Word: drabs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...diplomats in Geneva still had to work late every night last week on that very same treaty. Their task: to get the final Russian and English terms of the 76-page document into shape for Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev to sign next Monday in Vienna. Alternating between the drab Soviet mission near the U.N.'s Palais des Nations and the more spacious U.S. quarters overlooking the botanical garden and Lake Geneva, U.S. Envoy Ralph Earle and the Soviets' Victor Karpov found that the final dotting of z's and crossing of fs was unexpectedly difficult. Lamented...
...bazaar section of Tehran where Khomeini lived. There, in two cramped and dingy rooms on the second floor, he would shuffle to the window a dozen times a day to greet the unending sea of believers who came to hail him. Elsewhere in the same school, in a drab classroom furnished with three desks, a file cabinet and a typewriter, Prime Minister Bazargan ran the government. He sat cross-legged on a rug-covered wooden platform where he took his meals, greeted visitors and prayed...
...after day, streams of reporters journey to the drab stucco bungalow in Neauphle-le-Château, outside Paris, where the 78-year-old mullah has lived in exile since last October. There the journalists submit written questions, are bidden to sit cross-legged on the floor in a barren room, and then listen as Khomeini, dressed in his black turban and robe, delivers his answers in Farsi monotone. Khomeini's replies are usually short, banal and often repetitive. He can rarely be drawn out on crucial political issues: Who should rule the Islamic republic he espouses for Iran...
Unfortunately, though all the clever touches and well-acted segments add up, they don't make for a first-rate movie. They can't overcome the plot; it isn't different or fresh enough. The bright colors of the gypsy world make this drab story good entertainment, nothing more...
...cell, what actually happened once occurs again in flashbacks. It all starts with pigeons, whose habits and instincts seem so much more exotic to Birdy and Al than the drab, Depression-ridden lives of their families. When Birdy falls 100 ft. off a gas tower in pursuit of more birds ("the first time I flew") and miraculously survives, he is grounded by his parents but allowed to keep a canary in his room. Al drifts away, increasingly preoccupied with high school sports and girls. For the sake of appearances, Birdy makes an effort to crank up similar interests...