The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 79

GAZETTE, MONTREAL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1997 G7 ARTS ENTERTAINMENT Global News no threat yet to big guns Pulse kids rest on easy the for block threat to the gang that trolled the turf for decades. News, which begins Week 3 of tence on Monday, has neither mat nor the resources to take a run at Montreal's most evening newscast. Credit Global News with a ergetic staff and an admirably MIKE BOONE TV RADIO supper hour ratings Time is tight on new CKMI program events, plus weather about 22 minutes time available in a cludes advertising, items and station The CBC's 10 p.m. lot of news into a dow. But the prime-time efits from the extra time that can make a both compelling and And the National's lineup does not include marginal news items.

CKMI is licensed as a Quebec City television station with repeater transmitters in Montreal and Sherbrooke, so it is obligated to maintain a news provincial capital and Townships. During the tion of Global News that for this critique, the second news reports were from After Global led its update on emergency ing at de la Laval, viewers were er for a report on the care reform at hospitals cial capital. This was was an item on job action by postal workers, who were ter showing up for work We got footage of laughing zoom- ins on bulging denim. but who- other than 90,000 City residents who didn't gives a rip? Fourth from the top, showed footage of automatic that the RCMP had seized Kahnawake on Tuesday. was sent to the cops' anchor Heather Hiscox brief clip.

Ignoring Newswatch to market leader, I noted that which did not cover the led its 6 day newscast with the seizure. Pulse's camera panned assault rifles, and bullets, but then Herb comprehensive and how the RCMP raid had tensions with Kahnawake keepers, who were not Mounties. Pulse played the Laval second. And where Global's focused on interviews with hospital administrator, Caroline van Vlaardingen woman who had brought child into de la gency treatment. The "ordinary folks" dimension Global's report lacked.

Pulse also included Anne on plans to build a homeless women. This now. The tugging story (there are currently 50 are no beds for the estimated 1,500 women livhas con- ing on Montreal's streets) was ignored Global by Global. its exis- The CKMI newscast did, however, rethe for- port on amalgamation of police forces serious in Sherbrooke, Ascot-Lennoxville and popular Rock Forest. Here again, the interpretation of Global's regional mandate reyoung, en- quired inclusion of news that was not profes- news in Montreal.

that Weather and sports? Again, no comparison: Pulse, which is sending Don too McGowan out to shiver on downtown street corners, has better weather 5:30 graphics. And, given the luxury of its news- 60-minute duration, Pulse offers more hampered, varied sports coverage than Global's a cou- Richard Provencher can squeeze into that the brief supper hour report that to serves as a teaser for his 11 p.m. sportspossi- cast. chal- Provencher exudes personality. Like CFCF-12's his Global News colleagues, he's young, fresh, enthusiastic and it is The whispered sneeringly in competing day's newsrooms underpaid.

into Before Global signed on Sept. 14, the air- word on the street based on in- work's history elsewhere in Canadacoming was that the new station would make pots of money with its prime-time linecrams a up of American hits while producing win- local programming on the cheap. ben- CKMI brass deny this. While conceding that its news budget is a fraction report (best guess: 50 per cent) of Pulse's, Global News's staff believed it could do more with less. Time is tight on Global News.

It has to fit the day's events, plus weather and sports, into about 22 minutes. presence in the the Eastern midweek ediI monitored and third Quebec City. newscast with an -room overcrowdhospital in whisked downrivimpact of healthin the provinfollowed by Quebec City sent home afin jeans. posties, Very cute, Quebec get their mail Global News weapons in a raid at No reporter show-and-tell, so voiced -over the focus on the Pulse Quebec City p.m. Wednesweapons lovingly machine guns Luft did a interesting report exacerbatPeace- consulted by the look not been marred by start-up glitches.

The Global is however, by of factors appear preclude the of a to dominance. News. to fit the sports, amount of that for National newscast of editing 90-second comprehensive. hospital story report had a doctor Pulse's found a her young for emerinterview added that all Lewis's reshelter for heartstring. Pulse and Newswatch.

But it's going to be a long uphill climb. Global wants UHF viewers to know that it feels their pain. Since CKMI signed on Sept. 14-at UHF-46 and cable position 3 some Montrealers have complained about difficulties in picking up the Global signal. Glen O'Farrell, president of Global-Quebec, has issued a statement explaining that the problems are attributable to the unique transmitter situation.

