Word: amber
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Writer-Producer Anna Thomas and Writer-Director Gregory Nava have swathed their story in the amber sunsets of nostalgia. But this patina has the same effect on the winceable dialogue and agitated performances as lacquer on attic furniture. The farce of Destiny proves, yet again, that the road to dull is paved with bad pretensions...
...back to 1962, when the city had already established its reputation as the "hairdo capital of the world." On Corny Collins' TV dance party, white teenagers perform all the latest dances -- the Madison, the Continental, the Pony -- and are local heroes to every adolescent. Chief among these starlets is Amber Von Tussle (Colleen Fitzpatrick), a snooty princess whose dad (Sonny Bono) is the "richest man in East Baltimore" and whose mom (Debbie Harry), Miss Soft Crab of 1945, pours all her ambition into Amber. Every afternoon the pouty miss must practice the cha-cha and the Mashed Potato under...
...Amber soon finds she has a zaftig rival: Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake), who is plump, perky and, pound for bouffanted pound, the snappiest Caucasian dancer in town. The girl has that je ne sais quoi called Star Quality. Soon Tracy is outshining Amber on TV, modeling dresses for a full-figure salon called the Hefty Hideaway and causing a rumpus by insisting that black teenagers be allowed to dance along with whites on Corny's show...
...special ed class. She and Link Larkin (Michael St. Gerard), her "common-law boyfriend," are ostracized from their keen teen group. Her best friend, Penny Pingleton (Leslie Ann Powers), is denounced as a "checkerboard chick" for dating a black student and is tortured by a loopy psychiatrist. And Amber's mom starts a catty rumor about Tracy: "For all we know, she could be high yellow...
...hubbub and the amber light of a crowded night spot, Don Carlson moves smoothly through the crowd. He is shirtless and in stocking feet, and he weighs 330 lbs., not counting the tiny gold angel wings between his shoulder blades. ("You have to say how tall he is," his fiancee urgently advises, "or people will think he's this little round guy.") So, all right, he is built like an N.F.L. tackle, stands just shy of six feet tall, and is more graceful than any man in heart-shaped pasties and a 48-in. diaper has a right...