Word: bit
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Gasoline prices have more than doubled since 1973, a far steeper climb than that of inflation, and yet consumption continues to surge. Gasoline prices would have to climb much, much higher to make a significant difference; moderately higher prices will help a little bit, but nowhere near enough to make that alone the reason to decontrol...
These harsh realities are every bit as troubling to oilmen as to anybody else. They chafe at charges that they belong to some sort of seamless monolith, and they are bewildered by the public's suspicions. The dismay is understandable. Hardly the conspiratorial business that it is widely thought to be, the 1.8 million-employee industry operates in an intensely competitive arena...
...sending Congress his proposal for the windfall tax, and he seized the opportunity to make yet another appeal for passage, saying that the industry is "already awash" with profits. The occasionally populist President shows a deep distrust of large oil companies, and they are perfect targets for a bit of demagoguery because much of the public dislikes them too. Carter's verbal overkill is also intended to deflect public fury from the White House when gasoline prices, which are already rising sharply, go up even more as a result of decontrol...
...Little Romance, Olivier has another crusty character role: a suave old coot of a Frenchman who plays fairy godfather to a pair of star-crossed lovers who are just 13. He is in delightful fettle and creates one classic bit, a gasping fit while reading a newspaper. Yet this is one latter-day Olivier film that has more going for it than its star. Director George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy, The Sting) and Screenwriter Allan Burns (cocreator of TV's original Mary Tyler Moore Show) have constructed a romantic comedy that, for all its contrivances, offers an indecent amount...
Still, all this has a bit more energy than the affair between Farrow and Ka'ne, who after endless delays are mostly directed to nibble each other's necks and take decorously clothed swims and beach walks to demonstrate their affection. Swedish Film Maker Jan Troell, who has made terse, beautiful movies (The Emigrants, The New Land), here seems merely distant and befuddled, as does his usually superb cameraman, Sven Nykvist. The poorly shot concluding hurricane is supposed to be a sort of heavenly analogy to human passions we have been witnessing at play. In the circumstances...