Word: alie
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Mohammed Ali Jinnah...
...course, not all of Osborne's force can be diminished, and when rich-bitch Helena enters in the Second Act as foil for Porter's venom, the performance really sparks; but her spark is as ephemeral as Ali's in the thirteenth round. The director has done everything possible to obstruct dramatic tensions. The violent actions are more uncomfortable than discomfiting, the quiet moments are languorous. Against the evening's generally ham-handed pacing, Porter's songwriting-dancing interludes seem too clever by half. The actors strive valiantly to overcome the director's schematized conception, but only John Archibald...
...piece of this sort had potential-a great deal of it in fact. Mr. Cabot could have explored the phenomenon of Ali (witness Robert Lipsyte's article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine) or he could have explored, by focusing on certain ramifications of the Ali-Frazier match, the sport of boxing in the United States. At the very least, Mr. Cabot could have treated Joe Frazier and Sonny Liston with some measure of the respect and sympathy they both deserve: neither are (in Liston's case, were) ogres, but human beings with dreams and desires and failings like...
Those head shots which Frazier landed late in the fight were little more than a fluke. The groundwork for the slaughter of the last five rounds had been skillfully laid during the previous ten. Forget Ali's jaw for a moment. Even if he couldn't talk to reporters after the fight, even if that lip of his will be hung up for a few days, it isn't nearly as hurt as his midsection, which will probably be on ice for the next few weeks...
...Ali is angling for a rematch. He probably realizes what he's done wrong. And if the next bout is far enough into the future, Ali will have time to train and get his style right, so that the next time he fights Joe Frazier he won't have to hit the mat again...