, just in case you thought he couldn't get any worse. 'Mystery Science Theater' To put things in perspective, you could pick up a copy of "Mystery Science Theater 3000 Boxed Set Vol. 1" (, Rhino Home Video, a collection of four episodes of one of early cable's most delirious endeavors. "MST3K" had an astronaut and two sarcastic robots lost in space, whiling away their time watching awful old movies and providing running commentary.

This four-DVD set rags on the grade-Z advance from the publisher) got much of the attention. This leg is a 30-city tour of Jewish book fairs. Foer reads at the Jewish Book Fair at the Jewish Community Center's D. Dan and Betty Kahn Building in West Bloomfield at 8 tonight. Foer has had so much attention and so many interviews that he can be forgiven for answering the usual questions quickly, with little elaboration.

Yes, he plans to keep living in Jackson Heights; no, he hasn't bought much of anything with the money. Yes, he's working on another novel. No, his translator spoke perfect English. Yes, the attention is nice; no, he doesn't think it's changed him. He gets animated when he talks about Cornell.

The artist's works so bowled Foer over that he edited a collection, "A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by Joseph From Page IE The good people of Trachimbrod decide to keep a history, but they soon run out of things to write about. They start keeping track of what they had for breakfast and what they dreamed the night before, and bind the results in volumes upon volumes that are endlessly updated by the town elders. But even as Foer teases the town's history forward, he brings the story of "Foer" and Alex to a series of wrenching revelations. Trachimbrod was a real shtetl; you can find it on some maps as Trokhin Brud or Trochinbrod or Sofiowka or Sofievka or Zo-fiowska, depending on which of two names are used and ing on whether the translation is from Ukrainian, Russian or Polish. The good people of Trachimbrod suffered the same fate as many others in 1941, when the Nazis marched through western Ukraine.

The Jewish residents were rounded up and in Trachimbrod, virtually everyone was Jewish and shot. There is no gentle way to write that. Foer's chapters on zany Alex and the legends of Trachimbrod, convoluted and fabulous as they are, make the scenes of the Nazi occupation even more horrific. "I don't think either of them would have stood on their own. And that wouldn't have been anything I would have wanted to make, really," Foer says.

FOER crew UP around Washington, D.C., the middle son of three. His father is a former Federal Trade Commission lawyer who founded and runs a think tank, the American Antitrust Institute. His mother works in public relations. His older brother is journalist Franklin Foer, who writes for the New Republic magazine; his younger brother is an undergraduate at Yale. There's a serendipity to Foer's career that might have been hinted at in his trip to Ukraine.

He chose Princeton because he thought the campus was pretty; he chose his major, philosophy, because he "needed to major in something" and he already knew he wanted to write fiction. He did write fiction, and quickly caught the attention of professors such as Joyce Carol Oates. His official bio says he won the writing prizes at Princeton all four of his undergraduate years. He'll cop to having won three. Some things come easy; he wrote the first of "Everything is Illuminated" in a couple of months at age 19.

Some things come hard; he edited the book for a couple of more years. Surely he had to do a little outlining to get the wheels-within-wheels structure to work? "When I'm writing, it's very organic and intuitive, and I just do what feels right," Foer says. Foer is on the second leg of the tour for his book. The first came in spring, when the book was published, and consisted in part of ecstatic reviews and interviews in which his youth and his wealth (the book got a rumored $500,000 Contact TERRY LAWSON at 313-223-4524 or lawsonfreepress.com. More releases: www.freep.comentertainment pictures "Bloodlust," "Catalina Caper," "The Creeping Terror" and "Skydivers," with enough on-target Cornell" (Distributed Art Publish ers, published in May 2001.

Foer got contributions from MT. CLEMENS TAYLOR Paul West, Rick Moody and Rob ert Pinsky, among others. The magical and personal qual ity of many of Cornell's works are something Foer says he wanted to mnwm 11110 capture in his fiction. "I was really just aiming to express myself, through these char 1 1 i acters and these stories," Foer says. "It felt like a very personal thing that I was doing.

