Word: gagged
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Crichton departs from the formula in only one respect: whenever possible, he forces gratuitous cruelty between cliches. Dogs chew rats. A prisoner escaping from Newgate slices up his hands climbing the fence. Connery later strangles this poor innocent in cold blood. The funniest gag in the movie involves a decomposing cat. Nothing new for this butcher. In Crichton's Westworld, the most satisfying fantasies are also the bloodiest--robots blown to bits; one remembers brains being sliced up, organs flung about, dead bodies on dissection tables in Coma; now, Crichton gets his kicks injecting sadism into kiddie-movies. Bleah...
...begun in Washington. "There's been blood on the floor in some of the policy debates," admitted one State Department insider. 'Some people have been accused of virtual insubordination." The department and the White House were at odds over the issue, and the Administration imposed a virtual gag on Government Iran specialists in an effort to prevent them from talking to the press. In fact, there have been so many mistakes in U.S. policy that almost anyone involved in the subject in at least three previous Administrations probably deserves a bit of blame. The badly weakened CIA, which...
Carried further, mannerism turns into jokes. One exponent of the building as sight gag is Chicago Architect Stanley Tigerman. His best-known visual joke is the Daisy House in Porter Beach, Ind. The house is in the shape of a phallus; a flight of white concrete steps, cascading down to the lake shore, represents the semen. Tigerman can also be serious, as in his award-winning Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped at the University of Illinois' Chicago Circle campus. Since most blind people are at least partly sighted, and can register color, the library is candied with bright...
Immediately, half a dozen heavy-duty monsters thrust themselves through the door to beg in plaintive unison, "Oh, please want to!" The joke works nicely, because these are Muppets, and their voyeurism is acceptable. It is the kind of gag that evokes queasiness when it is given to middle-aged bandleaders on variety shows...
...happy jazz of the '40s playing in the background, Friedkin sets out on a non-stop, all-out, giggly trip down bum's row. Unfortunately, the movie seems to have borrowed its sense of humor from the '40s as well, with no attempt to update it. Every old gag in the book makes its way into the film. Safes fall out of windows and just miss unsuspecting pedestrians, people keep bumping into each other, the odd-tasting pot of beef stew turns out to have a shoe in it. These tired routines would be forgivable if Friedkin didn't seem...