Word: ballard
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...BLACK STALLION Directed by Carroll Ballard...
Watching The Black Stallion is like spending two hours with a stack of National Geographies. Director Carroll Ballard's adaptation of Walter Farley's boy-and-horse novel consists of one stunning view after another: coral seas, scarlet sunsets, moonlit landscapes, stormy skies. Almost every shot is suitable for framing, and Ballard prefers it that way. Whenever actors step into the frame, the director dismisses them quickly; he seems to feel that characters are intruders who come around only to mess up his pretty pictures...
Luckily for the audience, the film's early scenes do not focus on individual people. Ballard opens with pure spectacle, allowing his movie to get off to a rousing start. As the camera wanders around an exotic ship traveling near North Africa in 1946, there is mystery and sensuous excitement at every turn. In one corner of the ship, middle-aged adventurers silently play poker for a high-stakes pot of dazzling gems and religious icons. In another, a bizarre team of white-gowned Arabs zealously guards a shrieking black Arabian stallion. When a storm strikes late one night...
Charles E. Ballard Evansville...
...addict and career criminal who committed his first armed robbery at age 15 and passed 22 of his last 27 years behind bars. With similar steadfastness, Bishop had denounced all efforts made on his behalf by civil libertarians to stay his execution for the 1977 murder of Newlywed David Ballard, 22, during a casino stickup in Las Vegas. Indeed, Bishop waived his right to a jury trial and immediately pleaded guilty to the killing...