The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 114

I SUNDAY MAY 8 1994 41 THE HERALD MOVIES epic novel finally takes a stand page to screen long as book Abigail (Ruby Dee) Stu Redman (Gary Sinise) and Fran Goldsmith survivors to battle evil in The Stand 8 -hour series a testament to status THE STAND FROM II Thursday night to see divine intervention spectacularly hellish makeup and an explosive finale The network might be right based on the huge audience for IT (the top-rated miniscries of season) The Stand is the biggest event of the May sweeps and the competition will try to derail it tonight with blockbuster movies (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on CBS Thelma Louise on NBC) Network hype aside The Stand is no throwback to such classic miniscries as Lonesome Dove and Roots which became national events for their spellbinding stories and memorable characters For despite its $28 million price tag The Stand is a rickety construction Did Alfred Hitchcock save most of his thrills for the final 20 minutes? In the harrowing early scenes a virus escapes a government lab in California eventually causing most of the world's population to cough sneeze suffer and expire King then hopscotches around the devastated United States introducing characters and dramatizing the aftermath with recurring scenes of badly decaying corpses which sometimes talk The miniscries unapologeti-cally runs to the gross the vile and the relentlessly dark not surprising in an cnd-of-thc-world story Good vs evil Those who are somehow immune to the plague are haunted by dreams of the good Mother Abigail (Ruby Dee) the evil Randall Flagg (Jamey Sheridan) or both Each survivor must choose between these forces These strong performances she has a charming goodness he a crazed meanness give The Stand some punch But not enough to provide focus which is sorely lacking for three of the four episodes of the sprawling miniscries What worked on the page 1:300 of them doesn't on the and King isn't savvy enough to make the translation Hor-rorthrillers demand pacing here you simply sign on and wait the way the book was" a co-worker told me as if that explained away the problem But King fans didn't have to make that same excuse to moviegoers who saw Carrie or Misery And by constantly digressing King diminishes characters and we do the book or are you going to make this deal and then say stuff you I King said of the initial negotiations they said vve will stand away and let you do the book that you wrote for King noted there were some limits: said they didn't want too much snot! if we could avoid He wrote a 420-page script which was turned over to director Mick Garris whose work on King's 1992 screenplay Sleepwalkers won the author over Fueled by a 328 million budget and a 100-day shooting schedule the story now retitlcd Stephen th" Stand finally went before the cameras in March 1993 under watchful eye Close involvement His close involvement with the project a departure from IT and The Tommyknoekers which he did not work on was intentional Most fans point to The Stand as their favorite King book (many have read it more than once) and it holds the same special place on the mantle The Stand has been important to a lot of fans and it's been important to King said thought I'm going to do this let nic jump in the whole do the script I'll stick with it down the line make the revisions I won't turn it over to anybody else tell you the truth of everything that done for the movies when I look at The Stand and I hear them say my words at least I don't want to throw I Can The Stand possibly I live up to expectations? Probably not For one thing the book has been out there for 1 5 years there are 10 million copies in print a long time for readers to create their own movies in their imaginations Few can resist putting themselves in the place of one of the survivors and wondering what they would do Many will immediately notice the compressions changes and deletions Still an undeniable thrill in Seeing the most memorable passages committed to celluloid Larry harrowing odyssey through the Lincoln Tunnel Stu escape from a hospital full of corpses Randall Flagg walking down a deserted stretch of nighttime highway the Trashcan Man's demolition of an oil storage field they're all here intact been a long time coming and for fans of the written Stand the viewing will be all the sweeter THE WORLD PREMIERE EVENT OFTHE SEASON! Machisimo Motherhood And Family Ties for years The network wanted a six-hour miniscries King wanted eight hours He got his way and the longest network miniseries this season And yet King has been served far better by the movies and by big-name directors like Rob Reiner (Stand by Me Misery) Brian De Palma (Carrie) and David Cronenberg (The Dead Zone) On The Stand Mick Garris (Psycho IV Critters 2: The Main Course) directs with a style that is neither noticeable nor efficient Power of popularity Ultimately the miniscries is an astonishing testament to popularity nothing more wanted to end up with a situation where people look at me and say 'I really like what you and I would "be able to feel that I had a direct hand in he said in January "And if I really screwed it up big time they would be able 'tocome' directly -to me and say really messed and be able to take the rap for One reason he had resisted television was