Entertainment

Billy Crystal, playing a gravedigger, is among the big-name actors in director Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet."

Brazilian pianist Arnoldo Cohen will play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 tonight with the Spokane Symphony. The Rachmaninoff Second is rivaled only by Tchaikovsky's First in popularity with audiences. Cohen, born in Brazil, educated there and in Vienna, was the 1972 first-prize winner of the Busoni Competition in Italy. His appearance in Spokane is a part of the first U.S. tour since 1971.

What is the true meaning of love? What is the true meaning of manhood? What do women really want? Can men, especially when they're bonding like the herd animals they are, ever drop their macho facades and treat their lovers with the sensitivity and respect that they truly deserve? And, most important, will they be getting any tonight? These are the burning questions posed by "Booty Call," which wins the prize for least-subtle title of the year, and has a movie to match. Two male friends in hot pursuit of sexual relief run up against two female friends with their own ideas about courtship, class and safe sex.

No one has ever needed to tell David Lynch to stop making sense. From "Eraserhead" through "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me," his films have focused on the creepy illogic of nightmare, on mocking reason and celebrating the dream state. With this director, what you get is what you see. "Lost Highway," troublesome but also the director's most accomplished work since "Blue Velvet" a decade ago, takes this tendency even further. Beautifully made but emotionally empty, it exists only for the sensation of its provocative moments. Garnished with sex and violence, it alternates scenes that exquisitely marry sound and image with moments that seem to come from a metaphysical stag film.

(photo of scene from "The Empire Strikes Back")

The last of the winter winds are blowing away the snow and now it's time to think spring fun. The months ahead offer an eclectic mix of entertainment and fun things to do. To help readers plan their social schedules so they don't miss a beat, we'll publish a day-by-day entertainment guide for spring. To get your event into the guide, send us the name of the event, the date, time, ticket information and a phone number where we can get additional information. The guide will be published March 28 in the Friday Weekend section.

Betcha didn't know next Saturday March 8 is International Women's Day, which recognizes the contributions of working women. It's a big deal in Europe and Japan - in Italy, it's called festa della donna - but somehow it has never received much attention here. Which is odd, considering the tradition started after a revolt in the mid-1800s by women garment workers in New York.

A bunch of olive-complected guys get together in "Donnie Brasco," and you know what that means - guns, autopsies, "youse" as the plural of "you." Virtually all of the Italian-American characters in movies are mobsters and "Donnie Brasco" is no exception, but it has a new take on mobbery. Johnny Depp plays Brasco, an undercover FBI man who befriends Lefty (Al Pacino), a Mafioso who treats Donnie like the son he never had.

Talk about your classic case of yin and yang. A new German restaurant - where the menu is mostly meat - has opened just next door to Mizuna, Spokane's upscale vegetarian restaurant. Oh well, contrast is good.

It is an American nightmare. The president of the United States stands in the Oval Office, all crisp, starched and presidential, and orders his staff to assassinate private citizens. Why? Because he wants to. Because he can. Because they threaten him. The president is played by Gene Hackman. The movie is "Absolute Power." And nothing like this has ever happened in American history, at least that we know of. But the fantasy of a bad president - one that is either evil, ineffectual or both - has captured the imagination of filmmakers in recent years. Meanwhile, the traditional image of the strong, effective president has all but disappeared. The one exception was in 1995's "The American President," with Michael Douglas as a kind of idealized Bill Clinton figure. But that film had a retro, Frank Capra feel.

"North Star," the second of two Christopher Lambert losers, had the dubious distinction of opening without benefit of a single display ad in the Sacramento Bee. But "North Star," which played Sacramento on a double bill with another Warner Bros. film, "Sleepers," has more of a pedigree, if not much else in its favor. Co-starring James Caan as its wild-eyed villain, the film was directed by art-house favorite Nils Gaup ("The Pathfinder") and is set in Nome, Alaska at the turn of the century, circa 1899.

The Fumes will play the South-by-Southwest music conference in March.

(No Caption - Photo of movie)

Ten things you probably didn't know about the "Star Wars" trilogy: 1. While shooting the first film, Mark Hamill had a nightmare in which he and Carrie Fisher slammed into a wall while rehearsing their big rope swing and were immediately replaced by Robbie Benson and Jodie Foster. 2. The little Jawas who first cart off R2-D2 and C-3PO are actually five Tunisian children, an English midget, a French-Tunisian midget and producer Gary Kurtz's two daughters. 3. George Lucas originally wanted Orson Welles to speak for Darth Vader but decided his voice was too well known.

'Rosewood; stars Jon Voight and Ving Rhames.

Got a bad case of cabin fever? Shake it and the lingering winter blues at the Cabin Fever Boogie at the Linger Longer Lounge in Spirit Lake, Idaho, on Saturday. Entertaining are four blues bands: including Chris Hiatt, Cafe Blue, Yo and de Cats and the Heeters.

Though portrayed by actor Geoffrey Rush in the film "Shine," David Helfgott is no fictional character. He's a real-life pianist whose career collapsed just as it was beginning. Now, 25 years later, Helfgott is resurfacing.

C-3PO and R2-D2 return to the screen in the "Star Wars" trilogy.

"Trainspotting" follows a group of friends on the road to nowhere.