Word: heroics
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...devisers of these burly entertainments knew the Arnold character was both incredibly heroic and inherently comic; the films contain their own parodies. Moviegoers realized this too. Sure, even his forehead has intimidating muscles; but then he breaks into a big gap-toothed grin, and the put-off is revealed as a put-on. So to cast Schwarzenegger in comedy is very nearly redundant -- especially when, as with Twins (1988), it offered nothing more than Hollywood high concept: pairing the big guy with scruffy shrimp Danny De Vito. Even lamer is Kindergarten Cop, which opens in the U.S. this week...
...peasant origins rode to his nation's highest office last week by a 3-to-1 popular vote. For supporters, the former electrician's victory was -- well, electrifying. As they greeted the President-elect in Gdansk with sparklers and brass bands, Walesa took time to remind Poles of what heroic struggles can accomplish. Declared the country's first postcommunist choice as head of state: "Since we defeated the system without one gunshot or one drop of blood, we can dare to build a new system...
...done more to change the course of human history than Christopher Columbus." That was the conclusion of Edward Channing's 1905 classic, History of the United States. To generations of American schoolchildren, Columbus has been the all-time heroic figure portrayed by Channing and, more romantically, by Washington Irving in 1828: "a man of great and inventive genius" whose "ambition was lofty and noble." No wonder that Pope Pius IX wanted to make the discoverer of America a saint, or that more places in the English- speaking world are named for the Admiral of the Ocean Sea than...
IDEAS: From heroic voyager to dark villain...
...Paley seems curiously passive and remote. (His role is described in phrases like "Paley agreed instantly" and "Paley loved the idea.") Smith's workmanlike prose fails to give her main character the fascination of either his triumphs or his flaws. It is, perhaps, the quintessential TV story. Not heroic epic, not tragic drama; just a good soap opera...