because do the end of the world and then break in and say a word from Charmin toilet Here it is promoted and sold as Stephen King's The Stand as big a product as see this season Pick it up at your own Dcril Journey from was almost as By RENE RODRIGUEZ Herald Staff Writer When he opening moments of The Stand flicker across teleyision screens tonight longtime fans of the Stephen King novel will breath a collective sigh of "Finally!" The wait for the movie version of The Stand has been as monumental as the book itself: Ever since the 1980 paperback edition hit stores carrying the titillating blurb to be a motion picture by George A readers have been waiting And waiting And waiting Thcenormous success of the novel has been a consistent reminder that the movie remains conspicuously missing Both the original version of The Stand released in 1978 and the 1988 re-release with 400 pages of King's original story restored hit the No 1 spots on The New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists And still no movie It for lack of interest Since 1979 producer Richard Rubinstein has tried to coax a theatrical film out of the book to no avail The Stand was simply too long think that Steve and everyone else we were involved with found that there was really no satisfactory way from a creative standpoint to take 1300 pages of book and put it into a 2 feature said Rubinstein who shares the title of executive producer with King on the ABC miniscries Attempts over the years Several attempts were made over the years At one point in the late 1970s King completed a four-hour script that everyone loved except Warner Bros studio execs who complained it was too long Later King suggested two separate two-hour films but that too fizzled In the early 1980s Rubinstein considered doing the movie as a TV miniscries but figured the high quota of decaying corpses messy deaths and other queasy subject matter would prove too mudT-for television censors Then came the phenomenal success in 1989 of eight-hour Lonesome Dove reviving network interest in longer miniseries And after treatment of two other King novels IT (which King loved) and The Tommyknoekers (which he calls talk of doing The Stand for TV began to circulate once again question to ABC was their agenda recoil with horror at the suggestion that I'm imposing any kind of view on this film Every word these women say is As for popularity with his own sex Jaglom seem concerned I even want to have lunch with because just not much fun Either out of touch with their feelings or terrified of The one film Jaglom has devoted to his own sex What Do Men Want? remains unfinished try to cut it and I get bored You ask men what they want and they say And those were the good ones The others made jokes about sex or Just when you thought It was safe to go to the prom along comes DON'T MISS IT Sponsored By SuperClubs r- STAGE 2 FOR KIDS Actors BOX OFFICE: TICKETMASTER: 595-0010 3585885 TidcrtMaster Sears Sound 5 9COrrfr EckwJs Fagerbakke (Coach) as a dim-witted hero and Karcem Abdul-Jabbar as a noisy prophet of doom Four parts The miniseries splits into four parts: The Plague The Dreams The Betrayal and The Stand The slow-moving Plague has a genuine creepiness about it especially in scenes of incarceration in a Vermont disease-control center But The Dreams is interminable and The Betrayal obvious its high point a drearily staged meeting of the survivors The miniseries does come together in The Stand as Mother Abigail's forces based in Boulder Colo take on the devilish Flagg whose followers live in Las Vegas But after a bang-up finale to the war between these groups the program drags on some more Beyond the violence and special effects this is a taie'abouC' sacrifice and spirituality about choosing to do the right thing Yet King clogs up the story with unclear and tiresome plotting and too many characters King has enjoyed incredible power on The Stand (he calls the book some ways the most important thing I've ever ABC promised him the freedom to write the screenplay his way after plans for a film version of the 1 978 novel languished current wife Victoria Foyt a Coral Gables native who graduated from the University of Miami before pursuing an acting career in New York and then Los Angeles Foyt is the star of Babyfever and mother of their daughter Sabrina She says the two in love over the when Jaglom rescued her publicity post card from a trash bin at hisi California studio and called her talked for about five hours on the Foyt says "Very soon I knew that I wanted to have children with this she met Jaglom says called up her mother and said finally found what been looking for all my life in a man and it's a Filmmaker Heiry Jaglom sex symbol for SWFs APOCA tYPTIC MISSION: Mother (Molly Ringwald) join other plague the actors who play them Among the 125 Speaking roles: Stu Redman (Gaiy Sinige) the only citizen of Ai'nctte Texas to survive the plafiue expectant single mother fjrait Goldsmith (Molly Ringwalcl) nepdy villain-intraining Harold Lauder (Corin Nemec) deaf loner Nick Andros (Rob Lovve) rock singer Larry Underwood (Adam Storke) and dangerous vixen Nadine Cross (Laura Saik Giacomo) Talented if not A-list This is not an A-list cast though some of tjiese actors are quite talented The problem is that King (puts them on equal footing: Imagine Scarlett CFHara Mammy ahd the carpetbaggers