The Buffalo News from Buffalo, New York • 76

26 GUSTO THE BUFFALO REVIEW Movie EXHALE NOW A jazzy, old-fashioned love story By MARY KUNZ News Staff Reviewer Larenz Tate, the tough guy in "Dead He has eyes only for her. Best of all, it turns out, he's smart and well-read and has excellent musical taste, drawing parallels between Mozart and Charlie Parker. Still, Nina has reservations. When Darius pursues her, she says, "I'm sorry the timing is She tells him, coolly, that there are other poetry topics besides sex. Hasn't he thought of love? Thus begins a rocky romance.

"Love Jones," which captured viewers' hearts at the Sundance Film Festival, is an elegant African-American take on the time- INA IS an art photographer who has a meet mean Through poetry in a the boyfriend. reading lovely, crowd is smoky Darius of taking hip, is nightclub a place. attentive young, called eye. Approaching the microphone, he smiles a little something I've been working on," he says. To the suggestive accompaniment of a I got to admit, girl You're the 5---, girl.

So it's not Cole Porter. It generates a certain is intrigued. Darius has a wide-eyed charm MARCH 14, 1997 THE just been dumped by a struggling poet. They the Sanctuary, where listeners, he catches her slight smile. "This is a "I call it 'A Blues for a stand-up bass, he begins: THE THRILLING CONCLUSION TO THE STAR WARS SAGA OF THE EDI "RETURN OF THE JEDI" STARRING MARK HAMILL HARRISON FORD CARRIE FISHER BILLY DEE WILLIAMS ANTHONY DANIELS AS PO CO MI.

DAVID PROWSE KLNNY BAKER PETER MAYHEW FRANK OZ IT by RICHARD MARQUAND REIN HY HOWARD KAZANJIAN By LAWRENCE KASDAN AND GEORGE LUCAS STORY GEORGE LUCAS EXECUTIVE GEORGE LUCAS JOHN WILLIAMS JUS IM A LUCASALM LID PROCUCTION A TWENTIETH CENTURY HON RELEASE PHANTS BY DE LUNES www.starwars.com heat. Nina (Nia Long) (interestingly, he's played by and "Menace II SociMAPLE RIDGE Maple Sweet Home MOVIE Love Jones Rating: In Chicago's black community, a wary romance develops between a writer and a photographer. Starring Larenz Tate, Nia Long and Isaiah Washington. Rated opens today at area theaters. honored plot: Supremely good looking couple get together, bicker, break up, pick up with other great-looking people, get back together, bicker some more, break up and get back together (or not).

The thing is, "Love Jones" is so pretty to look at and listen to that its moldy story hardly matters. It's far better-made than that cheaplooking "Waiting to Exhale," the recent romance to which it will probably be compared. The movie unfolds like a big bubbly champagne ad. It's spring in Chicago, where "Love Jones" takes place. Birds chirp.

The sun filters through the windows of Nina's impressive apartment. (She lives in a loftlike space with shining hardwood floors and an incredible kitchen that looks like a posh cafe in Allentown.) Her first date with Darius finds them in a swank get-together that looks like a spread in Traditional Home, with six or seven beautiful people sitting around sipping white wine and frosty beers and eating baby carrots. (Yuppiedom transcends race.) The friends, including Isaiah Washington as Darius' best buddy, entertainingly bat around light philosophical matters such as whether God is a woman. They laugh appreciatively as they exchange jive versions of what the British would call witty after-dinner remarks. Back at Nina's place, Darius stays over and in the morning, he's in her dream of a kitchen making flawless, even garnished, omelets.

What perfect tableaux! Who cares if we never find out how, exactly, Darius pays his bills, or how Nina lives so well on her photographer'sdrudge salary? You've got to love the fantasy. In many ways, "Love Jones" is a celebration of black culture. Its sultry soundtrack is a mix of jazz and vintage soul. The house band in the beautiful Sanctuary club features saxophonist Teodross Avery and drummer Carl Allen. In the inevitable music montages, the couple wander the streets to the accompaniment of Coltrane and Ellington playing "In a Sentimental Mood," or Buddy Guy singing "It Feels Like Rain." There's one funny scene in which Nina and Darius toss sweatily in their respective beds to the tune of Billy Eckstine's "Jelly Jelly." But "Love Jones" is also a celebration of old-fashioned glamour.

I didn't see one computer in the whole movie. I don't even think I saw a TV. People in this movie favor plain old black phones. They play vinyl LPs the camera lingers on the turntable as Charlie Parker swings into "Parker's Mood." Darius pounds away at an ancient, jangling typewriter. And everyone takes trains, not airplanes.

