The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 8

Zn 0ajcttc 3f UVlUWLi MONTREAL, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1986 7'- LSUVJ "N3 IS llllllj MIM '1 Hobbling, sniffling actress puts her best foot forward in video romance Ml. Furey objected to the presence of a journalist, invited by the producers, on his set. He didn't want the actors giving interviews during their breaks. He feared it would interfere with their concentration. The actors wanted to do interviews.

Trendy decor "We're making Panic-vision," whispered a crew member. The love scene episode took place in a church that was converted into deluxe condominiums. Forget those bland American decors you see on the soaps; art director Lynn Trout has Siven this love-nest a trendy ecor of high-tech pop art combined with ersatz Memphis furniture. In the kitchen, "food stylist" Denise Giguere prepared the seductive lovers' dinner which included exquisitely arranged scampi and snow peas. "The look is more important than the taste," she noted, filling pastry shells with what turned out to be green mashed pota Tom Berenger (centre) stars as bourbon-swilling, redneck sergeant in Platoon, a Powerful anti-war movie 1 By BILL BROWNSTEIN Special to The Gazette A platoon of war-weary infantrymen plod through waist-high water to cross a river which may or may not be in Cambodia.

One recruit pauses to fill his canteen, and just as he is about to take a sip, the company sergeant bellows: "Don't drink that! You're going to get malaria!" To which the recruit nonchalantly responds: "Yeah I hope so." The setting is, of course, the Vietnam War (circa 1967). And apart from providing the picture with a rare moment of levity, the aforementioned banter almost perfectly sums up the senselessness of the Vietnam experience, as witnessed by decorated infantryman Oliver Stone. Stone also happens to be the writer-director of Platoon, one of the most compelling and powerful indictments of war to have ever surfaced. Stone neither glamorizes nor edi- 7 few enters the of PFC Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen son of Apocalypse Now star Martin), a "privileged" college dropout who to the utter amazement of his fellow troopers volunteered for service to "find" himself. What he finds instead is a war within a war.

Members of Taylor's platoon spend as much time hating, fighting and occasionally killing one another as they do the enemy Viet Cong. And amid ferocious enemy fire, the platoon breaks up into two splinter groups. Those siding with the bourbon-swilling, redneck Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) opt for the law of the jungle where anything goes. Taylor, for his part, lines up with the hard-nosed, dope-smoking but decidedly more compassionate Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe), who tries to serve as the company's conscience but to precious little avail Despite the divisions, no one emerges from these battles as entirely good or bad. Only scarred.

Even the relatively rational Taylor up Oct 9, and doctors discovered she was suffering from pneumonia. She was released from the hospital late last month. Saturday shows cancelled Thditre Sans Fit has announced that English-language performances of The Lord of the Rings scheduled for Saturday have been cancelled. Anyone holding tickets for those performances can either exchange them for English-language performances on Friday or obtain refunds at the Place des Arts box off ice. Mezzo-soprano wins Canada Council prize The Ottawa mezzo-soprano Sandra Graham, last heard by Montrealers Nov.

16 in a recital sponsored by the His first feature film, Ivan's Childhood, set in the Second World War, was followed in 1966 by the epic generally considered to be his masterpiece, Andrei Roublev. The three-hour story of an icon painter who survives the cruelty and violence of medieval Russia to create spiritual works of art had strong parallels with the career of the director himself, a devout Christian. The film caused a sensation at the 1969 Cannes festival, but was not shown in the Soviet Union until 1971. It was followed by the science fiction fantasy Solaris in 1972 and the autobiographical Mirror in 1974. Facing increasing difficulties with the Soviet film authorities, he made the futuristic Stalker, his last Moscow film, in the early 1980s.

