MEDIA COOL

MEDIA COOL

DEPARTMENTS

This Month’s Media Cool was written by Keith A. Gordon, J. Kordosh, Thomas Anderson, David Keeps and Bill Holdship.

MADONNA by Ed Kelleher & Harriette Vidal (Leisure Books)

With both authors having backgrounds as rock writers or publicists, it’s no wonder to us that they’ve come up with a pretty scary book here. It’s all about the beautiful Madonna, who is evil incarnate. Not that Madonna, this one’s the mother of Satan hisself, the anti-Virgin Mary. She lures people to gruesome deaths, being the most seductive creature ever, and—in general—scares the unction out of Father James Hamilton, the priest dedicated to her destruction, having figured out who she is.

I haven’t read every Stephen King novel, but he’d be hard-pressed to match the terror that Starts with a food processor on page 135 and ends with a “hand, now reduced by a third" on page 137. Of especial interest to Catholics (and Catholic-haters), Madonna's your basic quick-read thriller, good enough to be a movie, and good enough to warrant a sequel. And good enough to keep me chopping carrots by hand. J.K.

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (Orion Pictures)

A lot of Woody Allen’s familiar themes are here again, most notably escape through art. What’s amazing is the way he continues to express these same themes over and over again so wonderfully. This "love letter” to motion pictures concerns a Depression-era waitress (Mia Farrow) who escapes her sad life by going to movies. One day while watching her favorite film, a tooperfect-for-this-world hero (Jeff Daniels) steps right off the screen and falls in love with her. It’s not all hilarious, though the brothel scene is one of the most endearingly funny scenes you’ll see in a film this year. The Purple Rose of Cairo will delight and fascinate you even as it's breaking your heart. A perfect film, and one you’ll probably want to see again. B.H.

COLLECTED POEMS 1947-1980 by Allen Ginsberg (Harper and Row)

Allen Ginsberg has been called, with much justification, the public conscience of the nation. Since coming to prominence in the mid’50s on charges that his poems were obscene, he has surely become the most-renowned American poet alive today. Like one of his spiritual fathers, Walt Whitman, he has written of America in all of its aspects—its vastness and inhumanity, the amalgam of its cities and the solitude of its individuals. Like his other spiritual fathers, the Romantic poet/prophet William Blake, his words are charged with a personal vision, in which Washington can be transformed “into a higher place, the plaza of eternity," and poetry itself can overcome "the trickery of the world.” At over 800 pages, Collected Poems is ample testament to his genius. Also included is a portrait gallery featuring Ginsberg and some of his fellow travelers, among them Peter Orlovisky, Jack Kerouac, and Williams S. Burroughs. T.A.

THE HIT (Island Alive)

Ten years ago, Willie Parker (fetchingly portrayed by Terence Stamp) put his buddies in jail and now he's being hauled off for a quickie reunion-cum-execution. It’s an agonizing road trip from dusty Spain to Paris and there’s a feisty kidnapped senorita in the backseat to cause additional trou ble. Worse yet, grim, gaunt John Hurt is driving and having a teen sy weensy crisis of confidence. His protege, the thoroughly nasty Myron (Tim Roth), lightens things up a bit with some inspired doltishness and brutality, while old Willie keeps so cucumber cool you figure he must have some shifty escape plan up his sleeve. Unfortunately the only thing up his sleeve is his arm which probably spent the past ten years reaching for volumes on existentialism in the public library. The whole bloody mess comes to a screeching "death-is-just-anotherstep-in-the-journey” halt long after you’ve lost interest in the philosophical issues. Directed by Stephen Frears, who put Albert Finney through some very affectionate Bogart-homage paces in Gumshoe, this aimless Hit would be lucky indeed to live up to its name. D.K.

WILL RUSSIA INVADE AMERICA?

by Kenneth Goff (Kenneth Goff, publisher) Since this 64-page pamphlet was written in 1951, it’s actually no mere hodge-podge of crank theories—it’s future history! Author/publisher Goff’s ideas are, indeed, wide-ranging and cannot be easily distilled into a brief review, but they are basically: the Red Russians are no friends of ours (or our Christian ethic) and will invade our great country (see chapters seven and eight,“Invasion From The North” and “Reds Plot Seizure Of U.S.”)...unless (see chapter nine, “Christ The Answer”). Incredibly, this will all happen sometime in the late 1950s

(“The city of Anchorage is virtually an armed camp with trenches in nearly every street”). Which means it’s already happened and I have had the knowledge blocked from my mind by a super-secret Soviet mind-ray they must’ve invented by now. Therefore, we are living in a slave state and I will be executed without a trial for having reviewed this subversive booklet. Well, no point in buying that VCR now, l guess. J.K

LISTEN TO THESE PICTURES: PHOTOGRAPHS OF JOHN LENNON by Bob Gruen (William Morrow & Co.)

Recall the most memorable photo you saw of John Lennon during his post-Beatle years, and chances are very good that Bob Gruen shot it. Gruen was Lennon’s friend (Yoko wrote the foreword to this book) and personal photographer from 1971 through the latter’s death, and he was responsible for the famous photos of Lennon in the “New York City” T-shirt; giving the peace sign in front of the Statue Of Liberty; at the Grammys with Yoko, Bowie, Simon, Garfunkel and Nona Hendryx; holding his green card in front of the U.S. Immigration office, and numerous others. They’re all here, in addition to some never published before. Gruen provides text before each section—although I wish he’d have included a few captions here and there, since some of the figures are unidentifiable. You may want to wait for the paperback (all the photos are black & white), but it’ll definitely bring back some fond memories. B.H.

WEEKLY WORLD NEWS Of all the sleazo-tabloids you’ll find gracing the front racks of your local supermarket or 7-11 Store, Weekly World News is the most consistent bargain vying for your hard-earned coin. Forget about soap opera heart throbs or chilling sob stories of the stars that you’ll find in other rags, Weekly World News contains the bizarre meatand-potatoes of the real world: witness the "Human Head Transplant!” or tremble at the truelife horror of “I Watched A Grizzly Tear Me Apart!” If it’s UFOs and little blue aliens, sasquatch and his mother or ordinary tales like "I Was Raped By Asparagus From Atlantis!” that you’re looking for, just look for a copy of Weekly World News. At four bits a copy, you’ll be glad you did! K.A.G