Not that I was the storyteller, but trying to make sense of my life. mm mm m. i i i 1 mw Contact MARTA SALIJ at 313-223-4530 or salijfreepress.com. GLADSTONE I Bassist dies seasons before becoming the prin cipal bassist with the DSO under Sixten Ehrhng. '8 MILE' I Huge here From Page IE 'Absolutely terrific' is the only way to describe it," said Cory Jacobson, co-owner of Detroit's Phoenix Theatre.

"It just exceeded everybody's expectations." Gladstone's passions extended beyond music to cooking, art and mm. literature, particularly German expressionism and Russian writer Boris Pasternak, whom he met on a 1959 tour behind the Iron Cur Jacobson says he lost count of TJhWD-QDUB mm iTEI I St R3(Q VGDQDDK From Page IE age 17. He later played with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the New York Philharmonic before joining the DSO in 1966, where he led the bass section under five different music directors. "What stands out for me was the consistency of his leadership," said Stephen Molina, DSO assistant principal bassist. "He was someone you could count on, someone you could trust and someone who always enjoyed exploring things musically." A student of the influential New York bass teacher Fred Zim-mermann, Gladstone represented a link to a New York school of symphony bass playing defined by sincerity, respect for the composer, technical assurance and a rich tone.

Gladstone was a leading light in a generation of symphony bassists who raised the standards for the instrument. "He has been a beacon of stability and an icon of the bass world," said San Francisco-based bassist and author Barry Green. Robert Marsh Gladstone was born on Oct. 27, 1928, in New York. He grew up in the Bronx, studying piano at first but taking up the bass at the High School of Music and Art, where he began his studies with Zimmermann.

After graduating in 1946, he took a temporary position in the New Orleans Symphony. A year later he won a job in the Pittsburgh Symphony under conductor Fritz Reiner. After two seasons, Gladstone returned to New York to work as a free-lance musician. He joined the New York Philharmonic in 1955, staying 10 1 1 -ar JT tain. Of his many recordings, he was particularly proud of a pioneering 1959 LP of Gunther Schuller's Double Bass Quartet.

He last appeared with the DSO in May. Another career highlight Gladstone recalled in last year's interview was the final concert of the 1979 DSO tour. As conductor An-tal Dorati walked off stage after the Mahler symphony, he sidled up to the bassist, and told him that his solo was "splendid." "Now that really got to me," Gladstone said with a laugh. A resident of Grosse Pointe, he is survived by his wife, Pamela; daughters Claudia Kohlman, Sarah Cohen and Elizabeth Kolar; a son, J. Alexander Dillon, and two grandchildren.

Donations may be made to the International Society of Bassists, 13140 Coit Road, Suite 320, L.B.120, Dallas, TX 75240; Par Fund, co University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, 1500 E. Medical Center Drive, Ann Arbor 48109, and Karmanos Cancer Institute, Cancer Counseling Complementary Treatment Program, Weisberg Center, 31995 Northwestern Highway, Farming-ton Hills 48334. A memorial service will be held 1 p.m. Nov. 19 at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial, Grosse Pointe Farms.

HANDGUNS RIFLES SHOTGUNS KNIVES JERKY how many sellouts he had at his theater Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but it "was at least 40 performances." The Phoenix, situated on the real 8 Mile Road, is the only commercial first-run theater in the Detroit city limits. It had the eighth-biggest-grossing run of "8 Mile" in metro Detroit. No. 1 was the AMC Forum in Sterling Heights, where the film earned $116,138. No.

2 was the Star South-field, with $105,883, and No. 3 was Birmingham's Uptown Palladium 12, with $92,869. Using the national industry average of $5.70 per ticket, it appeared that almost 9 million people saw "8 Mile" last weekend. "The Eminem Show," the best-selling CD of the past two years, has sold 7 million copies, so the box office figures indicate that the film's appeal extends beyond fans of Eminem's music. Director Curtis Hanson says Universal picked Nov.

8 for the opening date so "8 Mile" could get out in front of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," which opens Friday. "They're two completely different audiences," says Jacobson. "I expect '8 Mile' to hold up and 'Harry Potter' to be huge. It's going to be a great weekend for the movie business." HUNTING BOOKS MILITARY SURPLUS MUCH MORE! SUPER DEALS OM AMMO ADMISSION $5.00 Not all dealers participate on Friday. II' USsL NO ONE UNDER 18 ADMITTED WITHOUT PARENT.

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