Word: comicly
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BOOKS . . . ZEKE AND NED: Al Capp's long-gone hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner wasn't elevated humor, but it was funny, and that's pretty much the case with 'Zeke and Ned' (Simon & Schuster; 478 pages; $25), by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. "Advocates for Native American rights will be flummoxed to learn that, as the authors tell it, Cherokees endured the Trail of Tears to the Indian Territory only to end up in Capp's Dogpatch," says TIME's John Skow. "McMurtry and Ossana set their story in the Cherokee town of Tahlequah, but it's Dogpatch...
BOOKS . . . ZEKE AND NED: Al Capp's long-gone hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner wasn't elevated humor, but it was funny, and that's pretty much the case with 'Zeke and Ned' (Simon & Schuster; 478 pages; $25), by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. "Advocates for Native American rights will be flummoxed to learn that, as the authors tell it, Cherokees endured the Trail of Tears to the Indian Territory only to end up in Capp's Dogpatch," says TIME's John Skow. "McMurtry and Ossana set their story in the Cherokee town of Tahlequah, but it's Dogpatch...
...BOOKS . . . DO THE WINDOWS OPEN? The juxtaposition of what should be done set against the difficulty of actually doing it underscores the comic principle that animates Julie Hecht's first collection of fiction (Random House; 212 pages; $21). Her narrator ought to be happy, or at least fulfilled. She and her architect husband have an apartment in Manhattan, a house in East Hampton and a summer rental on Nantucket. She can afford a small army of expensive people -- psychiatrists, opticians, periodontists, endodontists, exercise trainers, floor renovators -- to minister to her and her possessions? needs. Yet in spite of all this...
Goldfinger failed to have the never-ending energy and musical potential of Reel Big Fish or the comic fare of the Blue Meanies' cartoon quality tunes. Maybe the band should have remained true to its ska influences or instead trailed down a more creative musical path. Despite the bittersweet performance, Goldfinger certainly knew how to handle a live audience, which is more than what some bands could ever offer...
...comic premises go, this is not exactly a world-beater. But soon enough, the keepers--gentle souls all--are funnily up in arms defending their pets. A wandering tarantula motivates a genteel striptease, and the mean mogul gets his comeuppance. The script, by Cleese and Iain Johnstone, lacks Wanda's mean and giddy inventiveness, and the directors, Robert Young and Fred Schepisi, don't wind their material very tightly. Still, this good-natured movie is very much in the spirit of those ancient comedies from Ealing Film Studios in which nice, silly people defend some enclave of old-fashioned sanity...