Redford

The book is back.By that I mean, if you look quick and try not to make too much of it, you can see up there on the screen something rare and unprecedented in the last few years: movie versions of three classic American literary texts, all of which, moreover, appear under their own names and are not in any way bowdlerized by a marketing department or savaged and trashed by their makers. The three are "Last of the Mohicans," from the classic by James Fenimore Cooper; Gary Sinise's respectful and sturdy version of Steinbeck's classic, "Of Mice and Men"; and, finally, Robert Redford's equally respectful version of Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It."

POP MUSICLots of band for the buckThese days, what passes for rock-and-roll idealism often amounts to little more than guys in $300 snakeskin boots prattling on about how they're worried about the environment. Thankfully there are still a few bands left that are as committed to their ideals as Fugazi. Adamantly anti-commercial and fiercely independent, Fugazi is one of the few bands around that genuinely cares less about money than about its music and its fans. That's why the group likes to play benefits like tomorrow's Maryland For Choice benefit at Steelworkers Hall in Dundalk, why it insists that tickets be kept affordable ($5 for this show)

A river runs through it but nothing happens in it.Robert Redford's beautiful but meandering "A River Runs Through It" is WASP storytelling at its most muted and muffled. It's a movie that never truly becomes a movie, hiding its interesting story behind a torrent of language derived sentence by long sentence from the source novel by Norman Maclean.Only when the movie devolves to its most passionate subject -- men hunting fish in the cold waters of a rushing Montana torrent -- does it achieve a fluency and an immediacy.

HERE are two things I never thought I'd say: I like a movie about fly fishing, and Robert Redford has directed one of the most ambitious, accomplished films of the year."

He is haunted by silences.It's a WASP thing, so don't ask: the reticence, the sense of shyness, the careful control, the unwillingness ever to put things into words or ever to confront those messy hormonal squalls called emotions and instead the channeling of every last rogue mote of emotional energy into either work or play but never life its own self.The silence of the WASPs."I know," says Robert Redford. "I was raised in silence. I'm comfortable with silence. My screenwriter was a Jew and he kept saying, 'Why don't you guys just talk about things?

"Sneakers" is actually about a fabled icon from the bottom of a cereal box in everybody's lost childhood: a Captain Jack Secret Decoder Ring. Except that this Captain Jack Secret Decoder Ring is a little black box; with it, one can penetrate all the"Sneakers" is actually about a fabled icon from the bottom of a cereal box in everybody's lost childhood: a Captain Jack Secret Decoder Ring. Except that this Captain Jack Secret Decoder Ring is a little black box; with it, one can penetrate all the computer codes known to man, and in our computerized age, that's very much the key to the kingdom.

New York -- It is a Robert Redford movie . . . without Robert Redford.At least, not the grandly romantic Robert Redford character who loves and litters leading ladies around the globe, from Barbra Streisand on a New York street to Meryl Streep on an African plain. Or even the guy's guy Robert Redford, merrily capering with best buddy Paul Newman or proving manly mettle as The Downhill Racer, The Natural or The Candidate.Rather, "Incident at Oglala" is Robert Redford, just another concerned citizen -- albeit one with the kind of Hollywood star power to get this small, decidedly non-commercial documentary made in the first place.

New York -- It is a Robert Redford movie . . . without Robert Redford.At least, not the grandly romantic Robert Redford character who loves and litters leading ladies around the globe, from Barbra Streisand on a New York street to Meryl Streep on an African plain. Or even the guy's guy Robert Redford, merrily capering with best buddy Paul Newman or proving manly mettle as The Downhill Racer, The Natural or The Candidate.Rather, "Incident at Oglala" is Robert Redford, just another concerned citizen -- albeit one with the kind of Hollywood star power to get this small, decidedly non-commercial documentary made in the first place.

SEEN ON THE SCENE: Yep, that was indeed a barber with hi scissors that made his way into Baltimore County Executive Roger Hayden's office recently. Seems the new exec had been too busy to get a much-needed haircut, so someone on his staff decided to take matters into her own hands, or rather those of a barber. . .HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: The film, "The President Elopes," which was supposed to be in the process of being shot somewhere in Maryland, has been put on hold, indefinitely.

HAVANA TO CRABTOWN?: Production crews have been scouting about town for a new movie starring none other than Robert Redford as the nation's chief exec in "The President Elopes."Fred "The Russia House" Schepisi will direct, and it's being produced by Michael Houseman, who recently did David Mamet's "Homicide" here.NAME DROPPING: Muscleman-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was in town over the weekend to visit his mother-in law, Eunice Shriver, who's a patient at Johns Hopkins Hospital . . . The Los Angeles Times reports that Sylvester Stallone has purchased a 400-plus-acre horse form in suburban Maryland . . .Robert Duvall will star in a TV miniseries called "Killer Angels" about the Civil War, part of which will be shot in the near future in Western Maryland . . .Eye Spies report Walter Matthau is coming to the Big Crab in May to shoot a movie by Robert Halmi Jr., one of the producers of "Lonesome Dove" . . .And, finally, local director Arthur Egeli, whose suspense thriller, "Maxim Xul," starred Adam "Batman" West, has reportedly finished the script for his new film project, "Prodigy," which we hear will be Annapolis-based.