Word: charm
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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GIVEN ALL the weaknesses in the film, however, there's still Isabelle Huppert's extraordinary performance. Effortlessly, she convey's Pomme's unique charm through a crooked smile, a flash of the eyes, or a sudden grimace. Shyly licking clean a spoon of chocolate ice cream when she meets Francois, Huppert is as absorbed in the eating as she is in the flirting--her Pomme is guileless. The only flaw in the performance must be attributed to a weakness in the script: although Huppert is a convincingly distraught Pomme at the end of the film, it's difficult to believe...
Sometimes. Alone. Between. Periods. Yet "ands" are cheap: "And Mr. Arland ask ing him why he hadn't seen him having a pint for some time. And the barber stopped cutting my hair and looked up at the ceiling." These repetitions may charm at first as a rendition of the maundering heard in Irish pubs; stretched out over a wad of pages, the trick grows thin. Even the little poems that conclude chapters seem limp: "And/ I loved/ Her." When Lennon and McCartney wrote something like that, they provided music...
...been accused of heartlessness. Close Encounters' sweetness belies that charge. It is probably no coincidence that the director cast Truffaut, the kindest of film makers, in a leading role, for Spielberg's sensibility matches that of such Truffaut films as The Wild Child and Small Change. Close Encounters' charm is enhanced by the performances as well: Dreyfuss, Truffaut and Dillon bring warm coloring to roles that are rather sketchily set forth in the script. The actors' eyes are lit with a touch of madness, just enough to suggest the courage that drives them to abandon friends and family to pursue...
True Confessions, John Gregory Dunne's first novel, is Tom Spellacy's unrepentant recollections of his life as a tarnished blue knight. He proves to be a gifted, foulmouthed raconteur who can charm the reader down to a plane where cynicism and sentimentality are indistinguishable and the difference between social history and gossip is irrelevant. His "book" on Lois Fazenda, a would-be starlet whose naked body was found neatly cut in two at the torso: "She lived in a series of boarding houses much like the one on North Cherokee. On West Adams Boulevard she thought...
...lives out his credo "you should do anything you have to to be the best." As a weightlifter, this meant doing leg squats until his thighs swelled with blood and he could not walk. Now, he just cultivates his audience, never giving offense, hoping only to amuse and charm...