MEDIA COOL
Pornography is one of those things that many people have trouble talking about rationally— attitudes toward sex and sexual display are so emotionally fraught, so intermingled with fear and loathing that both pro and conners tend to talk in the absolutist terms of salvation and degradation.
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MEDIA COOL
This Month’s Media Cool was written by Bill Holdship and Richard C. Walls
TALES OF TIMES SQUARE
by Josh Alan Friedman
(Delacorte)
Pornography is one of those things that many people have trouble talking about rationally— attitudes toward sex and sexual display are so emotionally fraught, so intermingled with fear and loathing that both pro and conners tend to talk in the absolutist terms of salvation and degradation. Which is why the most impressive thing about this collection of articles, many of which originally appeared in Screw, is its sanity. Friedman takes an unflinching, unromanticized look at the workaday world of porn “stars” and consumers, focusing on that mecca of mutants, Times Square. His Iam-a-camera approach is largely non-judgemental, though the gross extravagancies of porn often arouse his sense of absurdity—-just as the surviving shills and ex-vaudeville fringe characters, bewildered and abandoned by that ol’ Pig City de-evolution from the delicate titillations of yore to the blunt punchlines of graphic porn, brings out his latent sentimentality. Highly recommended.R.C.W.
TRICK OR TREAT
(DeLaurentiis Pictures)
It isn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been, but then it isn’t nearly as good, either. The first hour is mildly entertaining, though it’s not especially funny and definitely not at all scary (remember: this is supposed to" be the first “heavy metal horror film”). Then it commits the ultimate sin by relying on weak special effects rather than psychological terror, and it becomes dreadfully boring for its final 45 minutes. The talents of Tony Fields (who .can act) as heavy metal star Sammi Curr are totally wasted. The only really funny/semi-scary scene comes early in the film when the teenage main character’s mother accidentally turns on some screeching heavy metal music—and then can’t turn it off. Is it teen exploitation crap? Yep. And to make matters even worse, it’s teen exploitation crap for headbangers. B.H.
KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES! VOLS. 1 & 2
by Bill Warren
(McFarland)
The perfect birthday or holiday gift for that special compulsive/obsesSive in your life, these two volumes ponder virtually every SF film released in the U.S. between 1950 and 1962 in a manner no drooling devotee can resist. In his intro, Warren ^ admits that this is an “intensely personal” book, and that he is less critic than fan; this explains his ability to deal with even the cheesiest project seriously, fairly—his insights into the appeal of many of these films are valuable because they come from one to whom that appeal is real (i.e., no Medved-ish scorn, none of the patronizing of the slumming intellectual, no grand and grandly extraneous theorizing by a critic enamored of his own ability to make connections). Not that Warden uncritically accepts everything—he appreciates the lunacy of some of the more eccentric films (yo, Plan 9) and the failed ambitions of many of the others. As a bonus, there’s more sheer facts here than one knows what to do with—the mind, she reels! For more info, contact the publisher at Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640. R.C.W.
BEHIND THE HITS: INSIDE StORIES OF CLASSIC POP AND ROCK AND ROLL
by Bob Shannon & John Javna
/ (Warner Books)
This is one of those trivia books that rock fans love to leaf through at least once. It purports to tell the “how” and “why” behind the writing and/or recording of certain rock hits, and it looked promising since Javna co-authored the excellent ’60s! book of several years ago. It’s interesting to read that Alice Cooper inspired David Byrne to write “Psycho Kiiler,” but it’s hard to completely trust the details when John Fogerty is spelled “Fogarty” throughout, Stevie Nicks is described as Lindsey Buckingham’s “wife,” and it’s suggested that James Taylor may have been one of1 three people Carly Simon had in mind when she wrote “You’re So Vain.” And this was after one quick “leaf.” Definitely flawed.
B.H.
PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED
(Tri-Star Pictures)
What promised to be one of the year’s best films—an “intellectual” Back To The Future for grownups, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, no less—turns out to be a major disappointment. As fine as Kathleen Turner has proven herself to be elsewhere, she seems out of place here as Peggy Sue (a pity Debra Winger, Coppola’s original choice, dropped out), while Nicholas Cage (Coppola’s nephew) is badly miscast as Turner’s husband/boyfriend. But the major problem is the film lacks a point of view; I’d have preferred a development of the sentimental Our Town turn it takes when Peggy Sue first returns to 1960 and hears her (dead-for-many-years) grandmother’s voice on the phone. But the script is wishy-washy, as it tries to balance silly comedy and “poignant” drama. And the “happy ending,” reportedly tacked on by the studio at the last minute, only makes things worse. Even the soundtrack and some brilliaht gags (involving a Beatles’ tune and a fourth-rate Kerouac student, respectively) fail miserably. A wasted opportunity. B.H
