Slow Motion

Danish downer Lars Von Trier says, a bit defensively, that he was depressed when he made "Antichrist. " No kidding, Lars. The prologue exposes us to a horrifying domestic tragedy in excruciating slow motion, during which some paperweights are knocked over (that's not the tragedy) - little sculptures with peculiar names. Despair. Grief. Pain. They turn out to be the titles to the movie's three movements, and Von Trier is not kidding, as you'll see if you stick around to see, say, a naked Willem Dafoe get whacked in the groin by a log. The movie has not been a hit with critics, but it has been a big hit at festivals that cater to horror buffs and fans who wear cargo shorts and are young and male and don't go out much and when they do, like to see people tortured with rusty tools.

PLAYING IT BACK, like a train wreck in slow motion, Ed Van Impe can vividly remember the hit that made the Soviets fold like a tent. The date: 35 years ago today, at the Spectrum, with the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Flyers facing the Red Army team in the final game of the 1976 exhibition Super Series. Van Impe darted from the penalty box, about midway through the first period, and watched the Soviets' breakout develop as he got a glimpse of his favorite kind of pass.

In the first trial of the Los Angeles police officers who beat Rodney King, George Holliday's videotape was the key evidence. Jurors did not just see the tape in real time, however; they watched it over and over in slow motion and with stop action. These techniques can be useful. They can also be very misleading. Before the jurors in the second trial begin their deliberations, it should be made clear to them the many ways in which videotaped evidence can be distorted or misused.

"Everything is moving so fast," Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers sang, slowly, at Johnny Brenda's on Wednesday night. It was a protest, and in a way, a statement of purpose: GLS's precise, leisurely songs breathe deeply, seeking to counteract the chaos and pace of the modern world. The Toronto quintet often records in rustic settings - abandoned churches, pastoral farms - and favors nocturnal, candlelit atmospheres. "What does it feel like to fall / In slow motion, despite it all?"

Sometimes you start to think that it's the yellowish shade of green the Eagles wear that just makes their running backs look as if they're running in slow motion. Then, every decade or so, someone will come along - Wilbert Montgomery was one example - who shows that there's no need to adjust your set; that a running back can, in fact, move forward fast even when wearing an Eagles uniform. Perhaps it's about to happen again. The Eagles have signed Herschel Walker, the erstwhile bobsledder, sometime balletomane, karate enthusiast and one-time all-pro running back.

I realized that I could survive. When I was attacked I was determined to make it. I was six and a half months pregnant, and we had to survive. I never focused on dying. I was scared to death. Time seemed to slow down, and everything appeared to be moving in slow motion. I wanted to live. I relied on my training. I attempted to signal the other lifeguard on duty for help. He did not respond. I tried to stay as calm as possible by assessing the damage, and then I regrouped. I kept moving.

Since the icon-smashing 1960s, Pat Paulsen has made a comic career out of puncturing that singularly pretentious creature, the presidential candidate. That such an unassuming, listless figure, spouting platitudes in a drowsy monotone, would aspire to the White House once struck the nation as hilarious. Now, six presidential elections later, the joke is wearing thin, and the easily amused are advised that at long last Paulsen has a new target, that singularly pretentious beverage, wine.

For cartoon collectors, MGM/UA has provided a bonanza with its "Golden Age of Looney Tunes" series issued on videodisc over the span of two years. The four volumes (each containing five discs) preserve a total of 280 cartoons - enough, if watched on consecutive Saturday mornings, to inspire a yearlong adolescence. But that's not all, folks. At last the Walt Disney Co. has taken the cue and decided to flaunt its cartoon heritage in videodisc form. Next month, it will release Mickey Mouse: The Black & White Years, presenting 34 cartoons from 1928 to 1935.

Trudy Rubin, The Inquirer's foreign affairs specialist, was on the phone this past weekend with one of the area's leading Sovietologists. They had covered all the predictable ground concerning the coup and its aftermath, when the esteemed professor paused in mid-thought and remarked, "You know, what's really got me upset is what happened to Randall Cunningham. " We know the feeling. Autumn just won't be autumn in Philadelphia without the prospect of watching Randall scramble.

It may have been the niftiest choreography Philadelphia has seen since the last Rocky movie. There they were, these three clowns from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, engaged in a boxing bout - in slow motion, yet. One was refereeing while the other two, exhibiting fancy footwork, threw punches. And as the action built, the audience began to applaud. Also in slow motion. "It was something," Scott Linker said later. "The audience really got with the beat.