Thomas Schnurmacher's 1 Cirsten Bishop, a fresh-faced young Canadian actress, is talking over lunch about her leading role as architect Cody Prescott in the Shades of Romance video Champagne for Two. "If you just read the script," sniffs Bishop, "you'd think she's just a cold bitch, and she's not I'm working on her vulnerability." Or maybe the fictitious Cody Prescott is working on Bishop's vulnerability. Just a few days into shooting, the 24-year-old actress caught a cold during some exterior filming and badly sprained an ankle during rehearsal. Champagne for Two, one of eight romance movie videos made in Montreal, has given some young Canadian actresses a shot at leading romantic roles alongside American TV stars like Dallas's Dack Rambo and Falcon Crests Parker Stevenson. A bit like Bowie Bishop is playing opposite wiry, blond Canadian actor Nicholas Campbell (ABC's The Insiders) whose look is more rock-star hip a bit like David Bowie and Sting than smooth TV hunk.

John LeClerc is the other Canadian actor cast as a Shades of Romance lead. The actors must have "high television recognition" but "obviously when we can find a Canadian it makes Telefilm (the fed- eral film-funding agency) happier," says series originator Ken Atchity. Champagne for Two, which describes itself as a "romantic comedy about two strangers who must share a condominium," is directed by rock composer Lewis Furey (Night Magic), whose career indicates more luck with music than movies. A perfectionist, Furey must bring the video in on a lean and a mean two-week schedule. But somehow, the fickle finger of fate seems to be sticking it to Champagne for Two.

Sprained an ankle Bishop sprained her ankle during rehearsal of a key scene. It happened after she discovered a half-naked intruder (Campbell) in her leased condo. It was all quite innocent because the intruder, TV celebrity cook Vincent McBride, had got a key from the guy she leased the condo from and was moving in. She came at him with a knife, he tripped on her housecoat She fell over his Great Dane and they both crashed to the floor, with Campbell falling on Bishop's foot. So now she is hobbling around with an aluminum cane, her swollen ankle wrapped in bandage, covered by a big sock, covered again by a plastic bag.

Bishop shot some bedroom love scenes with her foot discreetly elevated, but the ankle has cost a day's shoot. So things were a little tense on the set. Campbell and Bishop star 4 3 I ii compelling indictment of war. Oscar race admits that he is torn by both forces, that he is "the son of two fathers Barnes and Elias." As stated, Stone who previously wrote and directed the none-too-subtle Salvador isn't making a political statement. He simply transports viewers back to Vietnam to arrive at their own conclusions which will certainly be as varied as the makeup of his complex Platoon.

And therein probably lies the picture's staggering impact. In lieu of casting any matinee idols, Stone wisely went with a platoon of lesser-known but no less accomplished actors. Sheen, Berenger and Dafoe, along with Kevin Dillon and John McGinley as two of the company's more gung-ho soldiers, all bring the war back home with an eerie and frightening intensity. Look for everyone from Stone to the principal players to the film's cinematographer and editor to be in the heat of Oscar war in March. Parents' Guide: Graphic violence, suggested rape sequence, coarse language.

million suit Ladies' Morning Musical Club, has been named this year winner of the Canada Council's Virginia P. Moore The three previous winners of the valued at $17,500 and awarded to-young classical musicians of promise, have been Jon Kimura Parker, Louis Lortie and Sophie Rol-land. Les Miserables off to miserable start WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. premiere of the London hit musical Les Miserables got off to a rocky start when a $200,000 U.S. rotating stage malfunctioned in the Kennedy Centre Opera House, forcing cancellation of two sold-out performances.

About 4,600 disappointed ticket holders were unable to see Sunday matinee and evening performances. ANDREI TARKOVSKY Hailed by critics column returns soon. Mi.Ui ia Woman busted on TV files $30 A ft i-ii' ii i i r. Hi nn PLATOON Alexis Nihon Written and directed by Olivar 8 ton; starring Tom Barangar, Charli 8haan and Wit-tem Dafoa. Open today.

torializes. He simply drops us in the middle of a raging inferno where friend and foe are barely distinguishable, where pandemonium is everywhere. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Stone makes no bones. He sets out to jar and disturb and he succeeds.