having samie-size roles Consequently few characters stand out San Giacomo brings a frightened! sexiness to her role and she has a knockout final -scene- Ray -Walston (Picket Fences) "aild Ossie Davis' (Evening Shadd) are wise and humane as two oldiler survivors amid the mostly Baby Boomer and Generation representatives Overall the acting is uneven Some performers (Sinise Storke) make the most of their roles some are 'simply bland (Ringwald Lowb) Still others are reduced to way-oiit nuttiness notably Matt Frcwtr as a star tlingly effective arsonist Bil THE SENSITIVE TYPE: Henry Jaglom with In's wife Victoria Foyt and daughter Sabrina mother and her lady friends let me into their world I served them coffee and cookies I got to go to all the fashion shows in he ays remember my mom sayiiig men meaning my brtother and dad are going skiing this winter up north Henry aind I are going to Palm Beach "to and bathe and 1 Already the sensitive type young Henry as grateful for the girl talk moticcd even then that when together they talked about things that had nothing to do with their feelings about sports about business or money or power Whereas my mother and he women friends were talking about their hearts their feelings'! what they were dreaming of afiid yearning for real stuff I could identify A romantic catch Apparently thie of color and fabrics and served Jaglom well With women he became a romantic catch the kind of guy wh can communicate about his eniotions who can stay with old flames (torch sin Andrea Mar-covicci most recently) Jaglom boasts about his gender-bending relal ionship with his LUIS SANTEIRO'S THE approach: camera at hen party As with Ealing Jaglom created only the basic plot and asked his actresses to improvise the rest based on personal experience After interviewing hundreds of women he sent 31 home with journals told them thought you've ever had about having a baby every childhood memory of it any reasons you want to have one babies and men babies and your past write it Unscripted dialogue What evolved was the unscripted dialogue For Jaglom the key to exploring any issue and his defense against feminists who accuse him of skewing SSSSglHBB rFREE ff DAILY CIRCUS! WORLDS USGEST 12-SCRHJI DRlVt-W I Mwtuon onr M0 pr fat Vendor Spict lAfiTr ifi(S COODGfVlDU6S la 3291 Sunnse Blvd Ft Lauderdale between 1-95 the turnpike 1-800-345-SWAP kFINAL WEEKiq A UNITED STATES PREMIERE SHAKESPEARE! FESTIVAL The Carrusel Theatre 235 Alcazar Coral Gables Evening Performances: Wed-Sat 8pm MATINEES Wed at Sun at 4pm ENDS MAY 15 teSWHfcj By KAREN AVENOSO New York Daily News NEW YORK If filmmaker Henry Jaglom penned a personal ad it would probably read: White Man Who I was says the 52-year-old director first real girlfriend told me it was like having a boyfriend and girlfriend wrapped into one Even then I remember being the only guy at the baby and lingerie He's an odd combination this gray-haired dad in rumpled denims and droopy fishing cap: part Phil Donahue (the caring and sharing stuff) part Gloria Stei-nem (the self-esteem sound bites) part Woody Allen (minus the horn-rims and public peccadilloes) Think of Henry Jaglom as a sex symbol for SWFs who have spent decades in therapy bemoaning brutes Art-film niche In the past five years Jaglom has cornered the art-film market on female neurosis and its related terrain Blind dates gone bad Cohabitation frustrations Chocolate ice cream binges at 2 am Recently Jaglom has been attending showers again this time with camera in hand In Babyfever his 10th movie 30 well-coiffcd thirtysomethings toast a big-bellied friend Baby-fever premiered at this Miami Film Festival and opened in select South Florida theaters Friday When the women cooing insincerely or sampling a storkshaped cake they're kvetching about their diminishing egg supplies and infantile mates And kvetching and kvetching So a nice Jewish guy like Jaglom doing in a touchy-feely feminine world like this? And what makes him an expert on menstrual cramps and lipstick shades? Jaglom says he's always been "one of the Growing up in a wealthy upper West Side family he was introduced to Vogue and Balenciaga at an early age ROOSTER AND THE EGG A NEW COMEDY Directed by Arthur Storch From the author of Mixed Blessings The Lady From Havana and i Que Pasa USA Sponsored in part by SAVINGS NIGHT THIS THURSDAY ALL SEATS: $15 Good for his career sensitivity to women's concerns has helped his career too Early on the director says he realized his Hollywood peers were ignoring half of the moviegoing population filmmakers are making movies for other men or for that mythical boy in Des Moines or Dubuque or wherever market demographics tell them they have to aim What those young boys want to see is violence mindless adolescent destruction What they want to see is women unless Barbie So Jaglom began picking up the cinematic slack depicting what he had witnessed at the coffee klatsches Eating (1991) explores fasting binging and purging and every eating disorder in between Set at a Los Angeles birthday party and centered around a goody-laden table it interweaves a loose story line with a documentary about women and food When the camera swings to face them guests talk passionately about their particular method of eating pumpernickel-raisin bread Weeping they lament they have substituted loaves for love Babyfever uses the same.