Word: madding
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...BEGINNING of the film keeps feeding these false expectations. We witness a typical mad Monday at JFK: a kid nearly bleeds to death as he waits for the nurse, a school psychologist flips out, and most of the teachers are in absentia. Nolte, the model teacher, is too busy in bed to be in class, and a lingering topless view of his bedmate puts Teachers on its way to a well-deserved R rating...
...story itself inevitably dominates any production of King Lear, and the Theater Works performance succeeds best where it is most restrained, allowing the actors to give "unaccommodated" life to the text. Tim McDonough does admirably with the difficult title role he is particularly fine when mad. He never breaks character or lapses into monotony during his longer speeches. He does, however, raise his voice too often--blunting the effect of some of the later scenes-- and occasionally speaks too quickly to be easily understood...
...state media sought to justify Moscow's infamous 1939 nonaggression pact with Hitler as an attempt to avert a world war, and pointedly added that the lessons of that period were pertinent. Only an audience that has heard and read almost daily allusions to Reagan as a power-mad ideologue intent on crushing the Communist system would recognize the editorial as Moscow's way of preparing the Soviet citizenry for news of the Gromyko-Reagan meeting, which has still not been officially announced. Whether this awkward analogy was intended to justify anything beyond the need to meet...
Playwright Peter Shaffer selected this twisted musical battle as the unlikely subject for his 1979 stage hit, Amadeus. The story of Salieri an artist driven mad by his own in adequacy, entranced audiences--and Shaffer himself. Three years later, Shaffer was probing the dense story once more as the screenwriter for a film adaptation of the award winning play. And that film, which opened this week, is no less indicate provacative than the play--and perhaps even the musicians who inspired it. To the richly layered stage production, Shaffer--and director Milos Forman--have added yet another coating of deceit...
...story unravels in the confessional of the aged Salieri, an infirmed, half-mad man confined to a mental institute. In the opening scenes, Salieri, who has both attempted suicide and confessed to murdering Mozart, scorns the attentions of the young priest who is sent to absolve him. But perverse pride overcomes derision, and the musician cannot resist recounting the role he played in Mozart's demise...