UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, August 18.1997
11D
Aussie comedy coming to USA
Love Serenade offers new twist on life, loves
The Associated Press
Love Serenade is a movie that could not be made anywhere but in Australia, that breeding ground for unique, quirky films that are somehow different from anything we have seen before.
Think Muriel's Wedding and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Absurd, bizarre and touching,
Love Serenade is a black comedy
as far from Hollywood sensibilities
as the planet Mars.
This is the story of Dimity and
Vicki-Ann Hurley, two very odd sisters living in a mythical Australian backwater town called Sunray.
The town, as seen through the camera of writer-director Shirley Barrett, is a place of empty expanses mirroring the arid lives of its characters — a waltress and a hairdresser with naive notions of what love's all about.
It is no wonder that the arrival of a new neighbor in their suffocating environment is enough to turn the girls' world topsy-turvy.
The neighbor is a glum, lanky, long-faced man named Ken Sherry, a disc jockey from the big city who has retreated from Brisbane drive-time radio to become the one-man voice of Sunray radio
Sherry, as played by George Shevtsov, is a truly creepy character. But he mesmerizes the town
and the two sisters with his repertoire of Barry White songs, including Love Serenade.
This thrice-divorced, washed-up DJ, who is about as sexy as a fish, is selling a sexual message, and the girls are ready to buy.
Dimity, played by Miranda Otto,
and Vicki-Ann, played by Rebecca
Frith, each are smitten with the
new man in town.
Dimity, an awkward, colorless little mouse, is dominated by her flashier sister, the hairdresser who keeps a wedding gown on hand at all times, just in case.
Thrown into a competition for Sherry's attentions, the sisters eventually come to discover that there is something weird about this man. Really weird.
The discovery turns them and the movie in a direction that is part
John Waters, part horror movie. The secret of Barrett's directorial success is that she makes the horrific seem ordinary and funny at the same time.
There is an anti-male underpinning to this story that may bother some viewers, although it is slightly relieved by the comic character of Albert Lee, a Chinese restaurant operator who employs Dimity, longs after Vicki-Ann and knows Ken Sherry is trouble from the way he orders his food.
The oddball ending to this oddball comedy may be a bit over the top. But it's daring and outrageous, a welcome combination.
Love Serenade, from Miramax Films, is produced by Jane Campion, the New Zealand writer and director of the critically acclaimed movie The Piano.
Hair
Nails
Tanning
Hair Extensions
Waxing
...and More
9th and Mississippi 842-5921
Movie examines gay-bashing death
Any Mother's Son tested crew with emotions, time
The Hajdys story, "Any Mother's Son," is on the Lifetime Channel with Bonnie Bedelia delivering a profound performance as the distraught, confused and then
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Some news stories are tailor-made for television movies, none more so than the ordeal of a Chicago mother who fought a U.S. Navy coverup of her son's brutal murder in Japan by two gay-bashing fellow sailors.
It happened to Dorothy Hajdys, a single parent and factory worker who faced three wrenching issues: the loss of her son, her own homophobic feelings and the Navy's stonewalling of the facts of his death.
resolute mother.
The Hajdys' story, Any Mother's Son, is on the Lifetime Channel, with Bonnie Bedelia delivering a profound performance as the distraught, confused and then resolute mother.
"I recall when it happened," Bedelia said during a visit here from her Seattle home. "It hit the news pretty heavy, especially the whole coverup aspect. I
remember the big piece on it, which I reviewed just before we began shooting.
"I hadn't met Dorothy Hajyds until she came for a visit on the set in Toronto. We carefully picked the day when nothing heavy was going on."
The New York-born actress described making Any Mother's Son as a punishing challenge. The emotion was relentless, with long hours and few breaks in the shooting schedule.
"After work, I went back to the hotel, had a bowl of soup and crashed," she said. "There was no other way to do it other than staying with it the whole way through.
"It's very rough to shoot something like this in 18 days. When I first made a television movie back in the '70s, there were 24
days. The time slot was an hour and a half so, with commercials, the running time was a little over an hour."
But the cast did have the weekend to recover. Except for Sada Thompson and Hedy Burgess (Boston Common), the other performers and the crew were Canadians — and union rules precluded a six-day work week.
Her most notable films were the first two Die Hard movies, playing the wife of Bruce Willis.
