Word: blackmailed
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that makes grown men cry. From I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang to Field of Dreams, the male weepie has been a dependable genre. And Gump, to its credit, is not one of those cry-by-night (but you hate yourself in the morning) exercises in emotional blackmail. It's fairly honorable about picking your heart's pocket...
...subsequent refusals to live up to them, are part of a stalling game. His aim may be to string the West along until the end of the year, when he could have the plutonium for six or eight atom bombs -- which might be enough to deter attack or blackmail a neighbor. By this theory, confrontation -- even war -- may be the only way to stop...
...prosper; they now control most of Japan's pachinko parlors. Former Chongryun officials say North Korea made it clear that the well-being of loved ones back home depended on how often -- and how much -- their relatives in Japan were willing to contribute to the Kim regime. The blackmail money goes through Chongryun to the government...
Artistically, Passion is one of the great turnarounds. During previews, it seemed hopeless. The obsessed woman struck spectators as akin to a stalker, too creepy to induce sympathy. Her unstinting devotion resembled emotional blackmail. The narrative, two hours without intermission, felt strained and wearisome. Many theatergoers fidgeted or tittered in the wrong places. (There aren't many right places to laugh in Passion, which makes no use of Sondheim's greatest gift -- a talent for writing intricate comic lyrics that fit the characters.) Sensing disaster, Sondheim and director-librettist James Lapine revamped the plot, recast a major role, picked...
...embarrassing enough that a Harvard professor should deign to appear on the same stage with a woman who has made her fortune by persuading people to reveal to national television shameful stories that in a more tasteful age they would have gladly paid copious blackmail to suppress...