He conveys the horror and insanity in no uncertain terms. Villages are torched; peasants are raped, tortured and mutilated; soldiers' limbs snap like twigs and so on. Unlike the gamut of Vietnam films, the violence is not of the gratuitous variety, but serves only as a cruel and lasting reminder of the futility of it all. The film is seen through the eyes EYE ON ENTERTAINMENT The cocaine possession charge against Rouse was thrown out by a judge after she spent two days in jail. Ava Gardner winning bout with pneumonia LOS ANGELES (AP) Ava Gardner is recovering at the home of her lawyer from a bout with pneumonia, the lawyer said yesterday.

"She is recovering very nicely," Paul Caruso said. Gardner, 64, star of such films as The Barefoot Contessa and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, checked into hospital in Santa Monica for a check Son of distinguished poet Arseny Tarkovsky, be was one of a talented generation of young directors who broke the rules of orthodox Socialist Realism after the death of Josef Stalin in 1953. Sequences of striking images without a plot but full of symbolism, and intense characters who talk about the meaning of life were the hallmarks of his film-making. At home he remained little known, and his films, despite their foreign currency earnings, were neither widely shown nor officially approved. In a 25-year career Tarkovsky produced only seven full-length feature films, two of which were made in Western Europe Tarkovsky defended his often elusive films, saying he wanted to "show the dream, the thought, the memory, not the objective logic." toes.

Why the Champagne for Two title? "It seems we always have champagne with our meals, I don't know why," giggled Bishop. "Champagne doesn't even go with spaghetti." Bishop, who made her movie debut at 10, has acted in a slew of Canadian films, many made during the tax writeoff boom. Worked with Lancaster She. said most were "real dogS" which didn't teach her much about acting. What did help were the three years she spent at the Stratford Festival.

Since then, she's been busy with film and stage works and recently played Burt Lancaster's young wife in the outstanding TV movie Barnum. Bishop said she has never read a romance novel, but wanted to do the romance video because "I've never had a lead before, and the way Lewis works through the script, he made it sound so rich." Campbell is also great to work with, she said, "because he is one of those people who questions everything. I want to question things too, but I sometimes don't have the guts." For Campbell, who's based in Los Angeles, the video was "a chance to come back to Montreal and to have some film of myself that's charming and romantic." The 34-year-old actor, who's usually cast as a cold-blooded villain, is certain this project is going to help him back in the U.S. Furey, meanwhile, came out in the hallway where Bishop and Campbell were posing for a photographer. "C'mon, do a picture with me," cajoled Campbell with an outstretched arm.

Furey refused and slammed the door. Canadian Press CP in Champagne for Two. HOUSTON (AP) A woman arrested during a live television program filed a $30-million U.S. lawsuit yesterday against anchor Geraldo Rivera, two production companies and law-enforcement officers. In the state district court action, Terry Rouse contends defamation, invasion of privacy, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and conspiracy.

Rouse, 28, was arrested Dec. 2 during a drug bust broadcast on a two-hour special, American Vice: The Doping of a Nation. On the program, officers were shown staging the raid in Channel-view, about 15 kilometres east of Houston, with Rivera saying: "A pimp and his prostitutes are supplying truckers with coke and speed," and "A dude and his ladies are allegedly dealing out to the truckers," the suit stated. Exiled Soviet film director Tarkovsky dies Vy PARIS (Reuter) Exiled Soviet film director Andrei Tarkovsky, hailed by critics as a giant of world cinema for a series of haunting films, died in Paris yesterday of cancer. He was 54.

His film company Argos, which co-produced his last film, The Sacrifice, shot in 1985 in Sweden, said the director's family did not want to give further details. Tarkovsky, who had undergone cancer treatment for several months, was too ill to attend the Cannes Film Festival last May, where he won. the second-ranking award, the Special Jury Prize Tarkovsky, visiting Italy to shoot Nostalgia in 1984, decided not to return to the Soviet Union and was stripped of his citizenship. Born on April 4, 1932, Tarkovsky graduated from the Soviet Union's main film school, the All Union Institute of Cinematography, in 1961..