Take a music video, pop it in your VCR, push play and then the fast-forward button. That suggests what watching this video magazine at normal speed is like. The editing is so quick, the music so pounding, the content so redundant, it makes MTV look as sober as a MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour report on the budget deficit. Two recent issues (about 30 minutes each) focus on runway models showing off the latest wears of such leading designers as Martine Sitbon and Karl Lagerfeld. Editorial Director Nicolas Charney, who founded Psychology Today, could have mixed things up a bit more by, for example, adding segments about men's fashion or how to assemble a wardrobe on a budget. There are some practical sections, such as the Must Buy department (example: the pants skirt). There are also fashion-book reviews, done in about a nanosecond (all the books are "fascinating"), as well as interviews with top models, such as the Dutch woman, Famke, who likes computers and never thought of herself as beautiful. Everything is so frenetic, you're rarely told the cost of the clothes shown. Then again, if you have to ask the price of things, including this videozine...($119; 212-869-4666)
OCEAN ADVENTURE
SET SAIL
Of these two videozines for maritime merrymakers, Ocean Adventure will appeal more to the hard-core sailor. They both have segments on sailboarding and cruising tropical islands, but Set Sail includes a piece on swimsuit fashion, where Ocean Adventure teaches you how to troubleshoot a marine diesel engine. The scripted small talk and goofy segues—"the real test comes when the calypso music signals the start of another marathon party"—generally make Set Sail more like an Evening Magazine for sailors than a resource for old, or even middle-age, salts. Ocean Adventure is generally more seaworthy, though host-producer Peter Rowe is self-serving when, under the guise of discussing boats capsizing, he shows a clip from a 1987 feature movie, Lost!, which he directed. (Ocean Adventure: $99.95, 213-827-8029; Set Sail: $59.95, 800-622-8767)
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