Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 66

4 Spotlight Sanf a Cruz Sentinel Friday, April 13, 1990 'Blue Velvet' visionary tries his hand at TV i i i J' I 1. found out about a parrot that saved a family from a dangerous gas leak. Then we saw some little kids pour gasoline on a fire and burn the hec out of themselves. Then three guys lost at sea were rescued. The show only got really bloody when it rolled on a two-car accident In which two drunk women were trapped inside their smashed car.

To the show's credit, it saved this sequence for last. I doubt I'll watch "Rescue 911" again, but it really wasn't as terrible as it might have been. In es sence the show xrtrays rescue situations and stresses safety precautions to its audience, which I assume I hope is coniosed of mostly younger viewers. Nothing wrong with that. And, hey, 1 liked the? story about the parrot.

Goodbye. Pat. Pat Sajak's late night talk show on CBS never had a chance once the execs stalled messing with its format, which was soon after it first aired. The worst thing that hapiiened to Sajak was Arsenio Hall (who may be the worse thing that has happened to a lot of people), who got a half hour jump in most markets (starting at 11 p.m.) and had strong ties with a lot of the Hollywood elite. It was particularly classy of CBS to cancel Sajak's show while he was overseas.

Tonight's final show, featuring who knows who as guest host, will have to be one of the most pathetic footnotes in TV history. Ah. well. The big wheel keeps on spinning. But Lynch Is still siicrvisii)g the production.

And even if the balance of "Twin Peaks" Is not as stunning as Lynch's pilot film, as an overall project it was network television's bravest moment since the CBS mini series "Lonesome Dove" two years ago. "Coach" is much more likable these days. This ABC sitcom which has come and gone and come back since last year was always funny. But the Coach (Craig T. Nelson) was t(M) obnoxious in his first incarnation.

lie's still plenty obnoxious, understand. But now you can catch that glimmer of feeling beneath his exterior that makes htm likable hile obnoxious. In addition, Jerry Van Dyke is carving himself a niche as one of the best supiMirting comic actors around ith his portrayal of one of Coach's two dimwit assistants. The other dimwit, a big blonde guy whose name I don't know, is pretty good as well. But Van Dyke steals the show, delivering some of the most open-mouthed, lunkhead lines while carrying a sense of in-nwence that offsets Nelson's self-centered arrogance.

"Coach," following "The Wonder Years," and "Roseannc," may actually finish off the best sitcom three punch combination around. Check it out if you haven't already. I watched "Rescue 911" on CBS this week. I didn't want to, but since I've never had the stomach to review It I figured I'd better. Luckily it wasn't near as gruesome as I thought it would be.

We While sM-ediui! along ill a police car, they are at one of the film's tensest liniments, about to lose sight of a valuable witness a KHI agent (Kyle M.u l.ai hlan) turns to the local sh'Till (Michael Ontkean) and asks, "Could you pass tne a The same two cops enter a small room in a bank to examine a salety di'lNisit box and encounter a giant dear head turned on its side on a table. The deer's head stares at the camera throughout the scene. At a town meeting tin? Fill man turns to the sheriff and asks, "Who's that woman with the motioning toward a woman at the back of the room holding you guessed it a log. "We call her the lady with the log," answers the sheriff. Uh, yeah.

Hut somehow the fierceness and absolute continuity of Lynch's vision holds things together no matter how weird he gets. The sheer intensity and individuality of his life view is awesome. Which may be a problem for "Twin I'eaks" in the long run (it began a six-week run at 9 p.m. Thursday). Because Lynch is not My TOM I Sentinel stall writer IT Im.iI the p.inls oil Pig Uunilv, lor nun' she's probably not (imi pleased about the experience 'Twin Peaks." ABC's risky nnir der mystery soap opera expei i ment was nut nnly a major ritu al success, it was a maor ratings sue cess as well.

rushing the rometi tiuii last Sumlay night (including Ms. ItuiiiJy With Children" Kox). My giving brilliant director David Lynch Velvet." "The hie-phant free reign over the prodiictinn. AKC allowed lor the creation of a piece of such quality that it drew rave advance reviews from virtually every corner of the country. The attendant publicity convinced a lot of eople to check out "Twin I'eaks" Sunday night.

What they saw was far more than a movie about the murder of a small town homecoming queen. It was a classic sampler of Lynch's (Kid and highly individual vision, a strange concoction of terror, mystery, social satire and strange romance, all delivered from a downright bizarre perspective. NOW SHOWIN6 AT PIZZA MY REAP FD6TS SOCIETY LOOK WHCfe TAlKJNtS JOHNNY HANDSOME VALENTINE TO KILL A PRIEST ST FRED HOIUEY, ISHRIWKTHEKIRS. CASUUTlfSOFWAR STUFF STEPHANIE IN with his gang, the Drapes. Kyle MacLachlan stars in David Lynch's 'Twin directing the balance of the ep-siodes.

