Word: monstrously
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...things, however, seem unique in Lam's work. One is its pervasive, melancholy tone of dreamy eroticism, metamorphosed into "presences" that would seem monstrous if they weren't essentially benign -- horse-headed women, birdlike deities, masks conflated with breasts but equipped with phallic chins. The second is the persistence of religious motifs that no European artist was likely to grasp but that were of deep significance to Lam -- the symbols of Santeria ceremonies. Why do Lam's women have heads like horses? Not, fundamentally, because of Picasso and Guernica but because in Santeria ceremonies the medium is known...
...Voight, returning to Broadway for the first time in 25 years, gives an unshowy performance as the celebrity writer Trigorin that subtly conveys the character's lonely, inward-looking obsession with his craft. As the actress Arkadina, Tyne Daly stresses monstrous self-absorption. Not for Daly the customary dotty unawareness of how she puts down her son, a would-be avant- garde playwright; each belittling gesture is calculated cruelty. As the son, Ethan Hawke solves the play's pivotal problem, foreshadowing the youth's instability and making clear why he and not his at-wit's-end beloved, Nina, commits...
...author's vampire tales, have worked brilliantly. We're absolutely convinced, for instance, that Rice's star, the blond, handsome vampire Lestat, is exactly the 200-year-old bloodsucker he claims to be. He was the dark eminence in Rice's first chronicle, Interview with the Vampire, and his monstrous self- fascination has taken over succeeding narrations. Lestat is something of a windbag, alternately luxuriating in the dark perfection of his sin and then writhing in rather stagey shame for his moral awfulness. This foppish introspection fogs the early chapters of the present novel. But just before the reader...
ROBERT DUVALL, BULKED UP INSIDE HIS military overcoat and nearly expressionless beneath a bushy mustache, looks as much like Frankenstein's monster as Joseph Stalin in HBO's new film about the Soviet dictator. Certainly his deeds are just as monstrous, and even more unfathomable. Directed by Ivan Passer, STALIN vividly chronicles the revolutionary footsoldier's rise to power and his ruthless, increasingly paranoid reign of terror. The scenes of Stalin's 1930s' purges are especially chilling, and the film gratifyingly avoids hokey re-creations of "big" historical events like the Yalta Conference. Still, despite Duvall's intense performance...
...good tournament player as a junior, writes about tennis almost as well as Roger Angell writes about baseball. Here's his take on Jean Fleurian, losing a tough one to Pete Sampras: "If the Frenchman could have imagined winning, he would have won." He nails Ivan Lendl's monstrous adequacy: "Antonio Salieri in a sweatsuit." And he quotes a fan's remark about John McEnroe that hits the turbulent center of the man: "He just liked to create chaos. Because he was comfortable with it. With chaos...