Word: elfin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...botched routines and disputed scores, it is a fair bet that an agile sprite in a colorful leotard will emerge as a sweetheart of Seoul. For reasons as difficult to identify as the gradations of excellence that turn silver to gold, sports fans quadrennially bestow their affection on an elfin gymnast. Perhaps it is the daunting mix of skills: the daring speed and height of the vault, the elegance and precision of the balance beam, the strength and fluidity of the uneven parallel bars, the showmanship and gravity subversion of the floor exercise. Or perhaps it is the sheer beauty...
...actresses for fat and sassy leading roles. No such luck. Irving has for a dozen years commuted easily between stage (Amadeus, The Road to Mecca) and screen (Carrie, Yentl), but movies have rarely caught her witchy allure. Arquette seemed a cinch for stardom after Desperately Seeking Susan, but her elfin sensuality has proved too weird for mainstream fare. As for the wondrous Winger, she anchored three big hits of the early '80s. But after Urban Cowboy, An Officer and a Gentleman and Terms of Endearment, her career loitered. Nobody saw Mike's Murder; nobody needed to see Legal Eagles...
...asked a tough question -- and for Tom, poor soulless sensation-to-be, all questions are tough ones. As for Hunter, she graduates with honors from off-Broadway (The Miss Firecracker Contest) and off-Hollywood (Raising Arizona) to fill the center of this demanding movie with cracker charm and elfin steel. Hail, Holly: daredevil actress...
...good--we got some love interest, got some degeneracy, got some people bearing up pluckily under their miserable socioeconomic lot. We also have satisfyingly gory brawls and a bravura performance from Rourke, who shambles around like an elfin orangutan, with a voice that's a demented cross between Edward G. Robinson and Don Corleone...
Reading a story end to beginning can be a vertiginous and sometimes irritating experience. Normal expectations that characters will become more understandable as they forge ahead into an unknown future are thwarted. Simon, for example, raises questions with his behavior in the first chapter. How long can this elfin man stay married to his serious, intense wife? Will he succeed as an actor? Answers are not forthcoming. Simon disappears from the book at the point where he enters Dorsey's life...