Inferno At Yellowstone

After a maudlin opening, in which the narrator recalls his boyhood visits to Yellowstone in times past, this overlong (and over everything) documentary gets down to business. Business being endless shots of the fires which burned some 1,400,000 acres in Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 1988, coupled with interminable local news commentary. While a fire is certainly a peculiarly cinematic type of disaster, there are only so many Homeric epithets one can toss on the blaze before it all begins to seem faintly pornographic. Interviews with area residents about the effect of the fires are the program's best feature-since the people, unlike the news reporters, seem to have some genuine concern about what's going on. But more often than not, we're treated to ludicrous remarks from TV anchormen ("We've assessed the damage.." says one, apparently forgetting that he is neither a conservation specialist nor a fireman) and repeated footage of the sign-ons for the local stations. In a few words, the program is sloppy, occasionally incoherent, and outrageously priced. Though, to be fair, we must report that the program was selected as the official video document to be sold at Yellowstone to visitors (at, one suspects, a much lower price). Not recommended. (Available from: Cinevision, Inc., P.O. Box 14006, Spokane, WA 99214.)