Quentin Tarantino

HOLLYWOOD -- Who doesn't know those numskulls Moe, Larry and Curly? The Three Stooges -- whose pies in the face, punches in the gut, headlocks, insults and pratfalls have been embedded in popular culture since the 1930s -- are back. But this time the Stooges are poignant, even sad. "The idea's that comedians have broken hearts, that's in some ways the story" of the comedy team, said James Frawley, the director of "The Three Stooges," a two-hour drama to be broadcast tonightby ABC. What stamps the movie, which includes re-creations of original Stooges comedy routines, is the occasional bleakness of its portrait of the rise of some working-class boys who took their cheerful violence onto the vaudeville stage in the 1920s.

Being a cinephile used to be simple. Go to lots of movies. Cultivate friends of similar persuasion. Find a suitable tavern. Smoke French cigarettes made of Turkish tobacco. Argue into the night, every night.Today, the most ardent enthusiasts must be readers as well as watchers, an entire related book industry having burgeoned alongside films. In recent years, several books have emerged that provide such excellent analysis, lively writing and comprehensive information about movies and the movie industry that they have become indispensable crib sheets.

One of the most remarkable things about 1997 was that two prominent white filmmakers -- both directors who can call their own shots -- made films featuring African-Americans in prominent roles. And, because those filmmakers were Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino, both approached their subjects in totally different ways.Spielberg, who directed "Amistad" after producer Debbie Allen spent more than a dozen years shopping the project to Hollywood studios, filmed the African characters of the film at a reverent, painterly distance, his respect often approaching worship.

Samuel Fuller, 86, a gritty drifter, former reporter and war hero who became one of the nation's premier directors of B movies and influenced other directors, including Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, died Thursday in Los Angeles. He wrote most of his own screenplays and was perhaps best known for such 1950s movies as "The Steel Helmet" and "Pickup on South Street," and for "The Big Red One," a 1979 movie based on his experiences fighting with the 1st Infantry Division in World War II.Helen Wright Greuter, 82, an astronomer and author, died of heart failure Oct. 23 at a retirement home in her native Washington.

"Quentin Tarantino: Shooting from the Hip," by Wensley Clarkson. Overlook Press. Illustrated. 312 pages. $15.95 paper, $24.95 hard The breakneck ascent of Quentin Tarantino from video store clerk to Hollywood auteur was nearly legendary even before his first feature film, "Reservoir Dogs" (1992), had been widely released. By now the news feels a bit stale, but it's only lately that enough material has accrued to make a biography of the 32-year-old screenwriter and director a reasonable proposition.

Details goes Hollywood for February, with an entire issue devoted to tinsel talk. The investigative piece on Scientology and celebrity sheds little light on the cult itself, and less on the motives of actor-followers like John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Kirstie Alley.Demi Moore writes about the trials of carrying weighty gifts of jewelry from her husband: They "practically qualify me as an honorary Gabor," she says. And Samuel L. Jackson writes about how being famous means being mistaken for Laurence Fishburne.

"Four Rooms," no vu.You people must have been very naughty to get this lump of coal in your Christmas stocking! A collection of four "short stories" written and directed by four allegedly talented, hip young directors, the movie is a total catastrophe. Ninety minutes long, it produces but one laugh and that one doesn't arrive until Minute 90. Worse, the film is actually annoying."Four Rooms" is set in an aging Hollywood hotel on New Year's Eve and follows one character, the new bellhop Ted (Tim Roth)

I like rap music. I even like gangsta rap. You've been warned in case you choose to read further.I like the driving beat and in-your-face lyrics. I like the funky rhythms that take me back to the days of James Brown -- every rapper should genuflect when his name is mentioned -- and the flow of the lyrics as they syncopate with the beat.Do the misogynistic and violent lyrics of gangsta rap bother me? Yes, they do, in much the same way that the violence, sexism and Arab-bashing in Arnold Schwarzenegger's "True Lies" bothered me. In the same way that the scurrilous references to African-Americans in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs" bothered me. In the same way that the current spate of "the black man as brute" literature popular with black feminist authors bothers me.So what's wrong with the picture of C. Delores Tucker, a self-professed liberal Democrat and head of the National Congress of Black Women, teaming with conservative William Bennett to jackboot Time Warner into selling its share in gangsta rap company Interscope Records last week?

There you go again.The "you" happens to be Bob Dole, the Republican senator from Kansas who is running for president. But it could have been President Clinton, who's sounded similar notes in times past. Or Tipper Gore. Or anyone and everyone on back to the Catholic Legion of Decency in the '50s to the Hays Office in the '20s and '30s to the original blue-nose Anthony Comstock and his war on "September Morn," which he managed to turn into the most famous painting of the early 20th century.

A 15-year-old boy is running on a playground. He falls and is impaled on an iron bar. It's gory, but the boy is still alive. Who ya gonna call?How about the medical doctors from NBC's ratings-buster, "ER"? And, just in case the normal blood-and-guts level of that hit series isn't high enough for you, how about bringing in Quentin Tarantino -- Mr. Brains-All-Over-The-Backseat of "Pulp Fiction" fame -- to direct the scene in which the boy arrives in the emergency room of County General Memorial Hospital?