Word: crystallize
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Comic and Oscar host Billy Crystal debuts as a filmmaker...
...Crystal's ability to think funny that makes him the perfect Oscar host. After Jack Palance was named Best Supporting Actor for City Slickers and broke into a he-man display of one-handed push-ups, Crystal kept a tally through the evening of Palance's imaginary aerobic progress ("Jack has just bungee-jumped off the HOLLYWOOD sign"). Following a huge production number from the movie Hook with dozens of children suspended from the ceiling, Crystal remarked, "You know, Palance is the father of all those kids." Reacting to the biggest glitch -- when 1920s director Hal Roach, instead of just...
...hugely successful comedian, Crystal is singularly without attitude -- not as angry as Richard Pryor, nor as frantic as Robin Williams, nor as - political as Jay Leno, not alienated or crude or macho. His humor bursts the bubble of ego without destroying anyone's dignity. He doesn't seem to have an enemy in the business, which partly accounts for the success of Comic Relief, his annual TV show with Whoopi Goldberg and Williams, which raises millions of dollars for the homeless...
...SOMEONE SO PREOCCUPIED WITH AGing and loneliness, Crystal doesn't have to worry about either. Offstage, he cuts a youthful figure in his uniform of jeans and T shirts, with his impish face and wiry, still athletic build (in high school he won two letters in baseball and one each in basketball and soccer). With the success of his movies, particularly the box-office smashes Harry and City Slickers, he may never have to go back on the road, which he found unbearably lonely. "There's a scene in Mr. Saturday Night where Buddy is having dinner with his wife...
That's what Crystal wants now. "I'm on indefinite vacation," he swears. He putters in his garden tending the zucchini. He says he never used humor the way Buddy did, as a straight-arm to keep people away, but he admits he once had a craving, now banished, for "that extra hug you can only get from strangers." Not needing hugs and wanting to be known more for his movies than his stand-up skills have so far kept Crystal from agreeing to be the host of the Academy Awards for the fourth year in a row. "I love...