Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 25

Hungry for 53 hours of live soap opera? C2 Get a grip Entertainment nn vni ir Television C3 Watchables C3 Thursdays jn Sports 3 i tw -1 n- fi'' DDJieiD At 52, he's taking big risks Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) has been enrolled in a game that begins File photo quietly but soon erupts in confusion 1 Pi JAMIE PORTMAN Southam Newspapers Los Angeles ichael Douglas hasn't had an easy tune lately He knows there are milestones in every life and that reaching 50 tends to be one of them. But he still wasn't prepared for the upheavals both personal and professional that have occurred since that birthday two years ago. "I knew a 50th birthday was a good time for taking stock, but then a number of difficult personal events intervened," he says reflectively "So I simply had to cope. I had a personal assistant very near and dear to me who died on my birthday of a heart attack. There was the loss of my marriage.

Then Ron Meyer, who was my agent for 20 years, left me to go run Universal Studios." All these were wrenching experiences. But there were other family concerns as well starting with the health problems of father Kirk Douglas, who is still recovering from a stroke, and his mother. In the same period, both his son and younger brother had well-publicized skirmishes with the law. As for Douglas's acting career, there was the disappointing box-office performance of The American President two Chris tmases ago. And now there's a further upheaval: he's abandoning California, his home for more than 25 years, and moving back to his old stomping ground of New York.

"I see myself in transition, in major transition. I'm at one of the biggest points in my life. I'm not sure where I'm going, which is exciting and scary, but I have the confidence not to try and steer it." Douglas isn't one to feel sorry for himself. And this afternoon, as he nears the end of a long day of media interviews on behalf of his latest movie, The Game, he lights one of his carefully rationed cigarettes and emphasizes that he still has much to be thankful for. "This all made me reflect on what has still managed to go right in my life, because unfortunately it's often the case that it's only when you experience your bad times that you begin to appreciate the good times." For Douglas, work has always been a salvation.

He believes that from childhood he's been driven by an old-fashioned ethic that tells him to work hard and to persevere. "So I just keep on doing the best that I possibly can." This is especially true now. Douglas's production company had a blockbuster success this past summer Preview The Game Director. David Fincher Starring: Michael Douglas, Sean Penn When: Opens Friday with Face Off, and come November, he'll be launching 77k Rainmaker, director Francis Ford Coppola's film version of the best-selling John Grisham novel Michael Douglas the actor begins work later this year on a new crime thriller, Perfect Murder, in which he'll be co-starring with Gwyneth Paltrow. And on Friday he'll be opening in The Game, a unique thriller in which he plays a successful businessman who finds his entire life being dismantled by sinister forces and faces the prospect of losing everything he possesses.

The Game is director David Fincher's first movie since the stylistically gripping Seven two years ago, and this was one reason Douglas wanted to do it "It was a tough shoot for me a hard, hard shoot I worked 103 out of 104 days, but I was really blessed by David who has this enormous stamina for openers, but who also has this incredible vision. You want to work overtime to help him fulfil this vision, and that's something which doesn't come about very often." A further factor was the script by John Brancato and Michael Ferris. "With this one I kept turning the pages and asking myself: 'What the hell is going to happen next? I don't know where this thing is I liked that aspect So many movies are predictable and I get bored by them" In The Game, Douglas plays Nicholas Van Orton, an obsessive businessman determined to be in control of all aspects of his life. Everything starts changing when his brother (Sean Penn) gives him a birthday gift an invitation to play a game which will be tailor-made for him by a mysterious firm known as Consumer Recreation Services, or CRS. Van Orton's decision to participate has devastating consequences in which he finds himself being stripped of everything that matters most money power, position, control, confidence.

Douglas sees the film as an emotional roller-coaster, rendered all the more tense by the fact that "neither Nicholas nor the audience knows which events are real and which are being orchestrated as part of a game." Douglas says that during his own File photo Sean Penn, right, and Michael Douglas. Penn plays Douglas's unpredictable -younger brother whose unusual birthday gift triggers a dark adventure "So much of how we function in life is based on our own level of confidence. The things we take for granted are based on how confident we are Once we lose that confidence, we begin to self-destruct This is a man who has all the exterior veneer of confidence He has achieved money and power but his soul has been damaged in the process, so as soon as that veneer starts breaking down, the confidence goes and basically he needs a rebirth." Michael Douglas worst periods, he has never lost his confidenca And he considers himself very fortunate in this, especially after seeing what his character in The Game goes through. "So much of how we function in life is based on our own level of confidence. The things we take for granted are based on how confident we are.

Once we lose that confidence, we begin to self-destruct This is a man who has all the exterior veneer of confidence. He has achieved money and power but his soul has been damaged in the process, so as soon as that veneer starts breaking down, the confidence goes and basically he needs a rebirth." Douglas's work as a young cop in the acclaimed TV series Streets Of San Francisco first established him as an actor to be watched. His 1987 Academy Award for his performance as a vicious financier in Wall Street helped remove him from his father's shadow: "It was a tremendous night to be acknowledged by your peers in this way because for those of us who are of the second generation of an acting family there is that sense that no matter how hard you work, you are still somebody else's son." Movies like Basic Instinct, Romancing The Stone and Fatal Attraction established him as one of the most bankable actors in Hollywood. Yet Douglas is quick to point out that he has acted in relatively few movies over the years less than 25 altogether and that many actors his age have made twice that many or more. "So I haven't done a lot of movies, but I am lucky that I think most have been good ones." He still loves producing and will never forget the night in 1975 when One Flew Over The Cuckoo 's Nest, one of his company's earliest films, swept the Oscars.

