Supercities: Rio De Janeiro; Supercities: St. Petersburg; A Tour Of Atlanta

Cities Don't Suck is the title for a suite of thematic articles in the September/October 1993 issue of Utne Reader, and it reminded me of a general rule of thumb when it comes to travel videos: cities never suck. The cameras don't take you to the downtown dives or offer statistics on the homeless or check out the lifestyles of the poor and anonymous. Credit Rio de Janeiro, one of the entries in IVN's growing SuperCities series, for at least being honestly contradictory. Even as the cameras pan across the endless miles of girls from Ipanema dotting the beaches, the narration reminds us--uneasily--that the gap between rich and poor in this haven for hedonists is one of the greatest anywhere. Perhaps the uneasiness is because of the religious reminder: a 100 ft. statue of Jesus Christ atop a steep mountain overlooking Rio (poor Christ, having a view of a city filled with total party animals). Sweeping panoramic camera shots, bouncy salsa music, bright splashes of color as the natives go ultra-gaudy for Carnival, Rio de Janeiro offers serviceable overlaid narration and nice visuals to offer a sketch of the city, but has none of the insider tips for erstwhile travelers that would make this a "super" video. Ditto for St. Petersburg, which heads for the colder climes of Russia, where Peter the Great's 18th-century city (formerly known as Leningrad, among other names), was built according to European designs. The camera visits Peter's former playground, the Winter Palace (a rather diminutive abode, boasting a mere 1,057 rooms) now known as The Hermitage, a repository of classic art. There are also visits to the Summer Palace, the Pushkin Theatre, the Mall (yep, you can now buy anything in Russia...of course, there are lines and sometimes things are out of stock), and the gorgeous complex of fountains sans pumps and viaducts which is both a scientific and artistic marvel. Like Rio, the program contains no real advisory information for tourists, but it is lovely to look at and very affordably priced. Recommended. Other titles in the SuperCities series include: Paris, Lisbon, Istanbul, London, New York, Rome, Florence, Hong Kong, and Venice.A Tour of Atlanta, while not as glitzy as the SuperCities productions, offers better narration and more sights to see (at triple the price). Atlanta--or Standing Peach Tree, as it was formerly known--is the home of Coca-Cola and Ted Turner, which makes it a pretty darn American city. Interweaving city history with sights of some of the more popular tourist attractions, A Tour of Atlanta takes viewers to the Cyclorama, site of a huge dioramic picture of the battle of Atlanta which occurred during Sherman's famous Civil War aerobic walk to the sea in which he burned a lot of calories...and everything else in his path (for the scholarly version of this, see Gone With the Wind). Viewers traipse around underground Atlanta, visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Change, stop in at Six Flags, watch puppets at the Center for Puppetry Arts, and explore science at the Sony-donated hands-on science center Sci-Trek. At the high side of the price range for a general travel video, A Tour of Atlanta is nevertheless recommended for larger travel collections, especially since it's the site for the 1996 Olympic Games. (R. Pitman)