Word: comics
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...early '70s, the art of the People's Republic of China has never been properly exhibited in an American museum. Doubtless there is some ideological reluctance. Though the cold war is formally over, not too many U.S. museum directors are ready to confront their more conservative trustees with large comic-strip gouaches bearing titles like Occupying the Ideological-Cultural Field in the Countryside and Workers Condemn the "Gang of Four...
...last, Chaplin, who died at 88 on Christmas Day at his home in Vevey, Switzerland, produced simply himself. But that self was not so simple. It was first introduced to America as a vaudeville clown in 1910, and the country did not respond warmly. Charlie's comic flare failed to ignite enthusiasm until the epochal one-reeler in which he tried on Fatty Arbuckle's pants and Chester Conklin's jacket. In that moment The Tramp was born, and with him a long parabola of triumph and humiliation. The arc described a career bred of deprivation...
DIED. Sir Charles Chaplin, 88, comic genius; of old age; in Vevey, Switzerland (see CINEMA...
...results are excruciatingly flat. Wilder has little talent for imitating Brooks' mad comic style, no matter how diligently he tries. Though his films have not yet descended to the puerile level of Marty Feldman's recent Brooks knockoff, The Last Remake of Beau Geste, they contain no big laughs. In place of honest humor, Wilder provides the illusion of knockabout comedy-frantically busy scenes and lots of noise. Only Saturday-morning TV addicts could possibly endure the antics of The World's Greatest Lover, in which characters are forever shouting their lines, bulging their eyes and stumbling...
...performances, at least, are first-rate and John Travolta is a revelation. At once mean-looking and pretty, he conveys the kind of threatening sexuality that floors an audience. His dancing is electric, his comic timing acute. In the timeless manner of movie sex symbols, his carnal presence can make even a safe Hollywood package seem like dangerous goods. - Frank Rich