Word: monkey
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Acting against the best counsel of Chuck Berry - "Want me to marry, get a home/ Settle down, write a book/ Too much monkey business!" - publishers have been doing a brisk trade in books about rock. Two recent ones - George Harrison's I Me Mine and No One Here Gets Out Alive, a fisheyed life of the late Jim Morrison - have only rock in common. The Morrison opus, which has remained high on the trade paperback bestseller list for three months, is a sort of titillation special that reads like the hi-fi equivalent of the similarly successful memoirs...
Meanwhile, from St. Louis, comes word that the singer himself is no longer heeding his song. Disregarding his own cautions, and no man to buck a trend, Chuck Berry is writing a book. An autobiography. What happened to monkey business...
...redeemer appears to offer even brief hope of change. The only appealing character is an individualist named Archer (Mick Ford), whose rebelliousness is of a highly personal sort. He is a vegetarian and an atheist whose insistence on special treatment throws sand into the system, but not the monkey wrench that would bring it to a halt. There is also a hard case named Carlin (Ray Winstone), whose rise from victim to "Daddy" (the inmate who rules over his section) provides the plot with such movement as it has. There is an implication that Carlin's rule...
...sounds of Chinese singing and musical instruments, the American organizers have chosen the most come-at-able works in the repertory, cutting even those when they seemed to go on too long. One that did not need to be cut by more than five minutes is the comic The Monkey King Fights the 18 Lo Hans (demons), which is taken from a legendary novel. The Monkey King, according to the story, has been making a nuisance of himself in heaven; for his misdeeds he is consigned to a fiery furnace. Like Brer Rabbit in another legend, that seems...
...Jade Emperor appeals for help to the Buddha, who sends 18 demons to put an end to all the monkeyshines. The Monkey King (Li Yuanchun) meets them all and, in pantomime scenes worthy of Chaplin and Keaton, sends them tumbling. He takes one demon's weapon and twirls it on one finger, like a gyroscope; he grabs another one and flicks it away with his heel. No one in heaven or earth can touch this hilarious spirit of riot and disorder, and peace comes only when he finds his way home to the Flower-Fruit Mountain. Equally funny...