Word: lad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Jimmy Carter suggested that he might have greatness in him, a quality that historians have not yet detected. Lyndon Johnson once looked into the face of a young black admirer and told friends later that he could tell the lad felt he was in the presence of "the Lord God Almighty." L.B.J. proved all too mortal...
...most heated arguments were over defense, which accounts for 29% of the budget. Finance Minister Yoram Aridor lad proposed cutting $333 million in military spending. But Defense Minister Moshe Arens argued vehemently that such reductions would impair the army's preparedness and require cutbacks in troop numbers. Begin agreed. At one point he chastised Aridor, saying, "It's not worth cutting the defense budget at a time like this." As a compromise the defense budget was reduced by $141 million this year; another $125 million will be sliced off in the next two years...
Tony's precocious third-grade essay, "Why I Would Hate to Be a Basement," has long been enshrined in local lore, but his early academic promise has led only to idle fancying. Miss Doubloon, the lad's current teacher, explains to his anxious parents: "He would rather read novels in which the characters toy with a little Brie while waiting for their friends to turn up along the boulevard. If we can't get Anthony to concentrate, and hard, on the War of 1812 and obtuse triangles-" The pupil interrupts: "Like the dumb postmaster and his wife...
...memories of Saturday Night Fever suggest, Badham can be more than a high-tech hardware merchant. The first portions of WarGames are nearly irresistible. The reason that the mighty WOPR comes across as funny is that David, a bright high school lad (played by a very savvy young actor, Matthew Broderick, 21), accidentally makes contact with it while fooling around with his home computer. Boy and machine get to be friends, since they are both lonely and misunderstood. David is shy and sweet with his girlfriend (Ally Sheedy) but is wary of his parents and is a troublemaker in school...
Badham gets a lot of distracting colored lights and video screens flashing madly while the lad works against a deadline to talk his electronic pal out of launching a preventive strike against the U.S.S.R. But, as with the end of Blue Thunder, there is more of technique than of conviction in this work. It may be that Badham is an exemplary case: yet another talented craftsman caught up in Hollywood's current belief that the big bucks are in the big-bang school of moviemaking. In War Games the search for a big, effects-laden finish does not render...