Media Cool

Media Cool

MOVIES BOOKS VIDEOS & MORE!

7 MINUTES IN HEAVEN

One day last week, my life was enlivened by 7-Up Gold and Kiss Double Platinum. Tho’ the disc package didn’t quite alleviate the bad taste Gene Simmons & Co. leave in my mouth, the six-pack o’ 7-Up Gold sure did. Nowhere near as sickly sweet as the company’s regular product, this richly-colored brew reminds me of nothin’ so much as that nectar o’ the Midwest—Vernor’s Ginger Ale. And while it’s a fine quaff in itself, 7-Up Gold’ll truly send you into orbit when mixed w/your favorite libation. Recommendations include Jim Beam (maybe one day, JB’II include 7-Up Gold in their line of prepackaged mixdrinx—hint hint), Wild Turkey and Ethanol. Conceptually, 7-Up Gold is a total success—bound to bring the co. back from the Like Cola debacle, and sure to bring you many hours o’ sippin’ pleasure—even the non-tipplers amongst ye. Diet, too.

David Sprague

MISTRESS OF THE D-CUP

Ilvira, (who some people might know as Cassandra Peterson), the slinky seductress of TV’s Movie Macabre fame, has more often than not been upstaged by her own cleavage. Soon she’ll be upstaged in larger-than-life Cinemascope when her comedy feature film—Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark—busts out of the can.

“Being in a movie opens the character up,” says Peterson. “Normally I’m just laying on a couch talking directly to the audience. In the movie you actually see me dealing with other people and doing a lot of physical activities, running, being burned at the stake, things I've never done before.” The film also afforded Peterson a great deal more “artistic” freedom in that it’s more risque both costume-wise—which includes her standard plunging skin-tight black dress—and language-wise.

The film has Elvira charging into the prudish town of Falwell, Massachusetts in her customized convertible “Macabremobile,” to claim an inheritance which includes a poodle named Gonk and a mysterious book of “recipes.” Elvira gains a boyfriend (the male equivalent to a dumb blonde girl with big boobs), develops a female rival “who also has a gigantic chest,” and encounters her evil great-uncle Vincent who lusts after the recipe book. Along the way, Elvira also discovers she has magical powers, with some pretty wacky stuff ensuing when Elvira finds out exactly what she can do.

“Elvira is like being a modern day Mae West,” Peterson says. Even though she’s not the smartest person in the world, she’s a really strong woman that doesn’t need some man’s help.” So will her film be as bad as the class “B” horror flicks she hosts? “Jesus, I hope not. If it is I’ll be in trouble and show up in my own show! It’s my worst nightmare.”

Alex Chun

WHY A DUCK?

There are two constants in the world o’ rock literature; as long as there are trees to be felled and pounded into pulp for paper, new volumes will appear on Elvis and the Beatles. Tell'Me Why (Knopf), the latest entry in the Moptop category, is a blow-by-blow view of every song on every album the Beatles ever released. And though author Tim Riley demonstrates the seriousness of his intent by including no photos of J, P, G & R between the covers, the resulting tome is too often an excursion in pretentiousness and overanalysis. If you can’t get enough of the Fab Four, you might be interested in this critical look at the band’s evolution in terms of song structure, subject matter, etc. But for the author to suggest that a tune as straightforward as their rave-up cover of ‘Twist And Shout” harbors a ‘‘kernel of spiritual longing”? This guy’s been listening to too many U2 records.

Steve Peters

THE CURE L’ORANGE

ven the most loyal Cure fans I know would reluctantly agree that the excite ment level of the band live registers just a notch above that of watching poppies grow. But stick ’em in the ancient Theatre Antique D’Orange in France (which makes Colorado’s Red Rocks seem almost contemporary in comparison), have ’em rifle off nearly two dozen of their best cuts amid lots and lots of smoke and the occasional strobe light, and get somebody to film the whole shebang in 35mm and you’ve really got a show. It helps if you have more than a passing interest in Robert Smith & Co., since the concert footage assembled for The Cure L’Orange (Elektra Video) by director Tim Pope clocks in at nearly two hours, and for every worthy performance (“Boys Don’t Cry,” “Give Me It”) there’s a disappointing weak link (“Six Different Ways”). But I dig it because the idea of an Englishman with lipstick smeared across his lips singing/whining about heart-break and Arabs and stuff somehow makes me feel better about my own life. Go figure.

Steve Peters

HOLD THE KETCHUP

ust when you thought it was safe to go into the fresh produce department, those carnivorous love apples are back on the prowl in Return Of The Killer Tomatoes, the tackiest sequel of the season (and with such keen competition, tool). Subtitled The Vegetables Of Doom, it’s the latest venture tailor-made for midnight screenings at a dive near you. This time the premise revolves around the voracious veggies which have been banned ever since the Great Tomato War. The evil Dr. Gangreen (John Astin of Addams Family fame) plots vengeance against whatever it is mad scientists seek revenge for by transforming plants into humanoids. Among the seedlings is a newand-unimproved Igor (played by Olympic swimmer Steve Lundquist, with waterlogged acting skills) who dreams of becoming the first vegetable to anchor the evening news (too late).

