MIXED MEDIA

A periodic survey of pop-related laser discs, books and videocassettes. Ratings are on a scale of one star (poor) to five stars (a classic). “ROLLING STONE PRESENTS TWENTY YEARS OF ROCK & ROLL”----** 1/2 Various artists MGM/UA Home Video ($19.95)

Combining vintage film and video clips, recent interviews and minimal hosting by a cigar-chomping Dennis Hopper, this 1987 show (originally a network television special) falls a distant second to the concurrent and definitive “It Was Twenty Years Ago Today” program in terms of capturing the late-’60s Zeitgeist. Still, it does a pretty good job of tweaking memories and eliciting insights on that era from the likes of Grace Slick, Jerry Garcia and Robbie Robertson. More problematic are the before (virtually no acknowledgment of anything prior to Rolling Stone magazine’s 1967 debut) and after (a series of laboriously tied-together non sequiturs) dealings. Individual pieces of the show are fascinating but there’s little that calls for repeated viewing.