Music Central ’96
CD-ROM for Mac
Microsoft Clearly a work in progress by the CD’s own admission (it directs you to a Web
site where you can download updates), this CD-ROM is a perfect example of the
encyclopedic possibilities this technology possesses. On one CD, there are over
8,000 artist bios, 60,000 album discographies, and enough photos, video clips,
and info on blues, jazz, folk, rock, country, and world music to make your
Rolling Stone and Spin record guides look like the Dead Sea
Scrolls. Unfortunately, for many artists there’s only sketchy info; the Bad
Livers, Junior Brown, and Sue Foley are all listed, for example, but they don’t
yet have entries like the Butthole Surfers. It’s useful and maddening at the
same time. When it’s completed, though, look out.
— Raoul Hernandez
Soul Expedition:
The 1960s
CD-ROM for Windows and Mac*
Compton’s NewMedia Stamped with the Rhino empire’s seal, this CD-ROM is the beginner’s version of
the Soul Sixties — as opposed to the audio-only, 124-disc graduate course
known as The Complete Stax/Volt Singles box set. Only 10 tracks on one
CD here (there’s a second disc should your PC not read the Windows program on
the first CD), with tunes by Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Clarence Carter, and
the like. Hitting the program’s auto button will play all 10 songs while giving
you a photo to stare at. Interactively, there’s a video clip, biography, and
discography to go with each song’s performance. Nice, but 10 songs from 10
R&B singers from this area is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. — Raoul Hernandez
Warcraft 2:
Tides of Darkness
Blizzard Entertainment
CD-ROM for PC The fearsome slaughter of your peasants by the Orcish horde transpires while a
flight of fire-breathing dragons screaming over the trees sets your farms
ablaze. Your wizards must counter-attack with blizzard and fireball spells in
order to obliterate the wave of reinforcing deathknights and trolls. A
quick-moving game of tactical warfare in which you can play as either a human
king or an Orcish warlord, Warcraft 2 can be played against the computer
through a series of well-thought-out scenarios, but it’s most fun against other
humans. From two to eight people can play simultaneously by modem, LAN, or
null-modem cable. It’s a terrific game; I can’t get enough of pillaging the
homelands of my friends across the city.
— Kurt Dillard
Faust
D: Jan Svankmajer; with Peter Cepek, Jan Kraus, Vladimir Kudla, Antonin
Zacpal, Jiri Suchy.
VHS Home Video After signing away his soul, Faust demands, “Show me all the secrets of
Creation.” Lucifer replies, “It lies outside the boundaries of man’s expressed
words.” Director/animator Svankmajer does his best to take you into the beyond
in his version of Faust, set in modern Czechoslovakia. Known as the
“alchemist of the surreal” he surpasses the words and combines fantastic media
— live-action theatre, stop-motion animation, claymation, and marionettes —
to transmute these elements into golden magic without committing literary
blasphemy. It’s as if Svankmajer’s locked you in a magician’s secret basement
with only hidden symbols to lead you out of the madness. Svankmajer makes sure
you have a hell of a time finding them. — Stephany
Baskin
Crimson Tide
D: Tony Scott; with Denzel Wash-ington, Gene Hackman, George Dzundza, Viggo
Mortensen, James Gandolfini, Matt Craven.
Laserdisc This surprisingly witty thriller was far and away one of the best of last
year’s summer blockbusters, thanks mainly to Michael Schiffer’s fine script
(reportedly given uncredited touch-up’s by both Robert Towne and Quentin
Tarantino) and the ferocious performances from two of Hollywood’s finest stars,
Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. On laserdisc, Crimson Tide looks and
sounds just as good, if not even better, than it did it in the theatre,
effectively reproducing the vivid colors of Dariusz Wolski’s superior
cinematography and maintaining the richness of Hans Zimmer’s score. As an added
bonus, the disc includes both the theatrical trailer and an unremarkable but
welcome behind-the-scenes featurette.
— Joey O’Bryan
This article appears in February 16 • 1996 and February 16 • 1996 (Cover).