Word: epical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ambition, in excess, can be dangerous. Cheech and Chong are fine as long as they stay in the barrio or the nightclub telling jokes and smoking dope. But the movie fails when it strives for epic humor. There are aliens, who appear suddenly, smoking dope by the treeful and sucking our heroes aboard. They give them "space coke," a powerful enough high to send the boys into orbit. And there are these awful dream sequences, including one depicting attempted necrophilia on the altar of some Mexican...
...smugglers. Miami is more prosperous than ever, but those who live there know it is a decadent prosperity, that of a civilization that has lost its way and can find security only in the worship of gold. It is as if Miamians were playing the final scene of an epic morality play in which, led astray by egocentrism, complacency, and boundless greed, those who dreamed of Miami as the tropical Zion destroyed the dream for themselves and for others. As a Coral Gables schoolteacher said after reading reports of the McDuffie riots, "We've got trouble in paradise, but Miami...
...final, the rain held off as Borg and America's McEnroe hooked up in an epic five-set, four-hour confrontation. McEnroe, 21, reached Centre Court by knocking off Jimmy Connors in a stormy semifinal the previous day. Against Borg, however, he was the picture of decorum-and skill-as he fought back brilliantly. After sleepwalking through the first set and losing 6-1, Borg won the next two and in the fourth set was only a point away from winning the championship no fewer than seven times. But McEnroe held him off again and again, finally winning...
...Dinner Party," often called "the first feminist epic artwork," creates the controversy that accompanies any political art. Robert Taylor of The Boston Globe admits to the cultural relevance of the piece, but adds that "as a work of art, however, it is valueless." He is wrong...
...somewhat ungainly but poetic Siberiada (1979), directed by Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky. The Soviets have lost neither their taste for, nor their skill with, the epic historical drama. Siberiada traces the history of an obscure Siberian village from snowbound primitivism and isolation at the beginning of this century through war and revolution, to the discovery of a great oilfield in the late '60s. Like Dovzhenko before him, Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky has a way of linking a peculiarly Russian feeling for the sacredness of native ground with the developing force of the revolution...