Word: comic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...enthusiasm -- the word means divine possession -- and knew that the poet "speaks adequately only when he speaks somewhat wildly . . . Not with intellect alone, but with intellect inebriated by nectar." And like Whitman, his fellow rhapsodist of Brooklyn, he sang only of himself -- in that great American form, the comic-romantic monologue -- but found in the self everything he needed: "If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without." Celebration, not cerebration, was his thing: even in old age he was young enough to set about listing all the books & he'd ever...
Much else is on Blessing's mind in this weirdly comic piece: Shakespeare's shaky dramaturgy (rescued by friendly pirates, indeed!), the meaning of death and the afterlife, the ubiquitous enigma of TV. The play lampoons official cover-ups: by the time Hamlet's friend Horatio tells people what really happened at Elsinore, everyone believes Fortinbras' concoction about murderous Polish spies instead. The hero puns bawdily about nights with Ophelia's lubricious ghost. But the deepest concern is for the shallowness of modern politics...
...publisher of Spider-Man, Captain America, Silver Surfer and more than 70 other titles, plans to make its first stock offering. Marvel will offer 3.5 million shares, a stake of about 30%. The shares are expected to sell at $14 to $16. Started in 1939, Marvel is the largest comic- book publisher in North America (total monthly circulation: 8.5 million). Last year the company posted net profits of $5.4 million, up 120% from the previous year, on revenues of $81 million. The offering will hit the market after a fallback from record highs, so Spider-Man may have to demonstrate...
...same token, it would be hard to imagine a funnier, better modulated comic performance from Robin Williams than the Babel of Slavic accents he brings to a Russian folktale called The Fool and the Flying Ship. Or a more touching turn by Sigourney Weaver than her reading of the pensive Japanese story Peachboy. Or a sprightlier showcase for Michael Palin's Pythonesque versatility than his rendition of Jack and the Beanstalk...
...handsome cast performs these epiphanies in grand, graceful comic style; the actors know this is not so much real life as ideal life. And Robert, whose reputation previously rested on slight farces such as The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, presents the vignettes with an assured briskness the viewer barely has time to appreciate. They are like Marcel and his brother: eager and bright, soliciting our attention, trying to crowd each other out. But gently, no elbows. Again like Marcel, these films are at once playful and spectacularly well behaved...