Two Words, One Answer.
dick freeman
 The Ghost and Mrs. Muir $14.98 Joseph Mankiewicz's moody classic is less ghost story than romantic fantasy, a handsome 1947 drama of impossible love set on the picturesque turn-of-the-century New England coast. Independent young widow Lucy Muir (the luminous Gene Tierney), desperate to escape her uptight in-laws, falls in love with a grand seaside house and moves in, only to discover the cantankerous ghost of the hot-tempered Captain Gregg (a histrionically flamboyant performance by Rex Harrison). Lucy refuses to let the bombastic captain frighten her away, earning his respect, his friendship, and later his love. They team up to turn the captain's salty memoirs into a bestseller, but as his affection grows he fades away, leaving Lucy free to undertake a more worldly suitor, notably a charismatic children's author (George Sanders at his smarmy smoothest) with his own guarded secret. Charles Lang's melancholy black-and-white photography and Bernard Herrmann's haunting score set the tone for this sublime adult drama, and Tierney delivers one of her most understated performances as the resolute Mrs. Muir. Mankiewicz turns this ghost story into a refreshingly mature and down-to-earth romance. --Sean Axmaker  Tatelines (A compilation of Loren Tate's best columns from more than 40 years of University of Illinois sports reporting) $21.50 The story line begins when a 34-year-old novice scribe arrived at The News-Gazette in the autumn of 1966, just missing football greats Jim Grabowski and Dick Butkus and basketball standout Don Freeman, and only four months ahead of the traumatic UI "slush fund." Tate's version of Illini athletics begins in that distant time, and comes to life in what were once daily columns. But it won't be told chronologically. Rather it weaves back and forth through the athletes, coaches and great rivalries, and through events that often tested the university. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Loren Tate has covered University of Illinois sports for The News-Gazette in Champaign for more than four decades. Although he claims to be semi-retired he still produces four columns per week, and there is never any question about which side of an issue he stands on. Readers love him and readers hate him. But no matter what, they read him.  Gremlins 2 - The New Batch $14.97 Zach Galligan, the star of the first Gremlins, is back, along with Phoebe Cates, his girlfriend from the first film. They're both working in an ultramodern skyscraper owned by a Donald Trump clone (a hilarious John Glover). Galligan's furry little buddy is captured by a mad scientist, who not only helps it multiply, but invests the nasty, scaly offspring with intelligence and the ability to talk. (Watch for the one that has Tony Randall's voice.) What follows is imaginative mayhem that spoofs old movies, modern television, and the conveniences of postmodern technology. In some ways, the sequel is even more inventive and laughter-inducing than the original. --Marshall Fine |
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