Daily News from New York, New York • 39

CO fiFrir(gr is Connery plays a writer who helps a teen By JAMI BERNARD DAIUT NEWS MOVIE CRITIC FINDING FORRESTER. With Sean Connery, Rob Brown, Anna Paquin, F. Murray Abraham. Directed by Gus Van Sant. At Lincoln Square and Village VII.

Running time: 133 mms. Rated PG-13: Strong language, sexual references. ovies about the intoxicating power of learning are few and far between Mi and lately, they all seem to come from Gus Van Sant. The director of "Good Will Hunting," about a young math genius in need of a mentor, has now made "Finding Forrester," about an inner-city youth with natural writing talent and the recluse who comes out of his shell to guide him. "Finding Forrester" is a traditional Hollywood movie in many respects, MOVIE iar tropes, books filled with his writing.

The next day, the old man throws the backpack out the window, and when Jamal checks its contents, he discovers that his writing has been scrupulously gone over with a red pen and corrected. "Constipated writing!" it says on one page. "Brilliant passage here!" it says on another. It's a wise child who knows his mentor, and Jamal returns, hoping for more feedback. Instead, the door is slammed in his face, and he's told to go home and write 5,000 words on why he shouldn't break into the man's home.

Jamal completes the assignment, and a tentative, then growlingly warm relationship follows between the boy and William Forrester, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist turned world-class agoraphobiac. The movie is about the unusual but perfectly reasonable relationship the two develop, a bond whose strength lies in how well it serves each of them. Jamal needs the training and discipline only this mysterious old man can offer, and Forrester needs to leam to breathe again before life passes him by. Each helps the other find his voice. Watch for an Oscar nomination for Connery.

It's a showcase role, and he packs it with personality and vigor, even if he is looking a little more his age these days. In smaller roles, F. Murray Abraham plays a hidebound prep-school professor with a stake in the status quo, and Anna Paquin plays the first schoolmate of Jamal's who takes an interest in his mind as well as the usual teenage attractions. The movie is a tonic. It alleviates such common anxieties as whether kids will go wrong under peer pressure, whether there is any commonality among generations and how a kid can possibly blossom in the concrete jungle.

intrigues and thy triumphs. But it is written, acted and directed so intelligently that it stands out from the pack, and is guaranteed to give you the warm glow of holiday movies past the kind that celebrated faith in human potential and the value of hard work. In a neat parallel with the movie's theme, old pro Sean Connery plays the curmudgeon who goes out of his way to help 16-year-old Jamal Wallace, a South Bronx kid who hides his genius behind grades in order to fit in with his basketball-obsessed buddies. Playing Jamal is first-time actor Rob Brown of Brooklyn, himself a scholar-athlete and a natural in front of the camera. Brown goes one-on-one with his Sean Connery as an aging author and Rob Brown as his protege his own bed.

The weirdo, it seems, is a kindred spirit. But before he can get his fill of the titles, the old man leaps from a chair and sends Jamal scrambling down the stairs, leaving behind his backpack and note ing on them through binoculars as they played basketball below. Casually surveying the apartment from the inside, Jamal is stopped by a collection of musty, classic books, much like the ones he has stacked up next to legendary co-star and confidently holds his own. Their characters meet in the middle of a crime. On a dare from his pals, Jamal breaks into the top-floor apartment of the old man they've seen seemingly spy- NEWS BEAT a $40 million horror-thriller based on the popu Iar video game, centers on a special military unit that fights an out-of-control supercomputer.

Rodriguez would play Rain, a zombie-fighting woman. Milla Jovovich has been cast as Alice the Zombie Killer. Diva as drug-fighter? MOVIES If all goes well, singeractress Whitney Houston just might be the next big. bad blacktress, as Warner Bros, wants to remake its 1973 action flick "Cleopatra Jones" as a vehicle for the diva. The original movie starred Tamara Dobson as a street-fighting U.S.

agent assigned to crack down on drug trafficking. Jack's back in 'Schmidt' 1 Boston film critics eat up Crowe MOVIES Underscoring the wide-open nature of this year's coming Oscar race, the Boston Society of Film Critics has made Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" the third different movie to be named 2000's best picture by a major critics group. The New York Film Critics Circle picked Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic," and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association tabbed Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." The Golden Globe nominations, which are generally far more in tune with "official" Hollywood than the critics, will be announced Thursday. Super Bowl makes strange bandfellows MUSIC Aerosmith and 'N Sync, together at last. It was announced yesterday that the classic-rock warriors, who have just been voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, will share the halftime stage of Super Bowl XXXV Jan.

28 with one of today's hottest boy bands. No word on whether there will be a duet. 'Flower Drum' takes a beating THEATER The highly anticipated Broadway return of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Rower Drum Song" is wilting. The producers of the classic musical, with a reworked book by David Henry Hwang, have canceled its production at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre due to lack of funding. "Flower Drum Song" tells the story of immigrant Asians living in San Francisco's Chinatown as they attempt to assimilate amid prejudice from the Anglo and Chinese worlds.

Glrlflghter eying 'Evil' role MOVIES Michelle Rodriguez is in negotiations to star in "Resident Evil," a feature film based on the popular video game, which Paul Anderson will direct from his script. "Evil," a 3 MOVIES Jack Nicholson has agreed to take a pay cut to star for director Alexander Payne in "About Schmidt." Nicholson will play a recently divorced, retired insurance man quickly losing his battle with self-deception. Jack Mathews, David Hinckley news services I Crowe's "Almost to Famous" won Boston prize..