Word: explicitness
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...poems make explicit the currents running through the narrative (“he wondered if symmetry were the deepest truth about the world”) and, like the dialogue, suffer from a problem of show and tell. The poems are more thematic exegesis than poetry in their own right...
Though Frailty is Paxton’s debut, he has experienced vicarious tutelage under the likes of director James Cameron and ventures on a polar opposite from his frequent employers. Where Cameron frequently descends into overblown melodrama and explicit sentimentality, Paxton exhibits an oddly compelling restraint. He pulls fewer emotional punches than might be expected in this, a tale of questionable morality, and leaves almost all the gore offscreen. Using sounds suggestive of the violence that the father inflicts on his demons, the camera pans to the reaction shots of his children, and in those moments, the images truly chill...
Most of all, Frailty begs the question as to why Paxton chose to tell this story his first time behind the camera. Paxton clearly has learned the art of showing a story (as opposed to overtly telling his explicit intentions), but when actors decide to add the director title to their resumes, the tales they tell tend to be either acute, personal (melo)dramas or “idea” films that tackle supposedly weighty and relevant subject matters. Unfortunately, there is nothing personally touching to Paxton or particularly universal about the “religiously-motivated-murderous-sociopath?...
Kevin Conley's Stud: Adventures in Breeding (Bloomsbury; 224 pages; $24.95) isn't much concerned with races, but it's plenty racy. It probably contains more explicit depictions of the sex act than Fanny Hill. None of these acts involve humans, however, except in an officiating capacity. Conley's subject is Kentucky's exclusive breeding sheds. Because the Jockey Club--which regulates the $34 billion Thoroughbred industry--forbids artificial insemination, Thoroughbreds are made the old-fashioned way. It's a micromanaged, ritualized affair, from the guy (or gal) who lifts up the mare's tail to the fellow who guides...
...cost Boston's Catholics. In confidential settlements intended to avoid any whiff of publicity, the church, starting in 1994, gave $15 million to a group of victims molested by Geoghan. In one instance, according to the Boston Globe, a single family got $400,000 to hush up the sexually explicit phone calls Geoghan made to the children. And there are at least 120 more claims pending against Geoghan and a dozen other Boston priests that could jack up the total to $100 million...