Poetry in motion: CD-ROM.

While many of us are used to dimming the lights, popping the corn and putting our feet up before settling in to watch a film, switching off the screensaver is not normally part of the ritual. But a seat in front of the computer is a great venue to take in Canadian filmmaker Ron Mann's Poetry In Motion, a documentary featuring Beat legends, younger punk upstarts and other spoken word artists, or Comic Book Confidential, a comprehensive (albeit with a counterculture bent) look at comic books, their creators and even their detractors.

A few years ago, Mann turned both acclaimed documentaries into CD-ROMs for Voyager, the highly regarded publisher of arts-oriented interactive multimedia titles (The Residents' Freak Show, The Complete Maus etc.), who then got Mann to start producing original works for CD-ROM. Poetry In Motion II presents quality interview and performance footage--from old faces like Charles Bukowski, Jim Carroll, Allen Ginsberg and Canadian Michael Ondaatje, as well as a dozen new faces like Spalding Gray, Peter Orlovsky and Bob Holman--Mann couldn't work into its predecessor. I recommend starting with Poetry In Motion because it includes the entire film, as well as additional footage and lots of supporting text. Then, if you just can't get enough, check out the sequel, which doesn't contextualize the material nearly as well, for obvious reasons.

Mann's latest CD-ROM is Painters Painting, a fabulous multimedia extension of the revealing 1973 documentary on the post-war New York art scene by Emile de Antonio, featuring big names like Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Koonig and Jasper Johns. Like the Comic Book Confidential CD-ROM, Painters Painting not only includes the entire documentary, but also contains an extensive text biography of each artist, full-colour examples of his or her work (that can be looked at close-up), and other quality text-based materials that put the film subjects in their appropriate historical and cultural contexts.

Painters Painting also includes an excellent live interview with de Antonio (from a public television broadcast) in which he discusses his earlier, controversial political documentaries, and never-before-published excerpts from the filmmaker's journals. Author and critic Douglas Kellner acted as editor on the Painters Painting CD-ROM, and also wrote most of the text.

Based on his previous work with Voyager, Mann was the obvious and perfect choice to transform this fascinating, visually stunning documentary (which Kellner jokes should have been titled Painters Talking) into a multimedia format. The interface is seamless, easy to navigate and wonderful to look at. After a while, you get used to watching the film in a small frame (by way of the Quicktime player, a version of which is included on each CD-ROM, along with a good Help file). And be warned, the picture quality will vary depending on your system (requirements for Macintosh and Windows systems are listed on the back cover). The beauty of watching a movie with a mouse at hand is that you can move anywhere in the narrative in one click, or stop at any point to dive into the background material. Unless you have a full day at your disposal, this CD-ROM is impossible to get through in one sitting.