CKMI shares space on a Mount Royal broadcasting tower with two powerful UHF signals, CJFP-35 (the Quatre Saisons flagship station) and the provincial network. The arrangement imposed power and bandwidth limitations on the Global signal. Despite this, however, O'Farrell expected Channel 46 to be available everywhere on Montreal Island. "That's what we Hiscox voiced- were assured of Hiscox voiced- And perhaps it can. It's much too early to write off a newscast that has been on the air for all of two weeks.

Global may yet become a viable alternative to over guns story. during the prelaunch test period," O'Farrell said yesterday. "Those tests were obviously wrong." Global is doing more testing to decide whether it will boost its signal modify its transmission equipment. O'Farrell is hoping to come up with a solution "real soon," but any alteration of signal or broadcast pattern will have to be approved by Industry Canada, the federal agency that conducted pre-launch tests on Global's signal strength and assured the station that a clean signal would be available all over Montreal. "This is not a big glitch," O'Farrell said.

"But it's an unfortunate situation, and it's something we have to deal with." TV TONIGHT Stallone in a opener of 23rd Saturday Night Live season Gazette television Boone picks the best Jane Seymour plays Dr. Quinn cold to swim anyway RGET A TRINITY 3 2 FINIS 03 271 In The End of Violence, Bill Pullman plays a horror-film director who has a change of heart; Traci Lind is Cat, as stuntwoman who aspires to be an actress. Not-so-random Violence Wenders revisits America in messy, entrancing film Tim like whelmed most Wenders by people is still America. in this over- But category, the German film-maker is able elevate his mystification into an art form. Wenders's award -winning Paris, BROWNSTEIN BILL cano that is Los Wenders has a had one dancing in Now he has scores ing for cover and The timing couldn't tune for The End of examines the American with violence at a fraught with fireballs ders are mounting a multiplex.

Given the subject, surprisingly, messy. the map. It tackles movies as diverse as Grand Canyon. appears to be paying tors as diverse as Quentin Tarantino. Texas (1984) remains one of the most haunting excursions into the American heartland ever.

For his latest odyssey, The End of Violence, Wenders abandoned the eerie calm of Texas and leaped into the lurid volAngeles. thing for angels. He Wings of Desire. of Angelinos duckgrappling with life. be more opporViolence.

Wenders obsession time when films and mass murcomeback at the this movie is, not It's also all over themes addressed in Blow and Stylistically, Wenders homage to direcAlfred Hitchcock and There are even shades of the Coen brothers -al- all over again. To that end, he joins un- though little of their gonzo wit. forces with a gang of Mexican gardenYet the movie works. It entrances ers and finds peace blowing leaves off to with its astral images and soothing Ry the lawns of the rich and famous. Cooder soundtrack; then it transports Wife Paige is not distressed.

She was viewers to a place they would normally about to leave her inattentive hubby not choose to visit. The trip is memo- anyway. Instead, she takes over his rable. company and cavorts with some of the Written by ex-Montrealer Nicholas stud talent. Klein, The End of Violence is the tale Naturally, nothing is as random as it of some lost L.A.

souls whose lives appears to be. In a remote hilltop obsermysteriously intertwine. vatory, Ray Bering (Gabriel Byrne), a Mike Max (played in powerfully un- surveillance expert, is at work on an derstated fashion by Bill Pullman) is a audacious government project to end jaded producer of horror thrillers. He violence. He has video cameras inis detached and cynical and essentially stalled all over L.A.

to capture crime as got into the movies to turn his fear of it occurs. His cameras caught Mike bestrangers into a multimillion-dollar ing abducted and the ensuing killings. enterprise. He has succeeded and lives Ray is an idealist who initially a sort of blissful, solitary existence in thought he was working for the greater the hills with his pampered wife Paige good on a crime-stopper scheme. But (Andie MacDowell).

She is less content he soon fears he may be a pawn in with her lot. some sinister plot that perpetuates vioWhile Mike makes movies that ex- lence. Imagine that: corrupt governplode with violence, he has never expe- ment forces. rienced the thrill first hand. That The tale becomes hopelessly yet changes one day when a couple of deliriously tangled as producers, goons, who evidently covet his car, kid- rap stars, cops, lawyers, criminals, nap him and get set to blow him away.

stuntwomen, performance artists, Mike pleads for his life, even offering cleaning women and gardeners all conthe bad guys points in his latest flick. A verge. savvy Hollywood producer to the end, Unlikely scenario? Maybe. But as he won't fork over real cash even with Byrne's character puts it, when asked his life on the line. by an FBI agent to report anything unFortunately, fate intervenes.

