MEDIA COOL

MEDIA COOL

DEPARTMENTS

This month’s Media Cools were written by Bill Holdship, Michael Lipton, J. Kordosh, Richard Riegel and Vicki Arkoff.

GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM (Touchstone Pictures)

Robin Williams plays Adrian Cronauer in this true-life tale of an irreverent, hilarious rock ’n’ roll deejay who entertained the troops during the early days of the Vietnam “conflict.” The script isn’t incredibly brilliant, but when Williams has the camera or is interacting with others— which is 99 percent of the time—this is a charming and very, very funny movie. It’s apparent that Williams was allowed to just let loose and improvise throughout, and he proves again that the title of “funniest man in America” is probably a toss-up between him and Steve Martin. The scene in which he meets troops on their way to the front is genuinely touching. And any film that uses “California Sun” by the Rivieras the way this one does automatically rates four stars in my book. Definitely a rock ’n’ roll experience.

B.H.

COUSIN BRUCIE! MY LIFE IN ROCK ’N’ ROLL RADIO by Cousin Bruce Morrow and Laura Baudo (Beech Tree Books)

New York, late 1963. Covers pulled over my head, ear glued to a transistor radio. Cousin Brucie is about to play the Beatles’ latest single. I’m 10 years old and listen to WABC’s Bruce Morrow religiously every night—even sent for a membership in the Cousin Brucie fan club. Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: everybody’s favorite cousin is no writer. But the guy does have some pretty incredible stories to tell from an equally incredible perspective. Like WABC’s 1963 Principal of the Year Contest: it took a staff of 80 people two months to count the 176 million ballots. Or the Mona Lisa contest: painting the best, worst, biggest or smallest Mona would win you $100 and Salvador Dali judged the 15,000 entries at the Polo Grounds. Or the night the 77th caller would win two tickets to the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium. The phone lines connecting Manhattan with Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island all blew, prompting the phone company to create a “choke system” to handle future problems. Brucie goes on and on. For us oldsters, Cousin Brucie! reminds us why we are what we are. For youngsters, it’s a glimpse at how close FM has returned to the personality, playlist and power of Top 40 radio.

M.L.

THE BEST OF SCIENCE FICTION TV by John Javna (Harmony Books)

Here’s another critic’s compilation— dozens and dozens of sci-fi fans voted on the best and worst shows of that genre, and it’s all here for your edification. Unsurprisingly, I guess, Star Trek is ranked #1, beating out superior shows like The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits and even infinitely superior shows (The Prisoner is sadly ranked 10th). There are some good choices, though: The Jetsons and The Adventures Of Superman justly rank among the best, while the odious Space: 1999 and almost-as-bad Battlestar Gaiactica show up on the list of lousy shows you’ll never watch if you have good sense like me. A selection of Brit sci-fi and cult favorites (wait a minute, none of these things were Neilson titans, were they?) rounds it out, plus this great note: somebody actually voted for The Andy Griffith Show as TV’s best sci-fi offering. Now that’s critical acumen.

J.K.

WALL STREET (20th Century Fox)

Hasn’t Reagan been a great President? But seriously, one wonders just how many billionaires have been created during the past eight years. But seriously, this is a great movie. Michael Douglas is great as the ruthless but seductive Gordon Gekko. Yeah, there are flaws, and it does drift into a modern morality play at the end. But so did Platoon and Salvador—and, besides, the subliminals are all great. And maybe Wall Street isn’t as good as Platoon—but I didn’t think Platoon was as good as Salvador—and they were all great. Better a modern moralist than another cinematic cotton candy head. Of course, women don’t exist in Oliver Stone’s world thus far, but that’s something he’s going to have to work out for himself.

B.H.

GETTING IT ONs THE CLOTHING OF ROCK ’N’ ROLL by Mablen Jones (Abbeville Press)

The only thing more embarrassing than seeing photographic evidence of your own bad taste in dumb, trendy clothes is to see even dumber clothes on famous people. From Bowie’s off-shoulder, one-legged pantsuits and Bryan Ferry’s caballero duds to the Tubes’ foot-tall platform shoes and Wendy O’s duct tape and mud, author Mablen Jones’s interesting but overly-serious analysis unwittingly improves upon an old adage: clothes make the man, but they make him look like a real bozo.

V.A.

MARRIED. . .WITH CHILDREN (Fox TV Network)

This is absolutely my fave TV sitcom since the days when Bob Newhart was still a shrink, and that’s high praise indeed. Married... With Children, which chronicles the crypto-squalid lives of Chicago suburbanites Al and Peg Bundy (Ed O’Neill and Katey Sagal, both fantastic in their caricature roles) and their ingrate kidz, is the final & ultimate retort to the saccharine portrait of American family life painted by Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver way back when. Only a sarcastic show like Married... With Children, in which the Bundys think about sex a lot because they don’t have enough money to attempt refinement, could finally undo all the lies the cardigan-wielding Jim Anderson told back in ’56. We Riegels identify strongly with the Bundys, especially the part about being chronically short of coin while Yuppies yup it to the sky right next door (actually happened on our street). Married. .. With Children is the truest teevee portrait yet of the CREEM generation! Don’t miss it!

R.R.