Word: charmingly
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...contains a recording of Vladimir Horowitz playing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 during World War II. The performance is fanatical and wild--in sharp contrast to Van Cliburn's rendition, recorded after his famed competition win in Moscow in 1958, which is tender, lyrical and full of the charm that captivated the Russians. Similarly, Great Pianists traces the varying interpretations of Chopin through the century--from Ignaz Friedman (tempestuous, uncontrolled) to Artur Rubinstein (cool, modern and free of excess) to Claudio Arrau (full, rich, warm). Given enough time, this collection proves, styles have a way of coming full circle...
...pervasive use of technological gadgets is often confusing, but the audience has an ally in the naive Robert Dean. Will Smith plays the role with boyish charisma and power, using his wit, charm and physical strength to elude his pursuers. Despite the subject matter of his last two movies (Independence Day and Men in Black), Smith proves that his appeal lies in his own acting abilities rather than his adorable extra terrestrial counterparts. Enemy of the State demonstrates Smith's range of talents and solidifies his position as a major Hollywood force, not just a rap artist-turned-actor...
...body, however, is simply a shell. He is constantly awkward; whether it's trying to make conversation, eating or even walking--Joe just doesn't seem smooth. Somehow, however, he manages to charm Susan again, who strangely accepts the fact that the random man from the coffee shop has taken residence in her house and suddenly forgotten how to speak English. Moreover, she manages to flirt her way into a full-fledged romance, one consummated by a sex scene so uncomfortable that it's more nauseating than erotic...
...about a nerdy sociopath who learns to channel his rage into an acceptable format: winning a spelling bee, playing golf or tackling football players. "You don't have what they call the social skills," he is told in The Waterboy; that is Sandler's gimmick and, for many, his charm. The plot is a competition for which our hero is utterly unqualified but which he always wins, over some smarmy exemplar of the status quo and in a climax tinged with sentiment and demagoguery. After a Sandler speech in Billy Madison, the principal sagely notes that "everyone in this room...
Along the way there are intermittent pleasures: a nice updating of David Seville's Witch Doctor into a wild Tiki Room monkey jamboree; a sweet scene of Tommy and Dil learning to share a blanket. But the charm of the TV show has been coarsened and franticized. The film's writers (David N. Weiss and J. David Stem) and directors (Norton Virgien and Igor Kovalyov) have taken the Spielberg scenario as their template--children separated from their parents, then found--but this one has the harried air of The Goonies. And the film may have overestimated its hold...