Alfie

It's a weary group staring at what can only be described as a legless limo. The top half of the black car sits in a processing house deep in Brooklyn, and it poses a problem that has kept Susan Sarandon, Jude Law, director Charles Shyer and others waiting for hours. They are in their final days of filming a remake of "Alfie," and the mirror that was custom-made to aid in shooting the action in the limo's back seat isn't working. Now they have to rig up a replacement.

Perhaps it's her Welsh background that makes Gemma Jones "feel like a mountain person," but after nearly five decades of acting, she's still climbing. The 67-year-old veteran of British television and theater who confesses she has "never done an honest day's work" has really only explored film work since Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" (1995): "I do feel I'm still a bit of a novice, and every one I do, I learn so much on the job. " Now she's enjoying one of her best roles to date in Woody Allen's "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger," which opened Wednesday.

This engrossing, wrenching 1994 film takes us to an early '60s Dublin neighborhood, where a jolly bus conductor, Alfie (Albert Finney, pictured) entertains his riders, regulars all, with impassioned recitations from his favorite author, Oscar Wilde. At his local church he has staged "The Importance of Being Earnest" with his passengers and neighbors and now he wants to tackle "Salome." (BRAVO Friday at 1:15 p.m. and Saturday at 8 a.m.).

Perhaps it's a sign of the post-post-metrosexual backlash, but book publishers seem to be busier than ever cranking out "man-uals" to help modern men talk, act and fix things the way our forefathers once did (from, say, the 1920s through 1980). We've compared a few of the more recent offerings to cross our desk. -- Brocabulary: The New Man-i-festo of Dude Talk By Daniel Maurer (Collins Living: $14.95) -- The Retrosexual Manual: How to Be a Real Man By Dave Besley (Prion: $24.95)

Crawl, run or otherwise bolt the room to avoid "Mr. Murder," a feeble and far-fetched yarn airing in two parts tonight and Thursday on ABC. Based on a novel by Dean Koontz, this none-too-thrilling thriller revolves around a covert genetic experiment that results in a "perfect" soldier who assassinates anyone posing a threat to high-level government heels, including his twisted "father" (Thomas Haden Church).

A dolescent Grows Up . That's probably not what Frank Agnew, former guitarist for the seminal Orange County punk band the Adolescents, would call his autobiography, if or when he writes it. But it paints a pretty good picture of his outlook on life at the grand old age of 23. The younger brother of Adolescents founder and lead singer Rikk Agnew, Frank speaks of his new band--the Tribe--in terms of its greater "maturity."

I had a teacher in the fourth grade named Calla Monlux who made me madder than hell. She was short and dumpy and wore flat-heeled shoes and read poetry to her classes, whether we liked it or not. She called me Alfie, which I detested, and kept me after school one day so I could prove to her I had written the essays I was turning in. She couldn't believe that a kid with a bad attitude and no sense of grammar could write prose, as she said, that caused dogs to howl.

Perhaps it's her Welsh background that makes Gemma Jones "feel like a mountain person," but after nearly five decades of acting, she's still climbing. The 67-year-old veteran of British television and theater who confesses she has "never done an honest day's work" has really only explored film work since Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" (1995): "I do feel I'm still a bit of a novice, and every one I do, I learn so much on the job. " Now she's enjoying one of her best roles to date in Woody Allen's "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger," which opened Wednesday.

Perhaps it's a sign of the post-post-metrosexual backlash, but book publishers seem to be busier than ever cranking out "man-uals" to help modern men talk, act and fix things the way our forefathers once did (from, say, the 1920s through 1980). We've compared a few of the more recent offerings to cross our desk. -- Brocabulary: The New Man-i-festo of Dude Talk By Daniel Maurer (Collins Living: $14.95) -- The Retrosexual Manual: How to Be a Real Man By Dave Besley (Prion: $24.95)

Veteran British film director Lewis Gilbert is a dedicated craftsman, having been at the helm of everything from the sassy "Alfie" to the stylish Bond thriller, "The Spy Who Loved Me." But after seeing his new film, "Not Quite Paradise," a clunky comedy-drama set in a kibbutz in the steamy Israeli desert, you get the feeling that he may have been out in the midday sun too long.