And it's hard to imagine another director being able to carry his vision forward. loses that in 'Crybaby' own, or our, good. The story is distressingly simple; in fact, it's barely a story at all. Greaser Crybaby Walker (Johnny Depp) falls for square beauty Allison (Amy Locane) after the two are inoculated against polio side by side at the local high school. Her grandmother (Polly Bergen) wants Allison to stick with her square boyfriend, but Allison breaks free and goes to a greaser dance with Crybaby anyway.

A riot between squares and greasers (called drapes, by the way, in this flick) breaks out at the dance and Crybaby is sent to jail as a juvenile delinquent. But Allison's grandma suddenly undergoes a change of heart and asks the tough judge who's fallen for her to let Crybaby go. Which he does, conveniently. The film ends with a classic "chicken" race between Allison's square ex-beau and Crybaby. Except that this race has both guys riding on top of their dragsters while friends drive.

And Crybaby's sister (Ricki Lake) gives birth to her third illegitimate child in the back seat of his jalopy during the race. All of this is told in the form of a musical. The songs are a mix of oldies and newies that are supposed to sound like oldies. As with everything else in this movie, all is artifice; neither Depp or Locane actually slrigf their pahs: In fact, the whole point of this John Waters lovin' feelin' Ity TOM LONG Sentinel stall writer llAT good is a three headed This is the question that eventually surfaces upon considering John Waters' latest indulgence in tacky film extravagance, "Crybaby," now playing at the Scotts Valley Cinema. I'm sure that somewhere there is a scientist who, if he or she put his or her mind to it, could develop some genetic formula and produce a three-headed cow.

but what the heck would you do with such a thing? Well, that's the problem with "Crybabay" as well. Writer-director Waters the perverse auteur of "Pink Flamingos" and, more recently, "Hairspray" has accomplished precisely what he set out to do with this sham production of a would-be '50s musical. It's unswervingly stupid, glaringly superficial and unabashedly skeletal in terms of plot and character development. We're supposed to enjoy all this stupidity, and we do for a while. Waters' amateur-hour filming techniques, the sheer shallowness of his characters and the way he throws his bizarre sensibilities into the most mundane situations all combine for some giggly moments.

But in fact, the movie is one long And, at one hour and 20 minutes, the joke lasts too long for its Johnny Depp, center, movie seems to be to try and let us in on how phony everything in film is (wow, what a surprise). The cliche-ridden script is written with such a complete lack of depth it implies most scripts are just as superficial, just not as up front about their superficiality. The characters have no depth and are completely unbelievable, the situations are absurd and the overall feel is cartoon-like. There are three things worth liking about this movie its cast, its cameos and its perverse scenes, although the perverse scenes may simply be more noteworthy than enjoyable. Depp and Locane are as good as Waters lets them bo.

Former porn teen queen Traci Lords is the perfect picture of a tough teen slut while Lake, the likable star of the far superior "Hair-spray," comes through for Waters again. The cameos are amazing Patty Hearst and David Nelson as Lords' parents, '60s hotshot blonde Joey Ileatherton as a woman who speaks in tongues, rock icon Iggy Pop as Crybaby's ragged uncle, Troy Donahue as a decrepit drunk Dad. Arid then 'there are the, well, sicko scenes. Remember, this is the director who once had his star eat dog poop on screen. Well, this time out the movie opens with a long series of adolescents who are having their arms lovingly punctured with needles carrying polio vaccine.

Later, as Crybaby teaches Allison to french kiss, we are treated to a festival of intertwining tongues as a plethora of couples slurp at one another's mouths and Waters' camera closes in. And then there's the movie's strangest affectation, although perfectly predictable coming from Waters. Some poor wretch of a woman called Kim McGuire stars as a Crybaby crony named Hatchet-Face, and she is startling, disturbingly ugly, with a big nose, a wandering eye and lipstick sprawled across a face only a blind dog could love. McGuire probably gets as much camera time as anyone else in this film, all because she is so damn ugly. If the idea is to shock, well she does.

But the viewer is left wondering if John Waters has anything beyond shocks and silly put-ons in him. This film certainly doesn't. Recommended who wants to look at a three-headed cow for more than an hour. I OVER I.OOQO'rHEKTL.ES f' i. mm mmmm mS mm.