Word: closed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...year's end Carter came close to achieving a triple crown in foreign policy: he established normal relations with mainland China and seemed to have a breakthrough on strategic arms limitations with the Soviet Union. But he failed to get Egypt and Israel to sign a peace pact, even though he had, almost singlehanded, brought them closer to peace at the Camp David summit than they had been in 30 years. His achievements were also somewhat diminished by the U.S. inability to help bring calm to Iran...
...some of Washington's present thinking on the subject. For decades the U.S. has supported the Shah as a defense against Soviet expansion in a region of strategic importance. There are firm reports that Foreign Service officers based in Iran have long been prevented by Washington from building close contacts with Iranian opposition leaders, lest this offend the Shah. President Carter still says publicly that the Shah deserves full American support, but there are signs that the Administration's emphasis, as a ranking U.S. diplomat puts it, is shifting to one of "helping the Shah...
Heading the high-energy jolters were Grease, which was the hit of the summer, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Saturday Night Fever, both of which came out toward the end of 1977 and dominated the screens for the rest of the winter. All three have pulled in something like $130 million apiece, and two-Grease and Fever-not coincidentally star John Travolta, who this time last year was known only to TV viewers. The hungry white shark, or his bereaved mate, that gobbled up the dollars in the summer of 1975 swam back for another big bite...
...phenomenon has been observed: children trap their parents in front of the terrible tube and force them to watch the Muppets. The parents become habituated, and thenceforth on Muppet night somewhat sheepishly remind the children to close their calculus textbooks and turn on the set. In the last stage of addiction, the parents are sheepless and do not require the presence of child stooges...
That is not the end of the problems. W.D. Richter's script, especially in he early, expository going, is often laughably literal, and therefore incapable of establishing an air of mystery as people start becoming strangely abstract and distant. Director Philip Kaufman unwisely gets too close to the pods, trying to show just how the transformation works. He would have been wise to let our imaginations run riot on this matter rather than permitting his special effects people to do so, since all they come up with is some grimly gunky stuff, not nearly as suggestive as the sudsy...