MEDIA COOL

MEDIA COOL

This Month’s Media Cool was written by David Keeps, Richard C. Walls, and Bill Holdship

STAR 80 (Ladd Company)

Haven’t seen a good review of this film anywhere. Most of the complaints seem to be that Mariel Hemingway portrays Dorothy Stratten, the Playboy Playmate of the Year who was murdered by her estranged husband, as a docile woman totally dominated and manipulated by the men around her. But that’s exactly the point, and this is one of the best and most graphic illustrations of sexual/emotional fascism I’ve ever seen—taking it to its most horrible extreme. It isn’t all downbeat (Eric Roberts as the slimy Paul Snider should have received an Oscar nomination solely for the scene in which he first visits the Playboy Mansion) , although the final moments will leave you thoroughly disturbed. Still, who says a good movie has to make you feel good? After all, Theresa Carpenter’s Pulitzer-winning “Death Of A Playmate” (on which the film is based) wasn’t exactly a laugh riot, and as our general manager here at “America’s Only...” is so fond of saying: life sucks and then you die.B.H.

DYING INSIDE by Robert Silverberg (Bantam)

Silverberg has gone from prolific back to serious to semi-retired to his most recent phase, mucho popular SF/Fantasist (the Majipoor books)—mucho enough that Bantam continues to reissue the readerneglected books from his serious novel phase hoping some of the Majipoor glitter will rub off. Dying is the latest, first published in ’72, a book often dismissed as a bummer by rank and file SF fans, but worth the attention of those whose tastes are not impared by an addiction to genre cliches. It’s the story of a telepath whose mysterious power is mysteriously ebbing, but the milieu is closer to that of Philip Roth rather than Robert Heinlein what with the “superman” hero, an aging misfit who makes his living peddling recycled term papers to Columbia U. students, being a mildly likeable but rather arrogant schlemiel who can come up with no better use for his powers than as an aid for getting laid. In all, a bleakly funny meditation on entropy, i.e., the fact that we’re all going to run out of steam sooner or later, roll over, and die. Meanwhile, enjoy. R.C.W.

FOOTLOOSE (Paramount)

Everybody’s got it in for poor Ren MacCormack, and can you blame them? Anybody who can shed two pounds of sweat racing around to Kenny Loggins and then jabber on about rock ’n’ roll should be run out of town. Then we can use the same rail on writer/musical (gag) director Dean Pitchford, who cannibalized Rebel Without A Cause, countless Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland vehicles and Flashdance to assemble this piecemeal fairy tale. At least Flashdance had Giorgio Moroder’s propulsive electronic score to hold it all together. At least Flashdance used real break dancers, however incongruously. At least Flashdance had Jennifer Beals! I’m not ragging on Kevin Bacon, who puts some real acting chops into Ren’s cardboard character, but his dancing is far from incendiary. But it sizzles a lot more than the tired kids vs. authority plodline that dominates the action. Surprisingly, it’s the acting that provides the one consistent element in the kind of gimmick film that depends least on characterizations. As Ren’s girlfriend, Lori Singer is allknowing and tough as nails, while Sean’s bro, Christopher Penn, makes the perfect lunkhaid sidekick. As the town’s hardline preacher, John Lithgow is as superb as can be expected, even when the script lets him down, and as his patient wifey, Dianne Wiesf is a study in Valiumed underplaying. Best line and best summation of the film occurs when preacher’s daughter returns from a night of forbidden dancing and drinkin’ across the state line: “That’s the way it is, Daddy. It doesn’t get much better.” D.K.

BROADWAY DANNY ROSE (Orion Films)

This is Woody Allen’s best film since Annie Hall. He plays Danny Rose, a golden hearted New York talent agent who manages-some of the worst entertainers in Manhattan, including Lou Canova (wonderfully portrayed by Nick Apollo Forte), a “has been” singer who may get a second break due to a new nostalgia craze. Danny agrees to pick up Lou’s mistress, Tina (a terrific Mia Farrow), before a show, and the couple end up being chased through New Jersey by gun-toting Mafia relatives of her ex-boyfriend. Full of hilarious oneliners, touching moments, and the message that nice guys may sometimes finish last, but there’s still something to be said for nice guys in the end. A great movie. B.H.

RECKLESS (MGM)

This is more like it. Yet another mixed-up steeltown kid story with a little heat to it. Sort of a soft X version of All The Right Moves. Newcomer Aidan Quinn (Rourke) simmers like a blue-eyed Monty Clift motorcycle hood who digs new wave (INXS, Romeo Void, and Kim Wilde) and the captain of the cheerleading squad, blond and beautiful Tracey (played by the equally alluring Daryl Hannah). Of course she’s in love with the jerk quarterback who’s going to get the only job at the steel factory in these hard times, ’cause Daddy happens to be top management there. So when the wild good girl and the good wild boy finally get it together—at the school dance, in the school pool and boiler room and (gasp) in her parents’ bedroom—the result is steamy. Of course there’s a fair share of trashy, dialogue to wade through, but there’s a genuine sense of frustration, a teen authenticity, if you will, that you’ll rarely find in a “rock ’n’ roll movie.” Best yet, there’s some gritty, moody artful cinematography that practically guarantees that—thank God—it’ll never be seen on MTV. D.K.

ANGEL (New World Pictures)

The adline says it all—high school honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night! And, believe it or don’t, this trashy potboilin’ classic has actually gathered some pretty approving reviews. I had trouble warming to the plump piglet who plays the title tramp (and seems to have enough cold cash to buy an unlicensed gun that’s delivered in a Kentucky Fried Chicken snack box, but never once turns an onscreen trick), but what a galaxy of stars she has in support. There’s Susan Tyrell as a Jewish lesbian landlady, Dick Shawn as a hairy drag queen named Mae and trusty old Rory Calhoun as a crusty old Western movie star. Cleverly the scenarists of this picture have managed to combine two exploitation angles—Tinseltown tawdriness and the ubiquitous mad slasher (plus plenty of girls lockerroom scenes)—into a mindless screamfest that inspires the sensation of fascinated disbelief. D.K.

THE SHORT-TIMERS by Gustav Hasford (Bantam)

If you hurry you can be the first on your block to read the book that’s serving as the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s pext movie and be the envy of those latecomers who’ll have to buy the always-tacky movie tie-in edition. Hasford writes from his experiences as a marine in Vietnam with a lean deadpan style that has a devastating cumulative effect and if Kubrick does this one right, it could be the ultimate anti-war movie, the one that could make Apocalypse Now look like Mary Poppins, and the one that could put the needed crimp in the current resurgence of militarism-chic. Will the world’s most well-heeded experimental filmmaker blow it? Are An Officer And A Gentleman fans ready for a little hardcore reality? Is war hell? Or what? R.C.W.