From: leland@cs.columbia.edu (Leland Woodbury)
Subject: Re: CULTURE: Twin Palms-- errr, I mean Wild Palms.
Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 19:13:04 GMT
Organization: Columbia University, Dept. of Computer Science, NYC



In article <1t8i3cINNf6c@news.u.washington.edu>
jpc@tauon.ph.unimelb.edu.au (John Costella) writes:

>I was wondering if someone in the US could summarise what the hell
>Wild Palms actually is! :-)
>...
>Also, if it's a movie, could someone tell us who distributes it; or
>if it's TV, which network has it, and who sells rights to it; or if 
>it's a magazine, who publishes it.

It's hardly worth the bandwidth, especially in this newsgroup, but
I'll justify it in order to put the discussion in perspective for
those who suffer the dubious misfortune of being denied access.

"Wild Palms" is a television mini-series (four episodes, the first of
which aired last night (Sunday)).  It's produced by Oliver Stone (of
'JFK', 'Wall Street', and 'Platoon' fame) and Bruce Wagner, and
written by the latter, loosely based on a comic strip series he did
for Details magazine.  Stars James Belushi, Robert Loggia, and some
other people I can't identify.  There's been a huge amount of hype and
other publicity for it here in the States.  Critics mostly think it's
crap, though John J. O'Connor likes it in his review today's New York
Times, suggesting that it's a fitting warning about technology run
amok.  IMHO, it's very derivative of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, though
not nearly as clever, with few likable characters.  VR features
interestingly and prominently in the plot.

If you want to know more than that, you can probably find it in
rec.arts.tv (et al.).  I bet there's a discussion going on in there
about it.

Leland Woodbury

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[MODERATOR'S NOTE: I thought it WAS David Lynch's work, until I
realized how many "jokes" were ending badly. -- Bob Jacobson]