IF YOU'RE TALKING TO ME, YOUR CAREER MUST BE IN TROUBLE

Amusing bluster about stars and movie themes by wiseacre Queenan (Imperial Caddy, 1992), a regular contributor to Rolling Stone, Movieline, etc. States Queenan: ``As readers familiar with my work know, I make my living by watching unspeakably foul, hopelessly incomprehensible movies, and then issuing belated, useless warnings to the viewing public, telling them not to go to movies they have already gone to see...I really don't have anything better to do with my time than to sit at home wasting a whole day watching Once Upon a Time in America (227 m.) and Heaven's Gate (219 m.).'' Not everyone will agree with Queenan's dismissal of the bulk of Woody Allen's work in favor of a handful of his comedies, or his twitting of Meryl Streep as a ``monotonously talented humanoid.'' Sometimes he strikes a semi-serious note, as in his piece on Martin Scorcese (``The Lonely Raging Bull''), a director who makes movies about movies but is nonetheless brutal and disturbing, ``never stupid, condescending, or trendy....'' Perhaps Queenan's most wicked piece- -again at Woody Allen's expense—is his Home Nymphet Video Collection of movies Allen should have seen rather than studying Bergman's The Seventh Seal so assiduously, all of them about the corruption of childwomen by much older men: Lolita, Baby Doll, Pretty Baby, Georgy Girl, etc., flicks in which the man invariably gets his comeuppance, or worse. Readers will have a fine time weighing whether his hatchet job on Barbra Streisand matches Rex Reed's infamous interview with her. Nor should readers miss ``In the Realm of the Senseless,'' in which Queenan eviscerates the plots of the worst features in recent memory, quite often Mickey Rourke movies, though Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance seems to win the author's stinkcheese Oscar. Queenan has an audience from his sneerpieces in entertainment magazines, so this may do well with the video generation.