THE BUSINESS

Given the fate of previous Hollywood fare centred on computer/CD- Rom/video game culture - remember Tron and See No Evil? No? Catch Rising Sun? Just as well - it's a bit of a surprise to see just how many forthcoming flicks rely on microchip generated gimmicks. The Sandra Bullock starrer The Net is first out of the blocks with a tale of how modern identity can be counted in megabytes, and wiped (as Ms Bullock discovers). It's already shaping up as a summer hit - there hasn't been a woman-in-peril flick since last summer's The Pelican Brief - but the jury's still out on Virtuosity, a sci-fi thriller about a virtual reality serial-killer who escapes into the real world and is pursued by ex-cop Denzel Washington, who, of course, can't kill him because he's not a person, he's just a picture. Tough one. Last, and probably least, Game Boy (ho, ho, ho) is a Z-grade soft-porn comedy about, heaven help us, a teenage (male) virgin getting trapped in a zone of Joy of Sex-type CD-Roms. Time to hit the delete button.

One of the problems with the West End stage hit Burning Blue (and, boy, does it have problems) is that the material - it's a Fifties "homosexual problem play" in Nineties military drag - attracts people who don't usually go to the theatre and consquently have little idea of how to behave. Which sounds uncharitable, but which is actually the kindest interpretation one can put on audience members loudly telling each other - and their pals in other parts of the auditorium - how funny certain lines are, and calling out "asshole" and "jerk" when the production's resident bigot - Tim Woodward, who played a gay man in the TV film Closing Numbers - rants on about faggots spreading Aids. (Hey guys, he's acting.) I guess having conquered cinemas with their endless and banal banter, the TV generation is now determined to bring theatre down to their level.

It came from the Archives: Ed Wood's "lost" Western, Crossroads at Laredo, has been rediscovered and tacked onto the end of the well-received documentary, The Haunted World of Edward D Wood Jr. Shot in two days - the Western, not the documentary - Laredo features everyone's favourite transvestite as a gunfighter, murderer and thief, though not necessarily in that order. The movie suffers from a complete lack of soundtrack (well, maybe not) - but there is a voiceover narration approximating the original script, courtesy of the memory of Dolores Fuller, Wood's onetime lover (until she couldn't take that angora thing anymore).

Monika Danneman was with Jimi Hendrix, but not in the room, when Jimi bit the Big One back in September 1970. When you read The Inner World of Jimi Hendrix, you may suspect Jimi would have done anything to get away from Monika, including choking on his vomit. I came close to doing the same thing myself as I perused the 192 glossily offensive pages that make up La Danneman's tribute to the dead guitarist - and to her own creative genius. Appalling painting after appalling painting cries out for attention, and just in case it doesn't get it, there's fulsome text to explain the artist's intentions. Check out this gripper, accompanying In Tune with the Sky: "Here the power of the subconscious is opening up towards the sky, while at the same time being reflected in the waters of the sea. As the sky is our spiritual home, and the ocean the natural source of all life on earth, they can be seen as two complementary sides of our existence: Nature and Spirit. Jimi was strongly in tune with both elements, receptive to the world around him as well as to his subconcious powers, thus having access to answers that most people would not find in a lifetime." So now we know ...