Word: meant
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...like the Hell's Angels in a malt shop. In The 'Burbs, the gremlins are the townspeople themselves, driven to posse paranoia by their suspicions about people whose only sin may be eccentricity. It's sort of a lynch-mob movie for laughs -- laughs that are meant to catch in the back of your throat, like movie-house popcorn that turns out to be all kernels. One of the new neighbors is described as "about a nine on the tension scale." And so is this smart, crafty, off-putting movie...
Well, satire was never meant to ingratiate, and The 'Burbs is unsparing in its cauterizing of provincialism. One neighbor (played by Bruce Dern with wonderfully psychotic poise and a barbed-wire halo of gray hair) responds to every real or imagined threat to his property values as if he were commanding a platoon in Nam -- with trusty telescope, walkie-talkie and a K ration of animal crackers. Another friend (Rick Ducommun) is your basic bully-wimp who goads Ray into all manner of illicit snooping. And Ray is the mild soul caught in the middle; with no special convictions...
...newspaper column scoffing at his qualifications got big play in Boston, and his ailing father saw it. The younger Darman seethed, and not only because of the criticism. Later he confided that he was upset partly because "I still wasn't successful in a way that really meant something to him." Or to himself, for that matter...
Though Rushdie denies that his convoluted novel is meant to be antireligious, its profane and satirical treatment of Islam's origins is guaranteed to offend any true Muslim. Rushdie points out that his work is fictional and the two most offensive chapters merely recount the demented dreams of one of its characters. But in the eyes of believers, both historical and religious truth have come under an unprecedented assault. Their reaction is especially harsh because Rushdie was raised a Muslim. Says Professor Georges Sabagh, director of the center for Near Eastern studies at UCLA: "He's engaged in the worst...
...Winmill, raised in Wrentham, Mass. and schooled at Xaverian Brothers High School, Harvard means and has meant for some time number one, and the next logical step toward a medical career...