The Fresno Bee from Fresno, California • 65

The Fresno Bee Friday June 24 1994 Weekend SECTION LION ROARS BEST BET FRIDAY Alumni of the Benny Goodman Orchestra including Gisele MacKenzie will be featured in to Benny big-band concert at Warnors Theatre BEST BET SATURDAY Fig Garden Village will be alive with music art and food during an Art Festival Saturday BEST BET SUNDAY Susie Luchsinger sister of country star Reba McEntire will be featured in a country gospel concert Sunday at Kastner Intermediate School MUSIC Heir bail Cub Simba is seen as a threat to his uncle Scar Top-notch effort full of color life By John Scalzi The Fresno Bee When it is not busy flooding the market with mediocre live-action products or actively subverting American history in the name of theme park profits the Walt Disney Co does something that very nearly redeems its largely shameless existence At least once a year Disney gives the world another animated film full of color and song and life And it works For a brief moment you lose that suspicion that when Big Brother comes around the bend going to have four fingers on each hand a helium balloon voice and two big round ears sitting way up high You just sit back and enjoy yourself No one makes animated films like Disney Nobody even comes close In the past few years no one has made any kind of film with the consistent high quality that Disney has with its animated films Disney animated films Please see Page F2 Standing tall A mature Simba decides to return home to take his place as king Blood Sweat and Tears is on stage Saturday at the Tower Theatre Singer-pianist-comedian Danny Marona performs on Sunday at the Hacienda Resort Vocal quartet Ghost will perform in concert at a residence in Fresno today (See Around Town Page F5) The Mo Fo Party Band will play the blues on Saturday at the Fulton Mall downtown A marathon of music and comedy will be presented on Saturday afternoon and evening at the Wilson Theatre Fresno contemporary jazz band No Prisoners will perform at at Bass Lake on Sunday Around the clubs: Cannibal Corpse Sunday at the Cadillac Club Nate Butler and friends play The Beatles on Sunday at Club Fred Rapid Transit plays on Saturday at Park TREATER Disney reigns over animation Cub scouts Simba is helped by wart hog Pumbaa and meerkat Timon By John Scalzi The Fresno Bee When it comes to animated films there is Disney and there is everybody else Simply put no other studio or company has ever come close to the success that Disney has had with its films The closest competitor would be Steven Spielberg who teamed up with animator Don Bluth to make American the most successful non-Disney animated film of all time But American Tail: Fievel Goes was crushed by and the when the two went into head-to-head competition in the winter of 1991 recent Back! A Dinosaurs fared even worse last winter As for Bluth if you were to combine the grosses of his two most recent animated films and Christian the resulting tally would be about one-tenth the gross of the most successful animated film of all time So with the release of Lion it seems as good a time as any to ask: What does Disney know that everyone else A co-director and the producer of Lion say the answer the a satirical comedy about modem manners is new this weekend at the Good Company Second Space Theatre the musical based on Charles opens tonight at Fresno Playhouse MOVIES The Lion King Featuring the vocal talents of Matthew Broderick James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons Written by Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts and Linda Woolverton Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff A Walt Disney Pictures release UA Sierra Vista and Festival Cinemas 1 hour 25 minutes Rating: A is simple: the stories are a number of successful films that are not Disney films but certainly not to the degree of said Robert Minkoff a co-director with Roger Allers of Lion lot of that is attributable to the storytelling in the films And until the other studios grasp that idea I Please see Lion Page F2 Pride is showing Baboon Rafiki holds Simba son of Mufasa and Sarabi New this week: Lion back with the story of a lion cub who must face adulthood The life and times of the legendary lawman VIDEOS New this week (Reviews Page F3): Hey look! Wyatt Earp again! An American Walter look at the famous American Indian More details appear in Page F7 Romance in the Old West Wyatt Earp (Kevin Costner) and Josie (Joanna Going) fall in love Costner takes second shot at an epic and misses MOVIE REVIEW Wyatt Earp Starring Kevin Costner Dennis Quaid and Gene Hackman Written by Dan Gordon and Lawrence Kasdan Directed by Kasdan A Warner Bros release UA Sierra Vista and Fig Garden Cinemas 3 hours 15 minutes PG-13 Rating: C- Around Town Melody and rhythm Voice and instrument Music is as simple as that Page F5 Dining Out The Sherwood Inn in Sanger comes from the old school of pleasing patrons Page F5 Mosh ado about something The new club Freynoe Time offers a low-key punk experience in downtown Fresno Page F6 Broadcast Beat b- Channel 18 follows a handful of Fresno TV stations in showing Koom Siab" a show in Hmong with English subtitles Page F10 By John Scalzi The Fresno Bee Kevin Costner tempted fate once when against all conventional wisdom he made a three-hour western that looked great but in which nothing much seemed to happen It was called With As you might recall it gobbled up a lot of Oscars Costner with the help of his friend writer-director Lawrence Kasdan has decided to tempt fate once again Thus a three-hour western that also looks great but in which even less seems to happen than in With Someone should have told these guys to stop while they were ahead The quandry with is that it gives us no compelling reason why it has to be three hours long The reason is that Costner and Kasdan have enough clout to keep their film that length when the studio surely would have preferred it to be at least an hour shorter Narratively however little excuse This film done with a heap of judicious editing Or even injudicious editing You could lop off the first hour of this film and no one would notice Just stick in an extra who says the Earp brothers Please see Earp Page F4 Gunfighters From left Doc Holliday (Dennis Quaid) Morgan Earp (Linden Ashby) Wyatt Earp (Kevin Costner) and Virgil Earp (Michael Madsen).