News & Notes

WATCH ON DECK
Soldiers and sailors killing time on ships in the Persian Gulf are keeping the on-board VCRs humming with programming from the home front. Each week, a taping center in Bahrain copies about 70 hours of news broadcasts, late-night talkfests and sporting events beamed in via satellite, then rushes the shows to the approximately 40 U.S. ships in the gulf. TV networks and producers also are supplying year-old tapes of, among other programs, Murder, She Wrote; The Cosby Show; 60 Minutes; and Cheers. What do the armed forces watch most?

''First, they want sporting events; next they want news,'' says Dennis Klauer of the Navy Broadcasting Service. Troops stationed on land, however, have to settle for radio broadcasts, because pictures of women's bare body parts, alcohol consumption, and displays of affection are forbidden on Saudi sand. ''There's not much American programming that doesn't have some of that,'' says Klauer.

THE COOK, THE THIEF & A NEW RATING
While Henry & June is the first theatrical movie to carry the Motion Picture Association of America's new NC-17 rating (no children under 17 admitted), The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover(Vidmark, $89.95) will be the first video release to carry this adults-only label. The film was awarded an X by the MPAA but released unrated in theaters last spring. Now stores will be given stickers of the NC-17 logo to put on the tape boxes.

While the NC-17 rating has been heralded as a breakthrough for serious adult entertainment in theaters, the new rating is already running into problems on video. Blockbuster Video, the nation's largest store chain, doesn't carry X-rated products and has decided not to offer the NC-17 version of The Cook, The Thief (it will carry an R-rated version, with 31/2 minutes cut, instead). ''We're not making a blanket policy,'' says Blockbuster spokesman Wally Knief. ''Each [NC-17-rated] film will be judged on its own.''