PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES SOMEHOW, OUR world seems a bit poorer this week without John Candy and his foolishness in it. He was more than a comic. Mr. Candy made us feel good about ourselves, Very few mavie actors can make that claim. The whole movie industry leaves many of us underwhelmed, as theatre attendance shows. For all its vulgar frenzy of self-adulation at that annual Emmy awards banquet, the industry has not distinguished itself in recent years. Most producers forgot how to laugh, if they ever knew, _ Violence was their stock in trade, and it was a slow movie that didn't begin with somebody's hee ad exploding in gristle, bone and tomato ketchup as a dumdum bullet tore through it. Hollywood populated its films with characters such as we never seem to meet in real life. It spent much of its considerable treasure investigating the sordid side of human nature which mast of us prefer to forget in our leisure hours. The Candy movies were dif ent. So was the min, There he stood, 2735 ungainly pounds of him, a joyous, comic bulk, as one critic said of him. He was our proof that the world is not the preserve of the beautiful people who are. as we have been taught, all thin and rich, As always in discussing an actor, a person who lives on make- believe, there is a difficulty in sepa- iting the private man from the public one. But should it be a difficulty? The private man is not properly a concern, Only the public man should be ours to praise or ta cons demn. So fet it be with John Candy: however, when a man goes fram mixing Glidden Paints in “Toronto to charming the socks off afew million movie customers and all the time keeps his original wife, you can't help but suspect there was something essentially fine there. But, to the public John Candy... To those not familiar with this actor, he almost always portrayed a character who was not too swift, ‘There was a Hight on upstairs but sometimes nubody was horac. The people he ‘Portrayed were awkward and often the objects of ridicule, yet typically they had a boundless, an almost empathetic pathetic faith in the essential goad- ness of their fellow man. Memorics of the Good Soldier Schweik. Some say Candy was the classic clown. Perhaps. Like all great clowns, he por- trayed the ordinary man’s yearning for a greatness which is so obvious- ly. so absurdly obviously, beyond his reach. “Incoming framing ..order min. $30 “Come See the Difference” The ultimate GOLF PRACTICE Facility Features: * 80 Spacious, covered hitting stations * 6 Large target greens * 13 Target pin positions * Night lights ° 40 Heated stalls * Spalding Top Flite range balls Seymour Creek Café & Cappuccino Bar aw SEYMOUR CREEK |] GOLF CENTRE 315 Seymour Bivd., North Van. 987-8630 (otf Mt. Seymour Parkway - just east of 2nd Natrawsh Like all great clowns, tragedy and comedy were portrayed side by side, Watching him was to be reminded that there can he no zreat human comedy without a mixture of tragedy init. Some will compare him with Charlie Chaplin, The impact on the public may be the satne. But in the closing years of the olleaniuin Chaplin seems too distent in both tine and technol- egy to touch us any more. He is tike Shakespeare's clowns, who were brilliant attractions when first conceived but now more often are imped- iments rather than adornments ofa Shakespeare play. The contemporary to whom Candy should be contrasted is Woody Allen, Beth actors portrayed characters who couldn't fll the Gueei shoes of the idealized 20th-century husband. father, id Venturer, lover or entre- preneur. They fumbled their relationships with the opposite sex, with their SEPARATE ADMISSION FEATURES BLUE CHIPS Nightly 6:45pm, SavSun 2:40pm SHADOWLANDS Nightly 8.45pm, Sat/Sun 30pm _ about ourselves, Friday, March 18, 1994 - North Shore News - 9 of a clow friends and their peers. They were often as bewildered by the modern world as are you and Vind all the rest of the human: eggers are. However. there was a profound difference between the wo men. Allen could play only “poor me.” Poor me, so deserving, poor me, so 66 Mr. Candy made us feel good actors can make that clatin, 99 ill-rewarded, Allen had a whimper which, in time, became the annoying whine of an overprivileged child. List vear. he had the dubious achievenient of making former vice-president Dan Quayle look good, something that most BLANK CHECK Nightly 6:50pm, SavSun 2:55pm THE PIANO Nightly 8: al Sat/Sun 4: 40pm Very few movie Aunericans thought an impossibility. Candy, giving the impression that he felt damm Jucky to be wher- ever he was and whoever he was, never lost faith in his fellow man. We laughed at chat, knowing what a son of a bitch fellow man can be, but afterward, in the quict hours of the night, we remembered his faith ina different way and felt a liltle happier, a little safer, for the remembrance of old Uncle Buck Unele Buck, ine dentally, was a movie that the critics called a failure. lt grossed $60 million, and caused Some producers to wish they could make more such critival fail- ures, John Candy had two characteristics rare to his trade. In addition to being fat, he was modest. ‘The later condition is as rare in Hollywood as snowstorms, So he gave few interviews and left few of his own views on the public record. No matter, John. You made us laugh. You did us proud. PHILADELPHIA Nightly 7:00pm, Sat/Sun. 4:30pm ON DEADLY GROUND Nightly 9: \Spm only 7 Restri ‘Johnstone’ 5 needs help to move an over shipment of barbecues. This weekend only. All BBQ prices will be drastically reduced. All extra stock must go!!