(There's even a '30s- type scene in Union Station with Darius dashing after Nina's train.) The people in "Love Jones" are creative in an old-fashioned sense. Instead of renting videos, they socialize. They go to jazz clubs. They dance. In one memorable scene, Darius and Nina go out "stepping" a contemporary Chicago version of jitterbugging.

No violence mars the mood. As the movie's writer and director, Theodore Witcher, points out in the press kit, "There is not one lethal weapon in the film, and the only wound is a broken heart." Ultimately, the movie is in support of commitment and marriage. So if "Love Jones" doesn't exactly have anything new, so what? It's full of all kinds of things old, borrowed and blue. And there's RESENTED EXCLUSIVELY IN TRACK DIGITAL CINEMA 8 McKINLEY 6 WALDEN GALLERIA MALL EASTERN HILLS LOCKPORT CINEMA 8 8 Stile Sarto Bds. 024-3479 bait 10 Walden 601-4850 transit at it.

431-1000 Lockport 431-0001 AND STILL PLAYING WINE SPEC EDITION AT THESE THEATRES! SEPARATE ADMISSION REQUIRED GENERAL CINEMA GENERAL CINEMA CENTRAL CINEMA McKINLEY 6 UNIVERSITY 8 GALLERIA MALL LOCKPORT CINEMA 8 Mall 837-4373 1-00 bait 10 Walden Ave. 601-4500 439-0001 Mile Strip 004-3479 Maple 04. 8 of GENERAL CINCINA MARKET ARCADE NOW SHOWING AT THESE EMPIRE STRIKES SPECIAL THESE PG SEPARATE ADMISSION McKINLEY 6 WALDEN GALLERIA Mile 004-3479 14 Walden 481-4550 NO PASSES ACCEPTED FOR ANY Watch the Academy Awards on "The Perfect Date Movie! Marvelously entertaining, romantic and utterly charming." Paul Wunder, WEAl CINEMA MARKET ARCADE Theatre District matthew PERRY salma HAYEK Fools Rush In An impulsive love story. COLUMBIANI PG-13 PICTURES! NOW SHOWING AMC GENERAL CINEMA MAPLE RIDGE 8 I WALDEN GALLERIA MAPLE SWEET HOME 190 EXIT 52 833-9500 681-4550 www.sony.com SUPER SAVER ALL DAY EVERY DAY CINEMA ELMWOOD CENTER 876-8120 Between 2050 Kenmore Elmwood Ave. Hertel RANSOM (R) 1:00 4:00 7:10 9:40 SPACE JAM (PG) 12:20 2:20 4:20 7:00 9:00 THE PREACHER'S WIFE (PG) 12:50 3:45 7:15 9:50 JACKIE CHAN'S FIRST STRIKE (PG-13) 12:30 2:30 4:30 7:25 9:15 MARS ATTACKSI (PG-13).

12:40 2:45 4:50 7:20 9:30 ONE FINE DAY (PG) 12:40 3:00 7:30 MIRROR HAS TWO FACES (PG-13) 5:00 9:30 STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (PG-13) 12:20 2:35 7:30 GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI (PG-13) 4:45 9:45 EVENING STAR (PG-13) 1:00 3:30 7:00 9:30 BACK EDITION THEATRES! REQUIRED THEATRES MAPLE RIDGE I MALL EASTERN HILLS LOCKPORT CINEMA Nd. at Mala Lockport hall ENGAGEMENT March 24th on ABC GOOD MORNING AMERICA, Joel Siegel ROLLING STONE, Peter Travers "A GREAT FILM!" "ONE TERRIFIC MOVIE!" SISKEL EBERT "TWO THUMBS UP!" USA TODAY, Susan Wloszczyna THE NEW YORK TIMES. Janet Mashin "CRACKLING GOOD, THIS IS THE BEST CRIME MOVIE IN A LONG WHILE!" AL PACINO JOHNNY DEPP DONNIE BRASCO Based On A True Story TRIS Rae mandalay CUR. STAR NOW MAPLE AMC RIDGE 8 MARKET GENERAL CINEMA ARCADE GENERAL THRUWAY CINEMA MALL SHOWING MAPLE 833-9500 SWEET HOME DOWNTOWN 855 THEATRE 3022 DISTRICT HARLEM RD. AT 893-4068 WALDEN AVE.

Watch the Academy Awards March 24th on ABC www.sony.com.