Word: corrupts
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...know L.A. Confidential has ended when it is both daytime and not raining. In a fine version of the somewhat beefy Ellroy crime novel ostensibly about a strange murder, director Curtis Hanson portrays the cool, brutal world of Hollywood glam and corrupt police in 50s Los Angeles with all its gradations of ethics. Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe turn in fine performances that give us two different approaches to policing, thinking first and hitting later, or vice versa. A reptilian James Cromwell and slick Kevin Spacey round out a fine cast and a finer tale...
...Midden is a story about corruption and hypocrisy in various public and private institutions of British society. Throughout the book, Sharpe uses a collection of outrageous and at times excessively absurd characters to criticize various societal groups. From fanatical child abuse therapists to corrupt police, from old and decadent wealthy families to spoiled and exploitative former British colonials, the crackpots are out in force. The description of these characters, including their myriad eccentricities and largely disreputable motives, provides the book with its substance...
...know L.A. Confidential has ended when it is both daytime and not raining. In a fine version of the somewhat beefy Ellroy crime novel ostensibly about a strange murder, director Curtis Hanson portrays the cool, brutal world of Hollywood glam and corrupt police in 50s Los Angeles, with all its gradations of questionable ethics. Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe turn in fine performances that give you two different approaches to policing, thinking first and hitting later, or vice versa. A reptilian James Cromwell and slick Kevin Spacey round out a fine cast and finer tale...
...guys...well, thank God for the good old FBI. The federal agents dispatched to handle the situation are portrayed as soulless automatons, and the local sheriff they corrupt into doing their nefarious bidding is almost as dim-witted as Baily (despite heroic efforts at subtlety by Silence of The Lambs's Ted Levine). Costa-Gavras insists that the FBI are simply caught up in the hubbub, trying to do their job as best they can; but when he depicts Bureau snipers blowing away a wax statue of a Native American in a botched attempt to nail Baily, one starts...
Governing China is indeed an enormously difficult job. But the systematic abuse of human rights by Jiang's regime goes far beyond any need to maintain the civic order necessary to keep China fed or increase literacy. Only maintaining a corrupt, elite Communist cadre necessitates such outrages; the meal ticket Jiang really cares about is his own. It is not coincidental that the two greatest famines that occurred during in the 20th century apart from those during civil wars were in Soviet Ukraine (1930s) and Communist China (1960s). History has shown that democracy is more likely to care...