Things have changed since 1966, and Charles Shyer's remake of "Alfie" reminds us of just how much. The urban morality fable that presented Michael Caine as a predatory Cockney womanizer at the dawn of the Playboy era played like a warning label on the sexual revolution. Compared to the original, the new "Alfie," which stars an adorably tousled, twinkly eyed Jude Law as a British limo driver in Manhattan, is a bright gumball skittering across a marble floor.

It's a weary group staring at what can only be described as a legless limo. The top half of the black car sits in a processing house deep in Brooklyn, and it poses a problem that has kept Susan Sarandon, Jude Law, director Charles Shyer and others waiting for hours. They are in their final days of filming a remake of "Alfie," and the mirror that was custom-made to aid in shooting the action in the limo's back seat isn't working. Now they have to rig up a replacement.

Self-centered cad? He certainly is that. Yet in his self-assured, unapologetic way, he is also irresistible -- a duality that puts some bite in the title character of the play turned popular mid-'60s movie "Alfie." Nostalgia buffs may enjoy a revival of the late Bill Naughton's play at the Met Theatre, which showcases an appealing performance by Adrian Neil as the womanizing Alfie. But beware the exasperation factor.

I'm delighted to see coverage of Alfie Kohn's organizing against "teaching to the test" ("Crusader Argues School Reforms Hinder Learning," Feb. 22). I have no quarrel with standards used as guidelines for a knowledge base, but the frantic rush to narrowly foxcus on standards-based teaching has sucked the life out of the classroom and straitjacketed teachers. One teacher told me that every minute of her day is dictated by the standards; someone comes in to check on her, and she'd better be teaching what is in the standards at that moment.

Crawl, run or otherwise bolt the room to avoid "Mr. Murder," a feeble and far-fetched yarn airing in two parts tonight and Thursday on ABC. Based on a novel by Dean Koontz, this none-too-thrilling thriller revolves around a covert genetic experiment that results in a "perfect" soldier who assassinates anyone posing a threat to high-level government heels, including his twisted "father" (Thomas Haden Church).

This engrossing, wrenching 1994 film takes us to an early '60s Dublin neighborhood, where a jolly bus conductor, Alfie (Albert Finney, pictured) entertains his riders, regulars all, with impassioned recitations from his favorite author, Oscar Wilde. At his local church he has staged "The Importance of Being Earnest" with his passengers and neighbors and now he wants to tackle "Salome." (BRAVO Friday at 1:15 p.m. and Saturday at 8 a.m.).

I was just wondering, has anyone else noticed the resemblance between Ronald Reagan and Alf? Reagan has been having an awful lot of surgery lately. They claim it's for cancer, but what if it's really reconstructive plastic surgery to hide his true identity? I mean, I don't know if it's significant or anything . . . I was just wondering. MARY BAKER Tujunga

I'm delighted to see coverage of Alfie Kohn's organizing against "teaching to the test" ("Crusader Argues School Reforms Hinder Learning," Feb. 22). I have no quarrel with standards used as guidelines for a knowledge base, but the frantic rush to narrowly foxcus on standards-based teaching has sucked the life out of the classroom and straitjacketed teachers. One teacher told me that every minute of her day is dictated by the standards; someone comes in to check on her, and she'd better be teaching what is in the standards at that moment.

First produced in the early 1960s, Bill Naughton's "Alfie" is a natural for a revival. Resiliently funny and moving, full of high spirits and low humor, the play concerns the lubricious exploits of Alfie Elkins, a commitment-phobic Cockney lorry driver whose determined detachment and indefatigable sexual appetites prove a dangerous combination. Adam Faith, who recently completed a tour of Britain in the title role, stars in the current Los Angeles production, which is part of the UK/LA Festival.

Argentine Coach Alfio Basile said Thursday he will resign in the wake of the disappointing performance by the two-time champions in the World Cup. "We all worked with great hopes of getting the title," Basile said in Buenos Aires. "But I live in this country, where finishing second isn't sufficient. So the coaching staff will step aside."