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The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 29

Publication:
The Vancouver Suni
Location:
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Issue Date:
Page:
29
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

SECTION ITT BARBARA CROOK (.05 2521 V. -mail bcioi.kn pacpivss.soullwm.c-;) TiieVncouverSun FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1998 ail MOVIE LIST C2 HUSH REVIEW C6 Their last film, Fargo, was a hit, so hopes are high for the Coen brothers' new film, The Big Lebowski. The brothers (Joel, left, and Ethan) have difficulty talking about it. Newman marks twilight of his career VO season features old and new Tosca, Romeo et Juliette and La Traviata join Bluebeard's Castle and Erwartung in the new Vancouver Opera year. 3v Hill 1 It 11 1 1 Him If Ml 1 JV III I i I I I i it (I 11 1 1 5i Cm fTPi fUl rTI fn cD il io 111 JEFF BRIDGES: Stars in TheBigLebowski, by brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.

some great moments I ,01 -A Legendary star Paul Newman is back on screen for the first time in four years in Twilight, a film about growing old. i JAMIE PORTMAN i SOUTHAM NEWSPAPERS NEW YORK There's a wonderful story Paul Newman likes to tell, in his wryly self-deprecating manner, about a visit he paid to one of his Hole In The Wall Gang camps. The camps for children with cancer and blood-related illnesses i are one of the veteran actor's many charitable endeavours, financed by profits from his "Newman's Own" line of salad dressing, popcorn, lemonade and spaghetti sauce. To these youngsters, he's not a legendary Hollywood star he's too old to fall into that category these days. "These kids only know that I'm the guy on the lemonade bottle," Newman says with amusement.

But there was this one inner-city kid who stared hard at Newman and did a double take. "Are you a movie star?" he finally asked Newman. "Yes, I've done some films," Newman replied. "Did you do Cool Hand "Yes." "Boy!" the kid exclaimed. "The movies really make you look young!" At 73, Newman remains justifiably proud of his film career.

But that doesn't translate into vanity. His life's work may be available on video going right back to his first movie, The Silver Chal-' ice, a 1954 costume epic so atro-, cious that Newman considers if "extraordinary" his career survived the debacle but he's qui- etly resigned himself to the fact i that today's young filmgoer doesJ i n't really know him. That's why' the kid's comment about 1967's Cool Hand Luke doesn't bother him. "When you stop and think about it, you can understand their confusion," he muses. "They see someone who's 30 years older than the guy they've seen in the movie, and they can't make the connection." Newman has, however, decided to spend more time in front of the camera.

It's four years since the release of his last film, Nobody's Fool. As Newman puts it: "The spaghetti sauces are out-grossing my films and I'm fighting back." He's here in New York to talk about his new movie, Twilight, a bittersweet suspense piece in which he plays Harry Ross, a retired, burned-out, alcoholic private eye who becomes a reluctant participant in a baffling murder mystery. The movie, which opens Friday, is co-written and directed by Robert Benton who directed Nobody's Fool and whose previous successes have included Places In The Heart and Kramer vs. Kramer. Twilight, unapologetically, is a movie about growing old.

In the film, Harry Ross has reached the point where he survives on the goodwill of others, notably two old friends a former screen legend (Gene Hackman) and his enigmatic wife (Susan Sarandon). It is they who persuade him to help them with "a little favour" and in so doing precipitate him into a dangerous mystery. SEE NEWMAN, C3 TWILIGHT REVIEW C3 4 (LA SALAD KING: Newman is equally famous for his dressing. A LLOYD DYKK SUN CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC Three popular 19th-century operas and two early 20th-century one-acts have been chosen for Vancouver Opera's 1998-99 season. The season begins in November with Puccini's Tosca, followed by Gounod's Romeo et ette in January 1999 and Verdi's La Traviata in March.

It ends in May with the pairing of Bela Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle and Arnold Schoenberg's Erwartung. The season was chosen by VO's director general Robert Hallam and music director David Agler. Hallam describes it as "a season to please and delight all kinds of opera goers: those who cherish the more traditional works from the classical canon and those who love to explore the lesser-trod territory of 20th-century repertoire." In addition to the mainstage season, VO is venturing into what it calls "a fresh model for collaborating on original projects" with Vancouver New Music in a production, in May at Vancouver Playhouse, of Else-whereless. This is a new opera by Vancouver composer Rodney Sharman and Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who last year directed Salome. VO says it will be an option for subscribers to the '98-99 season.

The other interesting feature of the season is the pairing of the two potent one-act operas the two-character Bluebeard's Castle and the one-character psy-chodrama Erwartung. The production is conceived by Canadian theatre director Robert Lepage. Bluebeard features English baritone Gidon Saks and mezzo-soprano Kristine Jepson; Erwartung is sung by American soprano Mary Jane Johnston. Tosca features American soprano Marquita Lister, American tenor Clifton Forbis (last seen here in Jenufa) and Vancouver bass-baritone Gary Relyea. Gounod's et Juliette features American soprano Karen Driscoll and Canadian baritone John Fanning in the title roles.

