Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 95

B3 This Love One for the Books Eggstravaganza The King Manor Museum ia hosting an egg hunt with plastic eggs stuffed with goodies as the quarry and a chance to meet the Easter Bunny The hunt is set for 1 pm tomorrow Sunday if it rains (There are no museum tours during the event) The museum is on Jamaica Avenue at 153rd Street Jamaica Admission is $2 a child tree for accompanying adults call 718-206-0545 IM Photo 8000 Alia Oainw -ary property across to audiences in you know where This may also explain the totally awkward ana distracting use of old Motown hits or Van Morrison (twice) which comes across like the last-minute insurance policy someone buys before their ValueJet takes off Bridget Jones slightly dissipated and lovelorn heroine of faux memoir is 32 years old 129 pounds after and has few romantic prospects other than her clearly untrustworthy editor and boss Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant at his slightly gaunt and seedy best) Sick of and importune questions about her love life Bridget begins a diary telling it cutting back on booze the wrong kind of men (describing Cleaver to a tee) and sulking about said love life resolve we can tell will be somewhat less than steely We can also tell with very little effort where the story is heading Tip-off No 1 being the suggestive name of Mark Darcy factor Conn Firth whose performance as Jane Darcy in and coincidentally is mentioned in the book) Bridgets mum (Gemma Jones) who will soon leave dad (the marvelous Jim Broadbent) for a ginger-skinned TV-shopping pitchman wants to pair Bridget and Mark but neither candidate is impressed a sure sign of things to come Bridget meanwhile trades suggestive office e-mail with Cleaver who is easily the most entertaining character in this film (the debut feature by filmmaker Sharon former commercial director documentarian) Zellweger is as usual adorable Firth is appropriately stolid and Grant gets all this good comic lines or just knows how to deliver them The thrust of the story is how miserable it is being a single young woman while still making it look like a lark One peculiar note about is again the music The songs in the film itself such the Weather Girls singing the Fair Affair The Belmont Stakes Fair opens for its fourth consecutive year today with more than 100 rides and attractions including hiddieland magic acts carnival games and more The fair runs through May 6 Fridays at 5 pm Saturdays and Sundays at noon dosing at midnight at the Belmont Racetrack in Elmont Admission is $5 information 516-293-4242 ext 12 or wwwbelmontfaircom MHMET JONES'S MARY (R) Singleton Agontetss: From the best-selling novel by Helen Fielding the self-told story of Bridget Jones career girt part-time Inebriate and unconvincing cynic about romance Not quits the book but that doesn't make It a good movie With Rente ZSflweger Hugh Grant Colin Firth Gemma Jones Jim Broad bent Screenplay by Helen Fielding Andrew Davies Richard Curtis Directed by Sharon Maguire 1:34 (adult situations content language) At area theaters By John Anderson 8TAFT WHITER 11 EW YORK comedian Scott I Blakeman has a routine that I goes something like this: 1 I does every political cam wJ have to be about frunil or kids? Why doesn't a candidate ever stand up and say This election is about being SINGLE! And Because Scott the tradeoff has been made: Marrieda get the politics singles get the movies It Isn't Like The Wedding The last big-budget domestic movie The Family Man' essentially was wedded bliss as nightmare Wife and kid dead within minutes In the movies marriage means end of story if not life itself And what does cinematic slant on nuptial limbo have to do with the insistently English English cast English-made and suety Diary? Because an En-movie for Americans as were other Working Title Filmspro-ductions and Weddings and a Funeral which successfully reduced British culture down to a lump of softened if not actually pre-chewed Cadbury The most humiliating situations are resolved with either exquisite good manners or painful self-effacement the tawdriest of situations are made sophisticated by precise placement of the proper lion mot un-American in its manner and never good-mannered enough to be stuffy unless the purpose is making Enghshnesa seem amusing starring in this creation is the expertly vocally coached and calorie-enhanced Rente Zellweger whose presence must indicate that there are no film actresses available in Britain or (gasp!) that the Working Title Miramax people couldn't trust a native to carry such a valuable liter- Number 2 NEWSDAY FRIDAY APRIL 13 2001 Prisoners Of Their Gender onusEviEiim ubiquitous Raining Men (during Darcy-Cleaver fistfight a i that I recall from the book)or the Supremes No Mountain High for whatever reason) ana the two versions of the same Van Morrison song would seem to be imposed on the mm to generate CD soundtrack sales but the aren't on the CD So dont be This badly constructed pop score is just a badly constructed pop score THE CMCtf (U) The director of 'The White Balloon returns with a quietly devastating drama that lays bate the repressive social codes governing women In Iran Director Jafar Panahl weaves a sinuous spelt that knocks you flat by the final scene 131 In Farsi with English subtitles tlncoin Plaza Angelika Film Center Manhattan By Jan Stuart STAFF WHITER vice in the land where dial telephones still roamed A good-hearted fixer with no life of her own she sits in her shirt-tales and capri pants (deft costumes by David Woolard) and greets her glamorous callers in appropriate voices And just as Ella changes her identity with each tug of a telephone line Prince changes the subtexts of her Bongs from exquisite phrase to phrase This is not the face of a deli- cate flower but she transforms from rl buddy to romantic heroine lutzy nobody to mystery muse as if the years of unflattering roles and misguided choices had never happened She is ably supported by Marc Ku-disch who brings an old-time Broadway baritone suavity to the role of Jef- -frey Moss the blocked playboy playwright without seeming too smitten with his profile to play the buffoon David Garrison is a savvy hoot as the bookie with the Viennese airs who courts Sue the trusting owner (Beth Fowler) of Susanswerphone with his own special accent Martin Moran goes over the top a bit but just a bit as the frustrated dentist who writes songs on his air hose and Julio Agus-tin turns the Hispanic delivery man cliches on their ear The plot is filled with familiar dancing in the Manhattan streets and stock clown cops but the music is romantic and the lyrics know that silly and literate can live comfortably together With Jeff snaf this ia a production that actuall and loves the elegance of style In a season of disappointing high-profile musicals is a lovely surprise 1 3S ti tUi ONE OF the few consoling moments in The two women share a reunion in the cramped confines of a cinema box office where one of them works selling tickets The get-together is warm and loving but the scene has a slightly sinister overcast We glimpse them through the iron pill of the box office making the women appear as if they are in prison That box office shot is no accident As it happens the women know each other from an earlier experience behind bars Like each of the seven women stalked by Jafar camera in his shattering new drama they have See CIRCLE on Bll Miramax Film I Rente Zellweger end Hugh Grant In "Bridget Jones's Diary" I 1 i i ll If I i -i oi' nine I.