Word: cult
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sarcasm stops when the insurance man learns of a mysterious cult (the "Names" of the title). The ritual murders committed by these ragged, nomadic zealots are as easy as ABC. Their formula, revealed by Owen Brademas, an aged American anthropologist, is based on polyglot alphabets twisted into a system of worship. The killers simply match the initials of elderly or crippled villagers with those of towns. When the sacrificial names collide, their hammers fall. For Brademas, these deaths reveal a new layer of violence: "We thought we knew this setting. The mass killer in his furnished room, in his century...
Axton's obsession with the cult leads him to the wilds of the Peloponnese, the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem and the Indian city of Lahore. But he learns less of the cult than of himself and the travelers who accommodate the needs of such a world. "Technicians are the infiltrators of ancient societies," he concludes. "They bring new kinds of death with them...
...assignation reached them. The murders of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King strike a similar chord. These men had a particular quality that made them a part--however intangible--of people's lives Perhaps it came from shared causes and ideas, or simply grew out of the cult of personality. Regardless, their tragic deaths were greeted with the kind of heartfelt grief usually reserved for the loss of a family member...
...city suffers when it becomes a one-newspaper town cannot be expressed too often. Nothing improves an editor's diligence and a reporter's aggressiveness more than the eternal dread of being scooped. That fear abates, to be sure, when the competition is a scandal-monger or a cult mouthpiece. But if competition vanishes altogether, the surviving newspaper is left with all the incentive to excel of a student in a one-on-one course graded on a curve...
CHARACTERS LIKE WOODS would have been much more effective if the movie had stuck to one main plot instead of trying to generically represent cult life. But with numerous stars who participate in too many subplots, we lose track of the central theme. For instance, important scenes between Rebecca and Danny are interrupted by scenes involving Danny's parents and the basic running of the cult. The difficulties--both physical and emotional--that the lovers encounter in their relationship reflect the movie's inability to point our attention in any one direction...