Newsday from New York, New York • 61

53 ENTERTAINMENT 3 I IROCKIREVIEW IMOVIEIREVIEW 5 Grateful Fans Like The Deads Set THE 6 HATEFUL DEAD WITH LITTLE FEAT. Te-dysd-in-ths-wool (xurtar-cuBuraBsm, with guitar backup. Giants Stadium. Monday night John Anderson STAFF WHITER LOOKED LIKE a convenience store exploded in the parking lot of Gianta Stadium, where the Grateful Deads camp followers had established their floating city for two nights. Cities need provisions, Nathalie Bays, a divorced mother who seea her children Every Other of course, and where the Dead folk go, beer cans as well as dogs, bicycles Puzzling Misadventure and babies follow.

It was as entertaining outside the stadium Monday night as it was inside and, no, this is not another Dead review focusing on the fans instead of the band. But when you think about it, reviewing the Grateful Dead is like reviewing the Pope; you cant write about the Dead and ignore the audience anymore than you can write about the Pontiff and ignore the church. And it waa high mass at Giants Cathedral Monday night, the second of two and, by most reports, the better performance. But, again, reviewing the Dead is, like papal criticism, sort of futile: If you dont like them, you dont get it. If you do, youre preaching to the EVERY OTHER WEEKEND.

(U) UnfewoMng French drama about a dhmrcad actress who runs off wNh her two children. Nathale Bays, Joachim Serreau, Felds Pasott, MW Manojlovic. Directed and co-written by Nicole Garda. In French with Engtsh subtitles. At Cinema Third Avenue, Manhattan.

We, however, must consider one night as just that, and as Dead shows go, this one wasnt bad. The sound was horrendous much of the time, although the quality seemed to vary throughout the acoustic perfection that is Giants Stadium. But the band which right now includes Bruce Hornsby on piano seemed focused, giving tight renditions of mostly familiar songs and playing with considerable energy. They opened with Eyes of the World, musically one of the bands more interesting songs, and an unusual first number, which probably delighted the large assemblage of tape heads who record every Dead show. The crowd around their rainbow cluster of umbrellas was a seamless carpet of waving arms and bobbing skulls that never stopped moving, even when the band played Bob Dylans When I Paint My Masterpiece with unbridled lethargy.

After about an hour the band tooka40-minute break and returned to do Cae-Bady, Ship of Fools, and Uncle John's Band, often teasing the audience with snippets of ancient Dead material and then launching into different numbers entirely. They also did a pretty lively version of Truckin still best-known song and one included on Deadicated, the current tribute album. That the band can, after almost three decades, be on the road as much as it is and be the subject of tribute albums as well says something about its stamina, and that of the audience. Little Feat, whose audience has come to resemble that of the Dead both in its appetite for nostalgia and its fashion sense, rocked the house with its opening set, and did it playing only three songs recorded since the band reformed in 1988, after 10 years. If Feat ever wants to establish an identity not baaed on nostalgia its members ought to drop the chestnuts and play nothing but their new material, which certainly deserves the exposure.

II converted. Her assignment this weekend is to lend her glamorous presence to a Rotary Chib benefit in Vichy. Theres just one problem, besides the distastefulness of the job: Camilles former husband, Adrian (Miki Manojlovic), has custody of their 10-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter, but the divorce agreement call for her to look after them on alternate weekends. And this is one of those weekends. Camilles solution: drag the youngsters along to Vichy.

When Adrian objects and announces hes coming to retrieve them, Camille runs out in the middle of the Rotary affair, steals a rental car and whisks the children away to a seaside resort. What fun a combination vacation and kidnaping. On the surface, Camilles actions are not particularly admirable. For us to sympathize with the character, we need to gain insight into her background and motivations, but the script (by Garcia and three collaborators) is frustratingly reticent on this sane. We have nothing to go on beyond Camilles short visit to her brother (Gilles Treton), who indicates that her selfish streak is not a By Terry Kelleher 8TAFF WRITER TS HARD to know what to make of Every Other Weekend, and not because the French drama is some kind of Godardian puzzle.

Director Nicole Garda, an actress best remembered for her work in Mem Oncle dAmerique and Beau Pere, brings a straightforward storytelling style to her feature debut behind the camera. Theres no doubt about what happens, but Garcia hasnt a great deal to offer on the question of why. The main character, Camille Val-mont (Nathalie Baye), is a Paris-based television actress who has lost much of her star status but little of the arro-that went with it. These days, agent reminds her, she must go slumming to make ends meet. Add to this the fact that no matter how good or bad or wildly erratic the Dead are, some things never change: Bob Weir is never going to be a singer, Jerry Garcia (looking more and more like that other American icon, Walt Whitman) is always going to careen from fits of melodirasm to infuriating noodle music, and Phil Leahs bass will, from time to time, burp like Mount Pinatubo.

Their audience doesnt care; it doesnt consider Grateful Dead shows as individual events anyway. All the shows are part of the continuing and transcendent work of art that is the band itself. Please see WEEKEND on Page 77 1 IMOVIEIREVIEW aiA Amiro, a Homeless Bolt of Joy on Iran Streets THE RUNNER. (U) Forceful, simple tale of Kfe among Iran's dispossessed. Starring Madjid Niroumand.

Written try Amir Naderi and Betwouz Gharibpour. Directed by Naderi. WMh English subtitles. At Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St; Manhattan.

could have been worse off under the shah. They have nothing anyway. Amiro, portrayed with precocious fervor by young Madjid Niroumand, is an unguided missile, a force of nature; he wants to escape his life, all the circumstances that make mere existence a continuous struggle. His exuberance is such that he constantly screams at planes, at trains, at birds in flight Take me with you! And he constantly runs racing with his friends, chasing trucks or pursuing one of the adults who continually try to rip him off. At approximately 10 years old, the orphaned, destitute Amiro has unlimited potential.

And no luck. What makes the boy unique among his contemporaries is his realization certain difficulties in learning to read, he answers I know sir, but I must learn. I have no choice. Although the land is hard and the life even harder, director Amir Naderi finds much beauty in his native Iran: the deep blue of the sky and sea or just the jewel-like bottles bobbing in the bay; he refers to the possibilities of life rather than its grim reality. Amiro is one of those possibilities.

Niroumand gives a remarkable performance, thoroughly uninhibited and completely engrossing. The final scene the boys race across a field surrounded by fire, in pursuit of a block of ice quickly melting atop a oil drum is the young actors finest moment in the film, one full of hope as well as rage at all the wasted potential in a generation. Irans censors couldnt see it, but then NEW YORK NEWSOAY. WEDNESDAY. JUNE 19.

By John Anderson STAFF WRITER THE GOVERNMENT OF Iran, we are told, did not find The Runner to be a controversial film, which only proves how obtuse a government can be. An allegorical attack on post-revolutionary life in Iran, this 1985 film focuses on Amiro, one of many homeless young boys who live around the seaport and support themselves giving Bhoe-shines to sailors, collecting bottles and selling ice water to parched refinery workers. (Ice water! Cool your liver! says one of the subtitles, whose translations are often sukpect.) Adults are vir- Madjid Niroumand as Amiro in The Runner' that his life is a dead-end and that to board the small blue plane that so fascinates him or to catch the trains and trucks he chases, he must be educated. Told by the local schoolmaster that he is too old for first grade, that hell face. t't Mir Vs tually non-existent save as a source of harassment.

And as representatives of, Iran as a whole, its doubtful the boys.