Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 49

Spotlight-Santa Cruz Sentinel Friday, Feb. 22, 19855 there's still a hint of adventure in the newsroom setting. While Richard Masur turns in a nice little performance as the droopy-mustached city editor, the dialogue with lines like, "What are you hacking on?" or "We've got a storm named Annie. Get to know her!" rings real false, real fast. Author John Katzenbach, son of the former attorney general, based his best-selling novel on his own experiences as a Miami news reporter.

But by the time it gets to the screen, with help from scriptwriter Leon Piedmont, "The Mean Season" is short on accuracy and long on predictable contrivance. The story heats up, the writers wish, with the appearance of the killer, well-played in a sicko vein by Richard Jordan. He's just in it for the publicity of course, but as reporter Russell realizes, one man's murder spree is another man's Pulitzer Prize. They both need each other, each makes the other look good (get If you don't get it the first time, the script repeats the point enough times to drum it into everyone in the theater maybe even into people passing by on the street. The film seems to be trying to make a point about The News, but trying is the operative word.

To spice things up a bit, or to get them started, Borsos throws in some gratuitous suspense, like the shower scene out of "Psycho" (it was only Kurt playing a little trick on Mariel) or the old grab-the-driver-from-the-backseat routine (it was only Mariel playing a little trick on Kurt). Hey, this is one real fun couple. Coming off a couple of winning performances "Silkwood" and "Swing Shift" Russell tries, but can only be as good as his director lets him be. That's not very. As for Mariel, she displays a talent for whining.

And as for the movie in general, you'd be better off staying home and watching "Miami Vice." A lot better off. 7f: Reporter Kurt Russell meets the press in "The Mean Season. UNITED ARTISTS THEATRES ISTS THEATRES s. SPECIAL Newsroom blues EESI ADVANCE PREVIEW! PREVIEW! a By RICK CHATENEVER Sentinel Staff Writer 'HEN IT COMES to a a public relations, filmmaking in Miami is one of those good news-bad news situations. The 1 "W- Rob Reiner's new romantic comedy.

good news is that there's more film production than ever; the bad news is that it keeps making the city look worse and worse. "The Mean Season," now at the Del Mar, takes its title from the weather (it's sort of storm time in the tropics) It might better be titled The Lean Season It's the latest and the worst entry in the newsroom adventure genre, once again raising the question of where are the keys for conscience and responsibility on the reporter's video display terminal? Once again it's time to explore the fine line between making the news and reporting the R.GV1CW news- Kurt Russell plays a tired-but-still- a-pro crime reporter who's finally ready to resign and move to Colorado with his sweetie Mariel Hemingway. Unfortunately for him, a crazed killed has other things in mind. The killer likes the way the reporter writes, you see, so he tags him to be his "voice," communicating to the public via the front page of the Miami Journal. Just to keep up reader interest, the murderer keeps knocking off new victims, chosen at random but of fed in increasingly gory fashion.

And just to keep up the reporter's interest, the killer finally sets his sites on Mariel for an only-in-Holly-wood kind of climax, even if it takes place in South Florida. The problem with this film make that the first problem with this film is that it keeps trying to be a whole lot of other films, without much success. After making a very auspicious debut directing "The Grey Fox" in Canada, Philip Borsos gets overwhelmed in a hurry by things on this side of the border. The look is a cross between "Absense of Malice" (say, wasn't that shot in Miami, too?) and "Body Heat," and that's just the opening credits. It doesn't take our burned-out newsman long to observe that he'd rather be covering the Watergate, but then again, you've got to be a graduate of the Redford-Hoffman School of Journalism to get those assignments.

Even now that the old typewriters and clickety-clack teletype machines have been replaced by computers, 1 The sure thing comes once in a but the real thing lasts forever. 3Cs A L5f EMBASSY FILMS ASSOCIATES MONUMENT PICTURES ROB REINER "THE SURE THING" JOHN CUSACK DAPHNE ZUNIGA VIVECA LINDFORS NICOLLETTE SHERIDAN ANDREW SCHEINMAN TOM SCOTT STEVEN BLOOM JONATHAN ROBERTS ROGER BIRNBAUM ROB REINER EMBASSY EE Mt IMHASSr HlMSASSlOAttS Mr Toumj CMdwt SATURDAY ONLY AT 7:40 P.M. PLAYS WITH MISCHIEF MEAN SEASON.