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

TV SCHEDULE C6 MAGAZINES C7 ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR CHARLES CAMPBELL 605-2120 FAX 605-2521 E-mail cjcampbcii pacpress.southam.ca Tl IE VANCOUVER SUN TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 1998 C5c Institute ready to unveil top Goodnight 100 movies 8 yy SUSAN KING LOS ANGELES TIMES HOLLYWOOD 1 -i-fl Larry Drum ron, piease. i ne sus-pense is nearly over. Tonight at 8 p.m., CBS will unveil the American Film Institute's list of the 100 great est American movies of the last century. The executive producer ot AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies doesn't believe film buffs will be disappointed with the flicks that made the cut. You 11 go through the list and say, "Yes, yes, says Gary, Smith, who also di rected the three-hour program.

But American Film Institute director and chief executive officer Jean Picker Firstenberg isn't so sure. 'A "I expect there will be a lot of letters to the editor," she says. 3 But, she adds, these rums should be considered "suggestions" for the greatest American movies made between 1896 and 1996. AFI's goal is to celebrate and commemorate the first century ot the motion picture and stir interest in American film history. This is a suggested exercise.

Firstenberg says. "People have different opinions. That's a good thing, because what it shows is passion about the movies." AFI invited 1,500 people including actors, directors, producers, writers, editors, cine-matographers, studio executives, film historians and critics to vote for the top 100 from a ballot of 400 films. President Bill Clinton, Vice-President Al "1 Gore and their wives, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Tipper Gore, were also invited to vote. 1 The 400 films on the ballot, says Firstenberg, were chosen by AFI historians, archivists, cu rators ad cataloguers people whose lives are devoted to the history of the motion picture.

They were very careful in considering the criteria." Besides a requirement that MARTY LEDERHANDLERAP, GARRY SHANDLING: The star of The Larry Sanders Show watches a screening of the last episode of his comedy series May 27 in New York. entrants be feature-length American films, criteria included historical significance, critical recognition, box-office per Quote formance, awards history and cultural impact. Voters were encouraged to use the same factors in making their selections. FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK Larry Sanders has come to the end of his last show. Alone before millions, he is seated on his The ballot consisted ot such "I don 't know exactly what I 'm going to do without you.

Thank you so much. God bless you. And you may now Larry Sanders obvious choices as the beloved Citizen Kane, Gone With the stool. The way Jack Paar did it Wind, Stagecoach, The Gold host who always cautioned his viewers to holster their remote controls and not "flip around." But Shandling's grand concept called for interlacing Sanders' late-night talk show with his behind-the-scenes obsessions. That was the full power of Larry Sanders that is, the HBO comedy saying goodbye for real Saturday at midnight on VTV and Friday, June 26 at 9 p.m.

on the Comedy Network. From its start through this, its 88th episode, Sanders has riotously teetered between dual realities public and private, pretend and painfully true Now Shandling, like Sanders, has decided to call it quits. This hour-long finale-within-a-finale displays much of Larry's swan song the highly charged last night of a 10-year run along with plen ty of off-camera funny business. And plenty of real-life celebrities. Warren Beatty nixes Sanders' invitation.

David Duchovny, agreeing to come-on, also comes on to Sanders (or is it just Sanders' Tom Petty, Clint Black and Greg Kinnear go at it in a green-room scuffle over who gets to sing a goodbye song. Jim Carrey delivers a rip-roaring comic tribute to his-host, then, during a commercial break, turns on him in rage over a long-ago slight. "Are you doing a bit, now?" asks Sanders, perplexed. "We're off the air," Carrey hisses. "This is real life now." Finally, the end (the REAL end), after taping has wrapped in the now-empty studio, Sanders shares a bittersweet moment with his Napoleonic producer, Artie (played by Rip shy Shandling met with reporters at HBO headquarters.

"I marvel at the acting ability of these gentlemen," he said, turning to his co-stars. "It's an honour to work with you. And I cetainly learned a lot from you." Said Tambor of Shandling, "This guy really cares, heaping praise on everyone else and taking very little for himself." "You were always my director," Torn said to Shandling. Then, breaking his promise not to get choked up, he added, "There was a sense of what we were doing as the great time of our lives." A great time for viewers began in August 1992, three months after Carson retired from the Tonight Show, when Shandling, a stand-up comic and occasional Carson stand-in, launched Larry Sanders. SEE SHANDLING, C6 at the end.

