MEDIA COOL

MEDIA COOL

This Month’s Media Cool was written by Richard Riegel, Bill Hoidship, Thomas Anderson, David Keeps and Frank Fox.

PARIS, TEXAS (20th Century Fox)

The sadness in the eyes of Harry Dean Stanton evokes the poignant tone of this film from the outset. As he emerges from a vast desert, woeful and alone, his sorrow is eloquent in its silence. Paris, Texas is the story of a broken life, a shattered family, and a man’s effort to redeem a loss he can hardly comprehend. Directed by Wim Wenders from a screenplay by Sam Shepard, the movie is an opportunity for Stanton to gain the recognition as an actor he has long deserved. His portrayal of the forlorn wanderer is subtle and deeply sensitive. And the pairing of the mournful Stanton with the lovely Nastassja Kinski as his estranged wife is an unusually inspired casting choice. Although the story’s conclusion is ambiguous, it seems to suggest that if life has no happy endings, it’s still possible for a man to make peace with himself. F.F.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB (Universal)

Here’s a surprise—a movie about teenagers with a dash of sensitivity and one helluva witty script. Written and directed by John Hughes, who put Molly Ringwald on the map in last year’s 16 Candles, this junior league version of The Big Chill showcases my fave new ingenue as a snotty prom queen to maximum effect. Anthony Michael Hall, who played Molly’s ardent geek suitor in Candles, returns as a nerd still desperate to prove himself. Emilio (Repo Man) Estevez is the dumbish jock, Ally (War Games) Sheedy is the shy class weirdo and newcomer Judd Nelson is the hard guy who gets all the good lines. Carefully blending contemporary goofiness with sometimes brutally honest observations on the condition known as teenage-itis, Hughes captures the fun and fears of coming of age in suburbia without once resorting to titilation or trivialization. But then any film that opens and closes with a Simple Minds’ tune simply has to reek with sophistication. D.K.

BOOK OF MERCY by Leonard Cohen (Villard Books)

Singer/songwriter/novelist/poet Leonard Cohen celebrates reaching the half-century mark with this collection of 50 meditations, referred to pretentiously on the fly-leaf as “contemporary psalms.” Which will, the pitch continues, “for many readers...give voice to their deepest, most powerful intuitions.” While that’s questionable at best, most of Cohen’s fans are grateful for anything new at this point. Book Of Mercy’s most noteworthy aspect is that its author’s muse is increasingly the God of Abraham and less the female form. And while Cohen’s old themes of beauty, betrayal, mercy, and rage are still intact, and his imagery as diamond sharp and radiant as ever, this collection is more a case of going down to the water to weep for Zion rather than for any hankypanky with Suzanne. Though he perhaps has a greater gift for the sensual than the sacred, it’s nice that he still cares enough to go out at all. T.A.

1984 (Atlantic Releasing)

Profoundly bleak and art-directed to perfection, this version of Orwell’s venerable classic only proves that a great idea doesn’t always make an exciting story. John Hurt makes a painfully appropriate Winnie Smith—craggy, forlorn and terminally alienated. Suzanna Hamilton as his questionable lust interest is simultaneously erotic and hideous, and Richard Burton’s swansong performance is chillingly treacherous. Pity that more of the fine Eurythmics soundtrack wasn’t included, but big business, like Big Brother, does move in mysterious ways. Anesthetizing yet compelling, 1984 the film is always a disturbing vision, hardly recommended for paranoids, claustrophobics and rat haters. D.K.

MTV 1985 CALENDAR (Abrams)

Psychological studies have shown that even those teens who stay glued to MTV round the clock retain basic pencil & paper skills, so this official calendar should provide suitable scratching space for their outbursts of literacy. Big pages splashed with video stills, and with enough space in the date blocks to schedule 365 days of fun activities, e.g.: “Tuesday, April 2: Kevin DuBrow guest VJ, time to turn my dirty pairs of underwear right side out & toss ‘em into the washer!” No, ha ha, I was just making a funny. But the MTV Calendar does include printed reminders of all the major Christian, Jewish, & Secular holidays, plus MTV’s own bratty birthday (Aug. 1st). I’m sure you’ll have no trouble filling the balance of the spaces with pithy notes to yerself. Just try not to gag when you notate summer fun stuff in July & find the whole month blighted with dogday afternoons of Loverboy. R.R.

VISION QUEST (Warner Bros)

Our sadly-named hero Loudon Swain’s V.Q. is to lose 20 pounds, survive chronic nosebleeds, lose his virginity and wrassle a big lunk called Shute. Would that director Harold Becker had half his ambitions; this is such an exasperating mess that at times it’s almost entertaining. Matthew (Birdy) Modine is buoyant and convincing in spite of some decidedly dodgy dialogue, but frankly he looks like he was born to play looney tunes (Holden Caulfield, anyone?). Linda Fiorentino, the New Jerseyite would-be-artist who deflowers our high school senior, has one of the most interestingly irritating voices ever heard in cinema—easily the equal of such appetizing soundtrack singers as Sammy Hagar, Ronnie James Dio and Steve Perry. Madonna makes a “special appearance” as a club chantoosie, a performance you’ve no doubt already OD’d on in the far more cohesive videos. Proudly hailed as the brainchild of Footloose’s executive producers, and, believe me, it shows! D.K.

ROCK ’N’ ROLL DISCIPLES (Monticello Productions)

Weirdest letter I ever got was from a grandmotherly type who wanted to share her “Elvis experience” with me, this being two summers ago when the ghost of Elvis appeared before her to sing “The Wonder Of You”—with a full 40-piece orchestra behind him! She’d have fit right into this hour video documentary which examines the most obsessive forms of Presley fanaticism. It includes a 40ish woman who divorced her husband after seeing Blue Hawaii, moved to Memphis, and had her (brutally murdered) daughter buried with a copy of “Burning Love” in her hands; two airheaded twins who believe Elvis was their father, and Artie Mentz, a poor Elvis impersonator (who could almost be the main character in William McCranor Henderson’s excellent new novel, Stark Raving Elvis), who says the King comes to him in dreams and likens his role to that of a priest in church. Interspersed with some of the more depressing examples of Elvis commercialism, it’s sad but also quite fascinating. (Monticello Productions, 222 W. Ontario, Chicago, IL 60610) B.H.