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. - The good part about being 95 years old is it beats the alternative, which is not being 95. Last November, though, Ed Sabol wasn't so sure about that. Pneumonia had put the NFL Films founder in a hospital bed for nearly a month, and his will to live was running on empty. "He turned to me around Thanksgiving and said, 'Why should I live? I'm going to be in a wheelchair,' " his daughter Blair said. "I said, 'Well, there's nothing wrong with needing a wheelchair at 95.' " But Sabol viewed a wheelchair as the final indignity of growing old. A former champion swimmer, he moved to the Arizona desert 20 years ago to spend his retirement playing golf and flying his plane, and now he can do neither.

Last summer, I was living in my own personal hell. Sitting behind a desk, the hours passed in slow motion. I had nothing but time to Google search anything that sounded fascinating or wonderful. What I came across put my life into forward motion for the first time. Perusing many a travel website, I decided on a whim to quit my job and fly off to Florida to visit my best friend and my closest sister. At the airport, freshly unbound from the chains of office drudgery, it occurred to me that I hadn't flown in four years.

PLAYING IT BACK, like a train wreck in slow motion, Ed Van Impe can vividly remember the hit that made the Soviets fold like a tent. The date: 35 years ago today, at the Spectrum, with the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Flyers facing the Red Army team in the final game of the 1976 exhibition Super Series. Van Impe darted from the penalty box, about midway through the first period, and watched the Soviets' breakout develop as he got a glimpse of his favorite kind of pass.

Danish downer Lars Von Trier says, a bit defensively, that he was depressed when he made "Antichrist. " No kidding, Lars. The prologue exposes us to a horrifying domestic tragedy in excruciating slow motion, during which some paperweights are knocked over (that's not the tragedy) - little sculptures with peculiar names. Despair. Grief. Pain. They turn out to be the titles to the movie's three movements, and Von Trier is not kidding, as you'll see if you stick around to see, say, a naked Willem Dafoe get whacked in the groin by a log. The movie has not been a hit with critics, but it has been a big hit at festivals that cater to horror buffs and fans who wear cargo shorts and are young and male and don't go out much and when they do, like to see people tortured with rusty tools.

LOS ANGELES - The rest of us see a five-sided home plate, but the Phillies' Pedro Martinez - on a day like yesterday when he reached back across nearly two decades to find his pitches - sees a canvas. He painted that space for seven wonderful innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers, dotting it with fastballs, dabbing it lightly with change-ups, slashing it with curveballs. "To us, it's like art. You enjoy painting that little piece of wood or cloth. It's art. I enjoy every little bit of it," Martinez said.

"Everything is moving so fast," Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers sang, slowly, at Johnny Brenda's on Wednesday night. It was a protest, and in a way, a statement of purpose: GLS's precise, leisurely songs breathe deeply, seeking to counteract the chaos and pace of the modern world. The Toronto quintet often records in rustic settings - abandoned churches, pastoral farms - and favors nocturnal, candlelit atmospheres. "What does it feel like to fall / In slow motion, despite it all?"

The subpoena said 8:30 a.m., Criminal Justice Center, Court Room 806. I arrived promptly, only to find that the courtroom door was locked. A sign said, "Open at 9:00. " Courts, like doctors' offices, tend to have their own time schedules, so I settled down on one of the hard benches in the hallway and started reading the book I had brought. As criminal acts go, a smashed car window isn't very important. It can't begin to compare with murder, rape or armed robbery. It cost me a few hours of my time and $118 to have the window fixed.

No, 76ers forward Kyle Korver insisted, it wasn't one of those moments when a significant play in a basketball game seems to go in slow motion. Nonetheless, it happened. A steal at midcourt and a breakaway dash to the basket in the first quarter of Tuesday night's game in Charlotte led to the first dunk of Korver's two-season NBA career. Hopefully, for Korver's sake, someone has the two-hand jam on tape, preferably in slow motion. The 6-foot-7 forward hasn't exactly been Dr. Dunkenstein throughout his hoops career.

Ginger Coyle didn't know that when she tripped on a step leading to the stage during the national Hard Rock the House Talent Search, she would win. She beat out four other competitors from across the country to win a one-week scholarship to the Hard Rock Academy in Orlando, Fla.; a three-song recording demo deal with Hollywood Records; and a $5,000 Grammy gift bag that contained luggage, cosmetics, a portable CD player, and other goodies....

Brian Dawkins won't be surprised if he's fined by the NFL for his hit on Giants wide receiver Ike Hilliard on Monday night. He will be very surprised if the league's discipline goes beyond that. "I'll probably hear in the next couple of days," Dawkins said yesterday. He said that although there would probably be a fine, he was not expecting a suspension. Yesterday, the NFL fined Dallas safety Darren Woodson $75,000 for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Seattle wide receiver Darrell Jackson.