Word: recorditis
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Putting products on the big screen is hardly a new pitch. Joan Crawford knocked back Jack Daniel's in Mildred Pierce, and Rosalind Russell dabbed on Charles of the Ritz perfume in Auntie Mame (1958). But ever since lovable E.T. followed a line of Reese's Pieces to a record box-office gross in 1982 -- and & sales of the candy leaped 66% in three months -- film pitches have become a bustling field. Ray-Ban sent 500 pairs of sunglasses to director Oliver Stone for his new feature, Born on the 4th of July. A scene in Cocoon: The Return...
...vile and foolish characters, what is to be gained from reading an overheated version of this "true crime"? Not much. In fact, a few things are lost. For example, the real names of some people who were central to the case. Even though these names are matters of public record and appeared often in newspapers, McGinniss changes them to, as he says, "preserve privacy." A more probable reason for fictitious identifications is to prevent libel suits. Because the impact of true crime depends on melodrama, the scenes and dialogue are liberally re-created by the author. Some of the dialogue...
...American Flight 103 from London to New York, and its 258 passengers and crew members. Long before dawn, emergency rescue teams realized that everybody on the plane had perished, along with at least 22 people on the ground. In the grim history of aviation disasters, Flight 103 made the record books on two counts: as Britain's deadliest air crash and as Pan Am's worst accident involving only one plane...
Score one for mystery. Score two, in fact: one for each volume of Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares. (Or, The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices to you, Rambo.) In 1987 the weirdest album to appear on the reliably eccentric British pop charts was the first volume of folk music recorded by this choir of two dozen Bulgarian women. Journals recorded approving, indeed awed, comments from the likes of George Harrison. The group caught on, and a record that had roughly the commercial potential of Botha: Live in the Transvaal! became a surprise hit. Released in America by Elektra/Nonesuch, the record...
Folk traditions of quite another, although not dissimilar, sort animate a second fluky hit, The Gipsy Kings. The record, sung in a Gypsyfied merging of Spanish and French, sold well over a million copies in Europe and interested the intrepid Elektra in a U.S. release. All members of the same family, the Gipsy Kings make up a jolly band that combines the sly funk of salsa and the brio of flamenco with some of the blowout intensity of rock. The band does have mainstream appeal. The "adult contemporary" step-uncle of MTV, VH-1, recently chose the Kings' video...