Every month, Cosmik Debris brings you many CD and record reviews, but the writers manage to find a little time for other pursuits, like reading, going to movies and watching videos. That's where Everything Else In Review comes in.


Movie: Mission To Mars
Director: Brian DePalma
Studio: Touchstone Pictures
Stars: Gary Sinise, Don Cheadle, Tim Robbins, Connie Nielsen
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

Brian De Palma, who has been able to deliver Hitchcockian heights in sexy thrillers like Body Double, takes on the Sci-fi genre for the first time in Mission to Mars. He plays it ala 2001, as real as possible. That's good because way too many films, the entire Star Wars and Star Trek series for example, play fast and loose with physics.

The story is about the first manned mission to Mars going terribly wrong when the astronauts discover a huge artifact with strange powers. Earth looses contact with the mission but not before receiving a final cryptic message from the lone survivor, Luke, played by Don Cheadle. A rescue mission is sent to find out what happened. Tim Robbins is a favorite actor of mine but he's almost totally wasted here as the rescue mission commander. He pulls rank to get an emotionally challenged but talented pilot to fly with him, played by Gary Sinise and of course his wife, played by Connie Nielsen.

This is where Hollywood intrudes. Given the billions-of-dollar cost of going to Mars and the laws of orbital mechanics, rescue missions wouldn't happen in real life. A later scene involving an escape from a crippled scapecraft also stretches orbital mechanics a bit, but it's not as blatant as some movies would portray it. Quibbles, but let's roll with it for now.

De Palma bravely tries to wring emotion out of the film, especially in the excellent zero gee dance scene with the Van Halen soundtrack, and the overall beauty of the photography and special effects is stunning; but it barrels toward a predictable epiphany that leaves you unsatisfied. In the end it just seems like the writing wasn't all that strong.

This would be a really great film if I hadn't already seen Contact or 2001. It's not that it's bad, it's just really derivative of things that have come before.


(C) 2000 - Rusty Pipes



Book: Not Fade Away
Author: Ben Fong-Torres
Publisher: Miller-Freeman
342 pages, paperback
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

There was a time when Rolling Stone Magazine was a great read that educated and piqued your interest in deserving artists. There was always a "fashion show" aspect as well, but nothing like it is now. The writers all had their own styles that gave the mag a personality we cared about. One of the best of those writers was Ben Fong-Torres, and as a teenager enamored of the rock and roll world, the first thing I did when I opened a new Stone was to search the table of contents for his work. Once I'd read all of his words, I'd move on to other articles. Which is something I don't have to worry about with Not Fade Away, a wonderful collection of Fong-Torres' best articles for Rolling Stone and a handful of other magazines.

Not Fade Away is more than just another rock and roll book. The history of an era of rock and roll and pop music is preserved here, from observations of the first harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to a long forgotten impromptu chat with Jim Morrison. Even with no time to prepare, Fong-Torres knew exactly which buttons to push to get the most out of Morrison, whom he had run into by sheer chance on an afternoon when the Lizard King had some time to kill.

Fong-Torres was present and accounted for through so much history. When The Jackson Five was red hot, he was the barometer, letting us peek backstage and feel we understood the makeup of those five personalities. When a little-known actor named Tom Hanks caught his attention and earned his admiration, he matter-of-factly informed us that Hanks would be a big star one day, and of course he was right. And as Three Dog Night broke attendance and sales records, Fong-Torres took us behind the scenes to watch the management pulling all the strings of one of the most successfully manufactured groups of the era. He made us privy to the deepest thoughts, charms and desires of the people we were and still are fascinated with, and allowed us to see the arrogance of some as well. They're all packed into the 340-some pages of Not Fade Away: McCartney, Jagger, Dylan, Santana, Diane Keaton, Steve Martin, The Dead, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and more, and it's all magic.


(C) 2000 - DJ Johnson



Book: No Static
Author: Quincy McCoy
Publisher: Miller-Freeman
270 pages, hardback
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

Remember when you had a favorite radio station? Well, you may have one now, but probably not because you can't wait to hear what "happens" each day, am I right? In the 50s, 60s and 70s there was something special going on at any number of spots on the dial in most every city, and it was more than the music. Creativity in the booth was the key. Except for the occasional rogue station out there, and not counting the wild, wild west we call the Internet, it's all gone, folks.

Quincy McCoy was a part of those good ol' days, a real, honest-to-God radio personality. Today he works for Gavin, the radio industry's most important magazine. From that pulpit, McCoy preaches sense to radio programmers who may agree with his assertations that creativity must be restored, but are too locked in to corporate surveys and bottom lines to dare try it. No Static states McCoy's case quite clearly, through interviews with creative radio people and rememberances of the past. He traces the history of radio from the sinking of the Titanic, which brought about the first regulations, through the de-regulation of the Reagan era to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which made it possible for a few mega-huge corporations to own most of the stations in the United States. That legislation effectively wiped out minority ownership, diversity and creativity, as the bottom line became the only line.

McCoy, an African-American, is greatly concerned with the lack of minority ownership in radio, as should we all be, and he makes his point very well in No Static. Is anyone listening? We can only hope. If one tenth of his ideas were taken to heart by the powers that be, it might actually be worth turning the radio on again.

You can read an interview with Quincy McCoy in this issue of Cosmik Debris Magazine.


(C) 2000 - DJ Johnson