The original filmmakers are responsible for the shenanigans this time too. Producer/co-writer/star “Rock” Peace even dares to return as the proprietor of a tomato-less pizzeria where he concocts such delights as marshmallow calamari calzone. Ten years after the original stinker was committed to celluloid, Peace—with collaborators Constantine Dillon and John De Bello—found that they could throw some heretofore “luxurious” elements into this bigger-budgeted puree.

“Real actors, for example,” says Rock, who’s better-known to the consituents of California’s 80th District as State Assemblyman J. Stephen Peace. “And a plot. We have a plot this time.”

Barely, but what does that matter? In the tradition of its predecessor, Return is a turkey of the highest order. “It surpassed our wildest expectations, which weren’t very high,” says conspirator Dillon. “Let’s face it, they say in Hollywood that the sequel is always worse than the original. Since nothing could be worse than this original (Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes), we’ve already made history.”

Vicki Arkoff

BOWLING FOR PLASMA

Everyone ready? Hands on the buzzers? Answer these challenging questions:

• Who’s received more on-screen kisses: Richard Dawson or Monty Hall?

• What game show featured Edgar Bergen’s dummies asking probing marital questions?

• What chubby talk show host composed the Jeopardy theme song?

• What reputable news anchorman stooped to game-show hosting?

BRRRLLLIINNNGG! I’m sorry, your time is up, but we do have some lovely parting prizes for you—$25 dollars worth of Lee’s Press-On Nails, a life-time supply of Rice-A-Roni (about three boxes, I figure), and a copy of Come On Down! The TV Game Show Book by Jefferson Graham.

“It’s more fun than a bonus round,” quoth perky Pat Sajak, Wheel Of Fortune host and renowned book reviewer. Funny thing is, game shows are America’s favorite form of TV entertainment, with 100 million people watching every week despite the saccharine charms of Bert Convy and “Wink” Martindale; frequent bombs like It Pays To Be Ignorant and How’s Your Mother In-Law?] and the fallfrom-fame of pawns like Jay Stewart (with his box) and Carol Merrill, the Vanna White of the ’60s.

Speaking of which, heeerrre’s Carol now, with a valuable tip for all you aspiring refrigerator-pointers out there: “It’s important to enhance the prizes without upstaging them. And you must think about everything at the same time— where you’re supposed to stand, your make-up, your clothes.” Gosh, and glasnost too?

Incidentally, Graham’s heavily-researched trivia book tells us that the answers to the above questions are: Monty Hall with a total of over 20,000 smackeroos: the embarrassing show Do You Trust Your Wife?] Merv Griffin; and Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace. One thing it unfortunately doesn’t reveal is the type of hideous torture Chuck Barris will rightfully receive in the afterlife.

Vicki Arkoff

L.A. IS THE CAPITAL OF KANSAS

by Richard Meltzer (Crown)

A dozen or so years ago, after leapin’ off/bein’ tossed over the side of the derailing train of rock-a-hula-baby crittin’, R.(ichard) Meltzer also decided he’d “used up” his NYC home. So westward he went, leavin’ the Dictators and the commie rabble-rousers alike behind. He wound up in L.A., and soon found out why they (or he, at least) call it “the world’s biggest hick town.”

“For starters,” Meltzer writes, “there were airheads like I could not belive. I’m not talking laid-back, slow on the draw— rm talking bubbleskulls, insensates. Any gathering of fixe-six people would invariably include at least one dodo cum oaf, either (I at first assumed, because Angelenos were flexible, less rule-governed in respect to wiggy abstractions like human thought or (a better working premise, one I tried hard to repress) because sun-andfun might ultimately cook anyone’s brain until full-service mention became a tricky and functionally meaningless calisthenic, one less vital (on a regular basis) than signaling a lane change.”

The gauntlet, you’d have to say, is thrown down. That’s merely the opening line in the opening essay of this roll-in-theaisles-if-you-got-aisles-in-your-place collection. Angelenos, for the past decade plus, have swallowed numerous gulps of civic pride that’ve been torn asunder by the pen of the Meltz. He attacks the “city” ’s “architecture,” its wimmen (in the all-too-accurate “Gonads And Chablis” chapter), even its burgers, f’r Chrissakes. And, with a few curmudgeonly exceptions, he’s never off-target.

L.A. Is The Capital Of Kansas is a mustread for anyone thinkin’ on a move west (who needs more cars on our freeways anyway) or any ol’ consumer of de-constructive criticism. Tho’ some might still mourn his departure from the rockcrit ranks (consider this an open invite to send a missive CREEMward, R.), this’ll go a long way towards alleviating any post-Aesthetics Of Rock withdrawal symptoms suffered by Meltz-heads. In the vernacular of the book-jacket blurb, it’s a fuckin’ good read.

David Sprague