Word: comic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...have slightly altered the circumstances of their central figures, they have not bothered to develop their characters any further. Dana, for example, has a baby and a tangle-tongued boss -- marvelously played by Peter MacNicol -- who is madly in love with her. The ghostbusters themselves are suffering, to good comic effect, from celebrity burnout and municipal ire over their failure to clean up the mess that they made the last time they saved the city...
Even today's comic books are not immune from the violent trend. While parents may fondly remember the dating shenanigans of Archie and Veronica or the wholesome exploits of superheroes, their children are now being offered a titillating blend of sadism and sex. A stripper was crucified in one issue of Green Arrow. Superman, in a story called Bloodsport, battled a deranged Viet Nam veteran who was shooting people at random on the streets of Metropolis with a gun in each hand...
...nation." According to P.J. O'Rourke, "Manners are a way to screw people over without their knowing it." Although 150 years separate the master novelist from the Rolling Stone nihilist, their contempt for social artifice is identical. The difference, of course, is that one of them has a savage comic flair. The other one wrote in French...
...largely out of a sense of embarrassment" over having an Arabic first name, he says. "Growing up Arab in America is not easy--much harder than growing up gay in America," says Tarazi, who has done both. He recalls seeing Arabs in movies and comic strips as cruel terrorists or wealthy sheiks--nothing he aspired to become...
There are times when Keating's colorful nonconformity verges on the tiresome (he whistles Beethoven and declaims Whitman a little too self-consciously). But basically Williams, who has comparatively little screen time, has come to act, not to cut comic riffs, and he does so with forceful, ultimately compelling, simplicity. Like everyone else involved in this movie, he is taking a chance on an odd, imperfect but valuable enterprise. He and the movie deserve attention, respect and finally gratitude. Especially at the start of sequel summer...