Bedelia, 45, has specialized in emotional roles, dating back to 1982 and Heart Like a Wheel, in which she played another real-life character, race-car driver Shirley Muldowney.
Bedelia started performing professionally as a teen-ager. Having won a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet,
she appeared in a playhouse 90 version of The Nutcracker. Her first films came in 1969 with The Gypsy Moths (Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr) and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (Jane Fonda).
In recent years, she has been a steady performer in television movies — mostly domestic dramas, such as Alex, the Life of a Child, Switched at Birth and Sins of the Mother.
Three years ago, she married actor Michael MacRae, who had moved to Seattle 10 years before.
"He loves Seattle, and I didn't especially like Los Angeles as a place to live," she said. "My kids were grown, and I was actually thinking of moving back to New York, which is my hometown. Life does take its course."
Your locally owned Pier 1 imports associate store invites you to visit us soon to see all the new and unique merchandise our international buyers have found for you from around the world. Our local staff reminds you to also enjoy the extra items that we've personally selected to give you even more choices and the best prices we can offer.
Open until 8:30 pm Weeknights through August!
A Back to School Tradition in Downtown Lawrence
ASSOCIATE STORE
841-7525
736 Massachusetts, Downtown Lawrence
SCALES & TAILS PET SHOP Formerly known as Animal House Welcome Back Students
Huge Reptile Sale
Many Discounted Items
FULL LINE PET STORE Fish • Small Animals • Ferrets
Reptiles...
Specializing in
The Special Pet
For Special People.
25th & Iowa • 2201 W 25th
Behind Food 4 Less
843-PETS
THE
SEASON AND SINGLE TICKETS ARE ON SALE NOW TO STUDENTS
LIED CENTER OF KANSAS 1997-98 SEASON
CONCERT SERIES
NEW YORK CITY OPERA NATIONAL CO. in Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment
SAMUEL RAMEY bass-baritone, with the KANSAS
BAND OF FLYERS
January 29, 1998 8:08 PM
CHRISTOPHER PARKENING
October 18, 1997, 8:00 p.m.
THE BOYS CHOIR OF HARLEM
April 19, 1998, 7:00 p.m.
STARS OF THE KIROV BALLET
November 4, 1977, 8:00 p.m.
NEW DIRECTIONS SERIES
BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS
October 21, 1997, 8:00 p.m.
DONALD BYRD/THE GROUP
September 26, 1997, 8:00 p.m.
PHILIP GLASS & SUSAN MARSHALL In Les Enfants Terribles
MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP
February 10, 1998, 8:00 a.m.
BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANY
March 18, 1984 - 8:00 p.m.
SWARTHOUT CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
THE KING'S SINGERS
October 28, 1907 8:00 p.m.
TOKYO STRING QUARTET
january 18,1988 - 3:00 p.m.
SHANGHAI QUARTET with Eugenia Zukerman, flute & Yolanda Kondonassis, harp February 15, 2019, 8:34 p.m.
UPTOWN STRING QUARTET
April 5, 1998, 3:00 p.m.
BROADWAY & BEYOND SERIES
A CHORUS LINE October 13, 1997, 8:00 p.m.
HOWTO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING November 22, 1997, 2:00 & 8:00 p.m.
REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY in The Complete History of America (abridged)
January 31, 1998, 8:00 p.m.
TAP DOGS
February 27, 1998, 8:00 p.m., February 28, 5:00 & 9:00 p.m.
March 1, 2:00 p.m.
LIED FAMILY SERIES
THANG LONG WATER PUPPET THEATER
Oct. 24, 1997, 7:00 p.m. *O* 25 & 26, 1:00, 4:00 & 7:00 p.m.
ST.PETERSBURG STATE ICE BALLET in
The Nutcracker December 13, 1997, 2:00 & 7:00 p.m.
Swan Lake December 14, 1997, 2:00 & 7:00 p.m.
RELIABLE JUNK, by Ric Averill
March 7, 1998. 2:00 p.m.
CIRQUE ÉLOIZE
CIRQUE ELOIZE
April 26, 1998, 4:00 & 7:00 p.m.
For more information or tickets call the Lied Center Box Office at (913) 864-ARTS.
All tickets 1/2 price for students!
CELEBRATING OUR FIFTH SEASON