Word: craftsmanly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...entirely by chance that Joe Tynan is Alda's breakthrough role: he wrote the movie himself. He is not yet a polished craftsman; the overambitious screenplay tosses out far more narrative lines than it can possibly pull back...
...frenzied-he is notably calm, in fact-but it is unusually intense. It suits a man widely deferred to as a wizard, but it would not do, say, for a renowned comic performer, a wisecracking green frog. And the curious truth about this gaunt, bearded, rather ascetic-looking craftsman, as he admits, is that "my nature is not particularly witty." He is funny only with Kermit on his arm, and the same thing seems to be true of Frank Oz and the other Muppet people...
...brings to his meaner movies. This film's exposition is too slow by half; the Brink's robbery itself is amusing without ever really being suspenseful. Perhaps some day both William Friedkins will converge in a single movie. When and if that happens, this gifted but divided craftsman will finally become a major film maker. - Frank Rich
Plomer once compared himself to "a craftsman, a scholar, an engineer, or a scientist" in the quest for proper literary form; but he was entertaining in whatever medium he chose. Convinced that pleasure was an essential component of literary criticism, Plomer preferred the engaging voice of a raconteur to the severe objectivity of a scholar. "Why should we be hardened?" he wondered. "Who wants to be a fossil?" This generosity of spirit made him a popular figure on BBC radio and television, which he mastered despite his professed aversion for modern technology...
...Minamata to begin a three-year task of recording the anguish of townspeople poisoned by mercury dumped into local waters by a chemical company. Although he was severely beaten and nearly blinded by goons, he documented the tragedy in his book Minamata, published in 1975. An intense, uncompromising craftsman, Smith strove to make timeless, pointed statements about the human condition. "Photography is not just a job to me," he once explained. "I'm carrying a torch with a camera...