Word: midler
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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OLIVER & COMPANY. Dickens with a twist: the sprightly tale of an orphan cat named Oliver, a gang of raffish dogs and a pampered poodle with Bette Midler's voice. A jaunty love song to New York City, and the best Disney cartoon feature since Walt died...
...failure of Top Secret deflected the team from their path as ZAZ went on to direct Ruthless People, a film they did not write, and Abrahams went on to direct Big Business, starring Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler...
Last week began with the arraignment of Imelda Marcos, who left her Hawaiian retreat to plead not guilty to charges that she and her husband, the deposed Philippine President, embezzled $103 million from their nation's treasury. Mrs. Marcos could give Bette Midler tips on making an entrance. She swept into U.S. district court in nothing less bewitching than a floor-length turquoise gown, a silk-and-chiffon terno that is traditional Philippine wear. As she hoisted her presence up the courthouse steps, packs of demonstrators reared up to denounce her as the bloodsucker of the Philippine people. One woman...
...least at first. They want you to be seeing double before you've settled in your seat. Fanciers of '30s screwball comedy may chafe at this film's substitution of efficiency | for energy, of speed for style; they may yawn at an old mirror-image routine that Midler essays, which is lifted from Silent Comedian Max Linder and the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup. But Big Business was designed as a compact car, not a classic. Once Director Jim Abrahams (Airplane!) hot-wires the mechanism, the plot takes care of itself, and the movie pretty genially takes care of any audience...
...Moramax's corporate wimps with her voodoo snake whammy. Still, you may vainly search for signs of the quicksilver wit and emotional risk she radiates onstage. Someday Hollywood will harness her genius, in some movie with a different co-star. After all, who looks at anyone else when Bette Midler is around? It is a privilege merely to watch her walk her walks: the not-quite-ladylike mince, the executive sweep, the strumpet's strut. She lopes easily from City Sadie, the bitch goddess who spits out orders to her lab scientists ("Get tougher rats!"), to Country Sadie, struggling with...