Word: flatness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...uninspired, surprisingly so given the grace of Lightman's writing in Einstein's Dreams. There, his use of sparse, simple language served him well allowing him to suggest possible worlds through short, carefully chosen phrases, quick touches of color, and imaginative details. In Good Benito, however, his language falls flat and his colors seem drab...
Three excellent performances, beautiful cinematography, and good flashback editing cannot save "Dolores Claiborne" from its suffocating script. Hollywood has corrupted this movie by turning King's confessional into a flat mother-daughter drama. At least it doesn't have an alternogrunge soundtrack...
...computer-graphic wizardry: buildings rise and fall on screens in the background, rockets climb, clouds swim past--there is even an erupting volcano. It must be spewing some kind of happy dust in the theater, rendering all but irrelevant the fact that many of the jokes still fall flat and that the story's resolution, even by fairy-tale standards, comes too easily. Will today's theatergoers let such things bother them? This appealing production urges us all--whether we are pursuing business success or just a couple of hours' entertainment--to make light of every obstacle...
...pension system was based on the American model. By the mid-1970s it faced a financing meltdown that presented the government of General Augusto Pinochet with two familiar options: cut benefits or raise taxes. Instead Pinochet scrapped the payroll tax-financed system altogether and replaced it with a small, flat stipend, funded out of the government's general revenues, that goes to only the poorest pensioners. Everyone else is required to put 12% of salary into one of 24 large investment funds that the government tightly regulates. The results, say boosters of the Chilean solution, are all on the upside...
...Cyborgasm," a recording of various sexual situations. Most notable is the dominatrix episode, which features an audio mistress clicking a pair of scissors and saying, "snip, snip, snip!" Although "Cyborgasm," fancied itself revolutionary by "exploring new media for erotica," it was merely a novelty and more or less fell flat; the sex noises on it are barely more interesting than the ones heard through the average fire door. As CD-ROM drives for personal computers have become more affordable, CD-ROMs featuring erotic pictures and film clips have become more available. A game called "Virtual Valerie" has become wildly popular...