Word: humorously
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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From the beginning he was a sweet blend of humor and earnestness. In high school in Oakland he quit track (he ran the 440 in 61 sec.) for the stage because his actor friends laughed more than the jocks. "I was attracted to acting because it was fun," says Hanks, dismissing any deeper motives. "I'd rather laugh all day long than anything...
...standard, and The Larry Sanders Show, which ended its six-year run last spring, was one such rarity. Starring Garry Shandling as a talk-show host, Sanders sharply satirized show business and provided a unique celebrity frisson as it toyed with the images of its famous guests. But its humor arose equally from its deeply flawed, densely realized characters. The finale was a peak and included a sequence with Jim Carrey that should become legend...
...Armageddon, Deep Impact and Godzilla cleared over $100 million each at the box office. Godzilla, which took in over $130 million according to Rolling Stone magazine, is the worst film that I have ever seen. Even The Waterboy is less than mediocre, as Adam Sandler's zany nonsequitur humor takes a back seat to highly physical comedy. Too many directors seem to have forgotten George Lucas' advice, that "special effects without a story is a pretty boring thing...
...years ago, when black players began breaking into white-dominated athletics. "The guys played me harder," Meriwether says. "Everybody called me 'white boy,' and I took a lot of elbows." But Meriwether, an easygoing kid who talks as if he's 30 and has an irrepressible sense of humor, played well enough to earn a spot on the team as backup point guard. "He's hard-nosed," says teammate Richard Bluette, "and you've got to be because at this school they'll try to bring you down...
What's more, a sense of humor--even of irreverence--began to seep into religious imagery. Witness a marvelous ink painting of vegetables by Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800). You can read it, with pleasure, as a supremely assured market still life (Jakuchu was, in fact, a vegetable wholesaler before he turned to painting full time). Gourds, melons, turnips, ears of corn and a shiitake mushroom surround an enormous forked white radish, lying as if in state on a basket. But as Singer points out, an educated 18th century Japanese would have recognized this as a parody of a familiar religious...