Word: minis
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...knows for sure how many programs actually exist; estimates range from 8,000 to 40,000. In fact, a mini-industry has grown up to keep track of the titles. Stewart Brand, the counterculture publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog, will come out with the Whole Earth Software Catalog this fall. Billboard magazine charts the progress of hot-selling software just the way it does that of Michael Jackson records...
...Pavilions, a six-hour, three-part mini-series on HBO is a sumptuous package tour of 19th century India under the British Raj. The lush, romantic travelogue leisurely wanders the flowery landscape of Victorian fiction, where swashbuckling heroes die happily for Mother England, wasp-waisted ladies in corsets palpitate at the prospect of illicit love, fawning natives in turbans plot palace intrigue, and florid, harrumphing senior officers shoulder the white man's burden. The production, based on M.M. Kaye's 1978 bestseller, represents pay cable's first real venture in "long-form" television. Filmed on location...
...Pavilions offers an expanse of glittering surface; anyone who wants to sample the sights and sounds of 19th century India need look no further. On the details of politics and social struggles, the mini-series is mini indeed. Although Cross has bouts of sneering indignation, British imperialism comes off as vaguely benevolent paternalism imposed on unruly children. Thousands may be killed, but the real battlefield is always the heart...
...standard formula of adapting a hefty bestseller to the small screen by silhouetting a pair of lovers against a grand historical tapestry. While the costumes and scenery may change, the heavy breathing remains the same; just exchange George Washington's tricornered hat for a turban. Unlike film, the mini-series is capable of infinite horizontal extension, and The Far Pavilions sometimes seems to be even longer and more convoluted than the elaborate wedding procession that snakes its way across the Indian countryside. Yet in the end, the journey yields a pleasant sort of weariness. After all, The Far Pavilions...
Director Gregory Nava pointedly demonstrates, however, that this little paradise is at the same time a mini-Hell. Enrique's father, Arturo Xuncax, a coffee bean picker, secretly tries to organize his fellow laborers. "The rich came here. They're not from here. To them, the peasant is just a pair of arms," he tells his son before running off to his fateful meeting. The workers are betrayed by a fellow villager and ambushed by government soldiers. When Enrique runs to the scene, he finds his father's severed head dangling from a tree. In a rage, he stabs...