Mike's usual he might spot on video: "This is executioners get iced by an unknown Hollywood. What's not strange?" force. He escapes, but authorities believe he has died, too. The End of Violence is playing at And our mogul is so shaken that he the Loews cinema. Parents' guide: vioresolves to renounce violence and start lence, language.

columnist Mike Early Edition (Channel 46 at 9): Secof tonight's pro- ond season begins. grams: Total Security (CFCF-12 at 9): New South Bank drama. Show (Bravo! at Austin City Limits (Vermont Pagannini. ETV-33 at 9): Wynonna launches seaDr. Quinn, son.

Medicine Woman Big Ticket (MuchMusic at 9): Peter (WCAX-3 at 8): Sea- Gabriel's Secret World. son debut. Rough Cuts (Newsworld at 9): SymC-15 (WVNY-22 posium: A Ladder of Love. at 8): New drama. Paul McCartney's Musical Ways Best of Bobby (Bravo at Solo project.

Orr (CKMI-46 at Walker, Texas Ranger (Channel 3 8): The greatest at 10): Season begins. ever. The 400 Blows (Channel 33 at 10): Jaws Truffaut classic. tario at 8): It's too Saturday Night Live (Channel 46 at 23rd season begins 'Tante dies at 81 who taught French to a generation of youngsters on the CBC TV show Chez from 1959 to 1973, died Thursday of a heart attack at her home in Montreal. She was 81.

Mme. a folksinger and actress, also served as a citizenship-court judge between 1974 and 1985. Veteran CBC broadcaster Clyde Gilmour, a long-time friend, described her as "a great artist, a prepared and all-round entertainer, a delightful person, and someone of whom all Canada was extremely proud." She was born in Saint-Martin-de-laBeauce on Aug. 28, 1916. Her father ran the village store and was fluently bilingual; her mother was a teacher.

It was her father who taught her to speak English. "He had gold teeth, and for the longest time I believed only people with gold teeth could speak English," she once said. She worked at a shoe factory in the Beauce to help put her brothers through law school before she moved to Quebec City to become an an accountant in Louis St. Laurent's law firm. An amateur singer, she made her debut on French language radio in Quebec City in 1936.

The studio technician at the time was Leclerc. Mme. went to New York when she was 21 and took voice lessons from Metropolitan Opera star Marian Anderson. She began her professional career as a folksinger in Montreal during World War IT. In 1943 she became a regular performer on CBC radio and television.

During her career she recorded 10 albums. Her repertoire included more than 700 songs She married lawyer in 1944 and had three children. She received national exposure in 1952 when she was hired as guest vocalist on Rural, a farm show. In 1955 ConcertPlus (MusiquePlus at 8): with Sylvester Stallone and Jamiro- Mme. made her EngPaul Weller at the Beeb.

quai. lish-language debut with folksinger ALAN HUSTAK The Gazette 1961 FILE PHOTO and Susie as millions remember them. Alan Mills on Songs de Chez Nous. At the same time she also appeared as Mme. Eudore in one of the first Cap aux Sorciers.

Her acclaimed children's TV series, Chez featuring a temperamental puppet mouse called Susie, was launched in 1959. "She was a first-rate professional, and was a joy to work with," recalled Gary Plaxton, who directed 47 of the estimated 3,500 episodes. "But more than that, she brought a deep commitment to whatever she did." Chez ran until 1973. Mme. said she never understood why the CBC dropped it.

"The ratings were still high, there was a demand for it. If I had been too old or too fat, I could understand. They axed it for no apparent reason. I was very angry." At the time an official with the CBC explained the network decided to cancel the show "before it lost any of its vibrancy." Three days after it went off the air, Mme. was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada.

She was cited for "having won the affection of hundreds of thousands of Canadian children." She was named a judge of Canada's citizenship court in 1976 by Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. She served until 1984. "She made 45,000 people Canadians. She was very proud of that," her son told The Gazette. "That was one of the things you can't weigh or measure.

She loved her country very much, but at the same time was a proud, true Quebecer." Mme. was predeceased by her husband in 1994. She is survived by three children, Bernard and their spouses and seven grandchildren. The funeral will be held Monday at 10 a.m. at the Notre Dame de Grace Roman Catholic Church, 5333 Notre Dame de Grace Ave.

Donations in her memory may be made to the Comboni Fathers, missionaries in Ghana, Bernard 91 des Capucines, Hull J9A 158..