Word: motheral
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...earliest champions of American food and regional dishes, as well as of outdoor cooking, Beard acknowledged in his autobiographical cookbook, Delights and Prejudices, that a strong influence on his career was his English-born mother. She operated a hotel noted for its fine food in Portland, where Beard was born. There he developed a love and understanding of the best- quality seasonal ingredients prepared with infinite care, no matter how humble a dish might be. Beard had wide and eclectic preferences in foods, ranging from caviar to Cheerios, from elegant Madeira sauces to marshmallows, from French quenelles de brochet...
...MUCH OF the movie founders on false morality that these fresh, energetic outlooks on American youth are lost. Morgan's family scene is the worst facet of this. One of the foundations of his stubborn pursuit of Frankie is supposed to be his bad relationship with his mother and his jealousy of his brother. But the reasons for these feelings are never fully explored; Morgan just gives vague intimations at various times of his "alienation" from his previous rich boy, New England prep school self. The premise of the family's move is odd as well; Morgan's father...
...revealed something about our life here at Harvard--this bastion of Establishment liberalism--that in the days that followed, informed public opinion, as gauged by this amateur pulse-taker, swung decidedly in favor of the death penalty. "Kill the mother-fucker" was the gist of the reaction I got from friends and acquaintances. Velma Barfield's victims were one thing, but this...
...indictment of the suicidal teen-agers' parents. Lonnie's folks (Marsha Mason and Paul Sorvino) offer little understanding or support for their daughter after an earlier attempt to kill herself. Rick's father (Len Cariou) puts undue pressure on the boy to do well in school; his mother (Ellen Burstyn) is obliviously wrapped up in her work with foreign-exchange students. In the scope and ferocity of its family suffering, Surviving approaches the proportions of a Greek tragedy. Unfortunately, it lapses into bathos in the final hour, as the bereaved parents wade through scenes of guilt and recrimination that Medea...
Consenting Adult, based on Laura Z. Hobson's 1975 novel, is considerably less extreme. The parents are hardly enlightened about their son's homosexuality, but at least they are restrained. The boy's father (Martin Sheen) is crushed and humiliated at the news, and retreats into silence. His mother (Marlo Thomas), though more tolerant, gropes for explanations. "What did we do? What didn't we do?" she cries. The message of this quietly affecting TV movie is that there is no "blame" to be affixed. It is a valuable lesson, one that future TV families in crisis should heed...