MEDIA COOL

Media Cool

This Month�s Media Cool was written by Frank Fox, Richard Riegel and David Keeps

SWING SHIFT

(Warner Bros.)

Goldie Hawn is doing her sejf-growth bit again. This time she�s the sweetly ditzy housewife who becomes a beer-swillin� foreman at the McBride aircraft factory while hubby�s off fighting the Japs. But the real war in this film was waged offscreen and it�s something of a miracle that despite all the rewrites and reshoots the film still swings. Kudos to director Jonathan Demme for a nearly obsessive eye and ear for period detail and brilliantly panoramic crowd scenes. He�s coaxed the least cutesy performance from Goldie since Sugarland Express and whips Kurt Russell. Ed Harris and Christine Lahti into an incredibly effective ensemble. Jeez, he even snuck Go-Go Belinda Carlisle into a teensy role as a �40s band singer! Like his previous efforts. Swing Shift is a warmly human comedy with enough emotional depth and visual impact to escape the dreaded �nostalgia� tag. And so what if the story just sort of lumbers along predictably? The images are as memorable and evocative as spending an afternoon leafing through a stack of vintage Life magazines.D.K.

RACING WITH THE MOON

(Paramount)

Imagine chicken fat and molasses. It�s not nearly as awful as it sounds, and neither is this sweetly schmaltzy (Summer of) �42 from director (and former comedian) Richard Benjamin. In fact, when he isn�t staging Hallmark card nature shots, it�s rather good. Of course it helps immeasurably to have Sean Penn and Elizabeth McGovern in the leads as the not-so-star-crossed-as-they-think lovers. (See, he thinks she�s rich and she thinks he�s—well—a little goofy, and then his best friend gets a girl preggers and then, oh, never mind!) As �Hopper,� Sean is sensitive and sensible, the perfect foil for houndoggish Nicolas Cage�s boisterous lunkhaid Nicky (now is this autobiographical or merely a coincidence?) . Racing�s all about falling in love, being buddies and growing up with the big World War looming as the king metaphor for everybody�s (that means America too, pat) loss of innocence. Look for a great cameo by the sadly underused Carol Kane as Annie, the town pump with the proverbial heart of gold. D.K.

BEEN DOWN SQ LONG IT LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME

by Richard Farina

(Various paperback editions, in fine thrift stores everywhere.)

I resisted reading this novel for years, because the pathetic few facts I knew about its author (a folksinger, not to mention Joan Baez�s brother-in-law, fer crissake) gave me the ignorant notion that the book would be as buckskin-dippy as yer average CS&N album. So imagine my amazement when I finally cracked open Been Down So Long this spring, and found the great novel about the �60s, the one we�ve anxiously awaited since at least 1/1/70. Even though he was apparently nestled in the bosoms of a lot of folkpure types. Farina somehow anticipated the coming triumph of trash culture, and was already satirizing hippie-ness before most of its eventual participants had even heard the tune-in/drop-out siren song. If you weren�t there (college life in the �60s), this book tells it exactly like it was. And does so with such smartass relish that even though Richard Farina died in a motorcycle accident in 1966, he seems less of a martyr to the decade than crabby Bob Dylan, who botched the same scene a few months later. R.R.

THE BOUNTY

(Orion)

Good ole Dino DeLaurentiis! You can always count on him for sexsational remakes of classic Hollywood blockbusters—remember King Kong (which first brought Jessica Lange to the screen) and the unforgettable Hurricane? Now he takes on the venerable Fletcher Christian saga with Mel (hearthrob of the �80s) Gibson in the title role and a cast of a thousand semi-naked Tahitians to add a little native color. This purports to be the �true� story of the mutiny on the Bounty, told in flashbacks during Captain Bligh�s grilling by the naval courts back in England, with Laurence Olivier firing off some rather sardonic cross-examination in his inimitable style. Gibson�s a gas, as can be expected, but Anthony Hopkins�s Bligh is a complete spectacle—he chews up the scenery so ravenously I half expected him to sink the ship before Fletch got a chance to set him adrift. D.K.

HARDCORE CALIFORNIA A HISTORY OF PUNK & NEW WAVE Edited by Peter Belsito and Bob Davis (Last Gasp)

All the shattered eardrums didn�t die in vain. Here�s their memorial. This large illustrated volume chronicles the punk rock world of L.A. and San Francisco, presenting the passions and triumphs of a volatile underground, from the lawnmowerenergy of Black Flag to the macabre satire of the Dead Kennedys. The text is detailed and insightful, and the pictures are often outstanding, proving (if anyone ever doubted it) that punk has always been a photographer�s dream. But beyond that, punk also made rock �n� roll unsavory, disreputable and dangerous again. It brought the music back to the old neighborhood where it belongs, amidst the strip shows, tattoo parlors and dog-meat take-out stands. Hey, it�s home. F.F.