That experience taught him the importance of perseverance and maintaining one's confidence. "Cuckoo 's Nest was initially rejected by all the studios. We had to 'A' stands for 'about to appear on Channel TV's new kid on the block has been subdued in the days leading up to its Sept. 1 8 launch independently finance it. We had to fight to get Romancing The Stone and China Syndrome made.

Yet we had 1.J11 1.1 success, wnicn muicaieu uiai uieie enough other fruitcakes out there who were prepared to like these movies as much as we did. So of He has big expectations for his latest producing venture, The Rainmaker, and is looking forward to ri i -l- 1 in trerjea muraer, in wnicii lie wui ymy who concocts a diabolical murder plot. However, he's now anxious to play a character with more redemptive qualities. He looks at the sexual victims he portrayed in Disclosure, Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, or the obsessive businessmen in Wall Street and The Game, or the hapless guy driven over the edge in Falling Down, and finds one difficulty with them. "They really have nothing to do with who I really am.

So I'd like to play someone closer to myself." Southam News Michael Kuss, snagged from the Weather Channel in Toronto, will handle the weather. Joanne jNugent nas Deen ennstea from ATV in Halifax to host the A-Channel's light, daily news summary show, Live at 5. Mark Scholz, also from ATV, will host the station's two-hour, gonzo-style morning show, The Big Breakfast. The A-Channel, taking over cable Channel 7 trom tne Spokane al affiliate, is promoting a hip and youthful imaee but viewers will likely come to a i I. 1 Know most ior lis unauasneu reliance on prime-time movies, includ- ing a doubleheader Sunday nights, rather than conventional series fare.

Kirk acknowledges the approach has worked reasonably well in the Win-, nipeg market, where MTN routinely. tops tne ratings in prime time, bui ne doesn't see it working for long. "These days there are so many opportunities to see movies," Kirk said. "They've been in the theatre, on airplanes, pay television and video cas-' settes by the time they come to the window of free television people have had so much exposure to them that I don't think in the long run that kind of programming will sustain." 1 In keeping with its movie mania, the A-Channel is making a point of under-, writing several new made-in-Alberta feature films. It has already partly financed two films completed last year Silent Cradle, filmed in F.dmonton.

and Ebenezer, filmed in Calgary. The A-; Channel drama fund is backing a third, movie, Heart of the Sun, scheduled ta begin filming in Edmonton this falL Richard f5f Helm Television LaJlT hiiiim Just in case you were wondering if the A stands for aloof, or maybe absentee, next week's launch of the A-Channel remains very much on track Aside from the occasional billboard around town, emblazoned with the teasers "Very Soon" and "Very Independent," the buildup for this new upstart Alberta station owned by Brandon-based Craig Broadcast Systems has been remarkably subdued. The A-Channel will fire up its Edmonton signal the evening of Sept. 18 with a live two-hour show, complete with musical guests, dignitaries and a block party along 102nd Street next to the new studios in the old Hudson's Bay building on Jasper Avenue. Its sister station in Calgary blazes into life two nights later The station's sign went up Tuesday, its news vans will hit the streets today and the actual shift into the new studios from temporary offices at the Craig-owned K-97 radio station comes Friday "The studio is looking good and all the technical stuff is right on line," said Jim Haskins, the veteran Winnipeg broadcaster the Craigs have brought in to run the Edmonton operation.

Trying to fire up a modern working TV station inside one corner of a cavernous, dusty husk of a historically significant building hasn't been easy, admits A-Channel president Drew Craig. Even enlarging some of the existing windows turned into a logistical headache. Every segment of the building exterior removed had to be tagged and archived and new matching finishing tiles shipped in from Quebec. The A-Channel will be Edmonton's first new TV station since ITV came on the air in September 1974. Over at ITV, station executives have been regarding the new player's approach with curiosity, if not exactly trepidation.

"Their promotion has been fairly low key but that doesn't surprise us too much because that has been the style of the Craigs in the past," ITV executive vice-president Wally Kirk said Tuesday Although headhunters have been sniffing around some of the on-air talent at ITV and CFRN, the A-Channel has gone outside Edmonton for most of its hiring. One exception is Bruce Buchanan, who did the ITV- hockey broadcasts for nine years, back this fall to handle the play-by-play for the A-Channel's Oiler game coverage. Darren Dreger, another Winnipeg import, will host the game broadcasts and serve as the station's principal sports anchor. The station's news anchors will be Janice Mackey, recruited from the CTV affiliate in Winnipeg, and Alan Carter, a former anchor with one of Vancouver's trendy night newscasts. Jennifer Parker, The Journal Phillip Man, a sign installer with Airtight FX puts up the first of three new A-channel logos Tuesday on the Bay building at Jasper Avenue and 1 02nd Street.