The way Johnny Carson did it at the end. The way all talk-show hosts stage their last goodbye. "To tell you the truth," Larry tells his viewers between pauses to regain his composure, "I don't know exactly what I'm going to do without you. Thank you so much. God bless you.

And you may now flip." And that's all for The Larry Sanders Show. But it's not really all. It never was. Not with this glorious show-within-a-show. For six years, Garry Shan-dling has starred as Larry Sanders, a neurotic and funny Torn), and his chronically insecure announcer Hank (Jeffrey Tambor).

The two people who mean the most to him, Artie and Hank, henceforth will have no role in Sanders' life, and they all know it. But won't admit it. Or can't. The unstated question: What will he do without them? Funny and touching, this is the perfect way to drop the final curtain. Recently the threesome was briefly reunited.

Joined by Torn and Tambor, the press- -w 1 if 1ST 1 1 I APFile PRETTY WOMAN: Top 100? Labour dispute threatens viewing habits Rush, The Wizard ofOz, Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life and Singin' in the Rain. Con-' Alex Strachan temporary titles included Jaws, Star Wars, The Godfather, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Taxi Driver, plus cult favourites such as Force of Evil and Gun Crazy. BCTV's rivals have been waiting for years for the chance afforded by what many are predicting will be a lengthy contract battle at the Burnaby station. Still, there were some surprising omissions.

Though contemporary comedies such as Pretty Woman and Ferris Bueller's Day Off made the ballot, revered comedy classics including Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner, William Wyler's Roman Holiday and Billy Wilder's Sab- rina were not included. i ing called on to talk a lot more, and his screen time has increased dramatically as a result. For an anchor whose strong suit is subtlety and calm reliability but in small doses that may not necessarily be a good thing. BCTV's rivals have been waiting years for the window of opportunity that has suddenly opened before them. Upstart Vancouver Television recently won the Radio and Television News Directors Association's award for best local newscast in the country.

CBC's Broddcast One swept individual award categories, and Glob-al's TV-news division is coming off a year in which it won numerous B.C. and national broadcasting awards. If enough viewers become disenchanted with Canada Tonight's over-reliance on CTV and U.S.-network news feeds from outside the Lower Mainland, they may start sampling what the other stations have to offer which, not surprisingly, is a vigorous and renewed emphasis on Vancouver and B.C. issues. SEE DISPUTE, C6 "One movie may have been included in the 400 by this group because they felt it meant something in a particular moment in time," says Firstenberg.

"Therefore, it was worthy of TV-news viewers are creatures of habit. But the current labour dispute at BCTV, which has already put a dent in the Burnaby station's ability to report the day's Lower Mainland news, could put that maxim to its toughest local test yet particularly if the dispute lasts as long as some are suggesting. The dispute does not appear to have affected BCTV's ability to draw viewers at least not yet. A BCTV press release late last week trumpeted figures from Nielsen Media Research that reveal Canada Tonight, BCTV's substitute for its regular News Hour evening newscast, is tops with viewers in every age category. Much of the credit belongs to anchor Tony Parsons, whose low-key, professional reading of the nightly news is one of the reasons BCTV's News Hour has carved itself the biggest market share of any local station in North America.

The most recent quarterly figures released by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement show News Hour's nightly audience is 569,000 viewers. News Hour's closest competitor is Global, with 101,000 viewers, followed by CBC's Broadcast One with 53,000, and Vancouver Television's fledgling Vancouver IiveSuc bringing up the rear with 17,000. The dispute has the potential to raise Parsons' profile even higher, since his role on the News Hour is usually restricted to setting up the dozen or so stories each night from the stations' stable of Lower Mainland reporters. Now, Parsons is be consideration. The CBS special, hosted by Richard Gere and Jodie Foster, features clips from the 100 films and interviews with celebrities, including Woody Allen, Can-dice Bergen, Walter Cronkite, Stanley Donen, Charlton Hes- ton and Martin Scorsese, who BILL KEAYVancouver Sun HIGHER PROFILE: BCTV's Tony Parsons is expected to shoulder more of a workload.

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