Word: main
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Carrey's uncanny portrayal of Kaufman may be the film's main draw, but it is Alexander and Karaszewski's re-creation of Kaufman's life, enigmatic and unapologetic, that best captures his anarchic spirit. "Sure, Jim's performance channeled the guy, but it's all part of a whole," explains Danny DeVito, who not only produced and co-stars in Man on the Moon but also appeared with Kaufman on Taxi. "Without a good script, everybody knows you'll wind up empty-handed. They nailed him, baby...
Early writing didn't spur invention the way writing does now. There were no technical journals to convey news of inventions, no patents to file. No, the main service of writing, like that of farming, was to permit bigger, faster social brains; to allow neurons to be packed more densely still, further boosting intellectual synergy. After all, it was via writing that royal bureaucracies kept large cities functioning. And writing also meant clear, precise legal codes, which kept urban life peaceful, even though people now lived cheek by jowl with lots of other people who were neither friends nor family...
...Trinidad, a colonial town 400 years old, sun bleached and ravishing, we drop off Condela. He shows us his shop, right on the main cobblestone drag. "If you need anything," he says, pointing to a storefront, "I'm right here." Trinidad is much too perfectly aged and brilliantly colored to be free of tourists: Germans, Spanish, Italians, even a few Americans drawling Indiana...
...main reason for the absence of a serious challenge to American hegemony is that it is so benign. It does not extract tribute. It does not seek military occupation. It is not interested in acquiring territory--indeed, it specializes in giving it up, as shown in the Philippines and Panama. Economically, the world has prospered under the open trading system the U.S. supports. And culturally, America is a hit. Arnold is a universal icon. Latvians like their Levi's. And everyone loves McDonald...
Director Scott Hicks' version is faithful to the story's main beats. There's Ishmael, the physically and emotionally wounded hero (Hawke); Hatsue (Kudoh), the forbidden and then lost love of his childhood; her husband Kazuo (Yune), charged with killing an Anglo neighbor after a land dispute; and all kinds of characters who behave well and badly as his trial unveils the community's hatreds and suspicions...