Brian

Betty Lou Batey, the Pentecostalist who disappeared with her son for 19 months rather than allow him to live with his homosexual father, left court a free woman Monday, cleared by a judge of charges of felony child stealing.

Even 25 years later, "Monty Python's The Life of Brian" resonates as a thorough skewering of Christianity -- at least, if you're the type who can laugh at such things. Director Terry Jones tells the story of Brian, an average guy who is born on Christmas and spends his life being mistaken for the Messiah, and the movie features what could be the happiest musical crucifixion scene on film. -- Patrick Day Academy 6 Cinemas 1003 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena Midnight Friday (805) 558-1408

Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell on Friday sentenced Betty Lou Batey to 15 days in jail and fined her $3,000 on three counts of civil contempt she faced for disobeying court orders and taking her son out of Southern California without permission. However, McConnell suspended the jail sentence because the 40-year-old woman had served 13 days in jail in Colorado. The judge also suspended Batey's fine for one year on the condition that she follow court instructions.

The legal dispute over whether a 14-year-old boy should live with his fundamentalist Christian mother or homosexual father is apparently over after the father withdrew from the case, saying he will no longer try to contact his son.

Betty Lou Batey, the fundamentalist Christian accused of taking her son from his homosexual father, testified Thursday that she believed her son would have been exposed to drugs, alcohol and molestation by strangers unless she took him away. During the first day of her trial on child stealing charges, Batey said that she took her son, Brian, not because of his father's homosexual life style but because his father had become a "liberal and militant."

Their names are Brian and Louise Sanders, but you'd never learn their names from their dialogue. They hadn't been on the bus 15 seconds before everyone on the tour got the message. Brian edged his way down the aisle smiling, bumping into people's shoulders with either his midsection or his carry-on and excusing himself. He flopped down in a double seat toward the back. "Stupid!" his wife called from the front of the bus. "You hear me?" "Hear ya? They can hear you back in the States."

If fires had agents, not to mention publicists, the seven spectacular blazes (or is it eight--with all that smoke, it's easy to lose track) that energize "Backdraft" would have their names up in lights and the film's nominal stars would end up in small print. Because nothing anyone human does in this rather conventional smoke opera can hold a candle to conflagrations so eye-popping they make "The Towering Inferno" look like leftovers from "The Little Match Girl."

When Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit, they had to leave the Garden of Eden. But at least their world expanded. That wouldn't happen nowadays, suggests David Michael Erickson in his "Appetite," at the Cast-at-the-Circle. If we continue catering to our basest hungers and impulses, the world will shrink. The world of the three characters in "Appetite" has already shrunk to one room in an abandoned cafe, somewhere in the Southwestern desert.

UCLA defensive tackle Brian Price has been a headache for opposing coaches and players the last two seasons. Relief might be in sight. Indications are the junior will play his final game for the Bruins against Temple in the EagleBank Bowl at Washington and then make himself available for the NFL draft in April. Price hasn't made any official announcements, but his play speaks volumes. He has 22 1/2 tackles for a loss -- third-most nationally -- and was voted the Pacific 10 defensive player of the year despite playing for an eighth-place team.