In the cast of La Traviata are Bulgarian soprano Darina Tako-va in the role of Violetta, Chinese tenor Jianyi Zhang as Alfredo and American baritone David Oker-lund as Germont. Foster pregnant say news reports JODIE FOSTER: Mom to be. ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK Jodie Foster is getting ready for a new job motherhood. The 35-year-old actress is pregnant with her first child, according to published reports. "Yes, I'm pregnant," Foster told columnist Liz Smith on Tuesday night at a party celebrating Time magazine's 75th anniversary.

"I couldn't be happier. But no, I'm not going to discuss the father, the method or anything of that nature." Smith is a syndicated columnist based at the Long Island newspaper Newsday. Foster, a two-time Oscar winner whose credits include Taxi Driver, The Accused and Silence of the Lambs, said she expected to be a single mother, "just like I was raised myself." She said she is due to give birth in September and does not yet know the baby's sex. A 1 COEN QUOTES Joel on bowling: "We were in the bowling alley for three weeks, and I don't think I bowled a single frame. Ethan bowled a little." Ethan: "Yeah, I did.

I actually got a ball drilled for myself." Joel: "I don't like bowling, but I like all the stuff connected with The design, the 1950s-style architecture that's associated with a lot of lanes in L.A., it's all reminiscent of the period the characters come from, as well. And it's a buddy movie, and it seemed like a convenient thing to have them all interested in." Ethan on the brothers' writing process: "We just sit in a room together, we don't divide it up in any sense, we just sit in a room and talk the script through, starting with the first scene, and just sort of see where it leads." Joel on their recurring use of the theme of kidnapping: "Uh, it's kind of a convenient plot device and we're pretty lazy, so we keep using it over and over again." Ethan on winning the Oscar for Fargo: "For me, it was like watching it on TV. It was kind of fun at first, then it got, it gets kind of boring." JAMIE PORTMAN SOUTHAM NEWSPAPERS NEW YORK The two Coen brothers are sitting side by side in a Manhattan hotel suite, patiently trying to offer some insight into their latest movie, TheBigLebowski. They're not doing a very good job. For example, there's the fact that much of the story takes place in a bowling alley.

"Yeah," says Ethan thoughtfully. "One of the characters this is based on is a member of an amateur soft-ball team." So what does softball have to do with bowling? Ethan decides a further explanation is in order: "We changed it to bowling because it's so much more visually compelling. It's also the sort of sport you can do while drinking and smoking." Brother Joel isn't that interested in discussing bowling. But during a media session notable for its non sequiturs, he does confide that it was mildly upsetting that their previous movie, Fargo, picked up a bundle of awards and Oscar nominations last year when he was shooting The Big Lebowksi. "We were in the middle of production on this film when all that Fargo stuff happened," Joel says a trifle morosely, "and it was obviously a little bit distracting 'cause everybody's obviously breathing heavily about it while it's happening, and that's a strange thing to have happening while you're in the middle of making another movie." That's one of the longer answers we're getting out of the brothers this morning although as is always the case with the Coens, Joel frequently finishes Ethan's sentences, and vice versa.

Theirs is the strangest, most symbiotic creative relationship in Hollywood. They give themselves joint credit for their dark, twisted, sardonically funny screenplays and they edit their movies under the pseudonym of Roderick Jaynes. Ethan gets the producer's credit and Joel is the director of record but even these duties are frequently shared during the filming process. Courteous and likable though they may be in chatting with the media, these two products of the Minnesota hinterland aren't terribly helpful in defining the forces that drive them. Joel, 43, is the more solemn one, with the mournful countenance and the ponytail.

Ethan, 40, is SEE COENS, C4 And their movie has THE BIG LEBOWSKI Starring Jeff Bridges, John Turturro, John Goodman, Julianne Moore and Steve Buscemi. 14A. KATHERINE MONK SUN MOVIE CRITIC No matter how many weak points there may be in a Coen brothers movie, you can always depend on a moment of absolute hilarity and human compassion to redeem the experience. The Coens, heirs to Oscar expectations in the wake of Fargo, have a gift for gently peeling back layer after layer of cultural baggage to reveal the true nature of their characters, showing us just how screwed up we walking sacks of water really are. In The Big Lebowski, the main character thus exposed is the Dude, played with stumbling finesse by a rather paunchy Jeff Bridges.

The Dude is a free spirit living on White Russians, pot and bowling in the strip-mall emptiness of Venice, Calif. While predictable and verging on complete pathos, his life is good. He is one of life's truly happy under- achievers who hates surprises and seeks little more than a baseline existence bathed in Kahlua, cream and vodka. He is not your typical thriller protagonist, and therein lies the beauty of The Big Lebowski life never turns out the way you think it will. One day, the Dude, who is known to the state as Jeff Lebowski, is mistaken for another Jeff Lebowski a very, very rich Lebowski by a bunch of German dolts looking to cash in on a kidnapping of the Big Lebowski's wife, Bunny.

The Dude becomes the point-man in the ransom exchange and as in all plots configured by the Coens things go very much awry from the beginning. We Coen brothers fans wait for these delicate and intelligently structured moments of absolute chaos as they magically fuse the mundane and the surreal. Sadly, these are the weakest moments in The Big Lebowski as the brothers stumble in their timing and fail to make the whole human joke work. But the movie does have its moments of complete and utter hilarity. They come via SEE 3R.

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