Word: nam
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...been a strange year for American movies. The most popular films of 1987 have a dark hue: violent policiers (Beverly Hills Cop II, The Untouchables, Lethal Weapon, Stakeout), corrosive Viet Nam memorials (Platoon and Full Metal Jacket), thrillers about sexual anxiety (Fatal Attraction). Steven Spielberg has flown to the dark side of E.T.: in Empire of the Sun a boy goes to war, and nearly goes mad. Even the comedies are cynical. The Secret of My Success got Michael J. Fox into bed with his uncle's wife to help advance his career. The Witches of Eastwick sent Satan...
...either consciences or bad company. The film seems intended as a blend of morality play and classical satire -- Everyman meets Volpone. Stone always comes at you with big dreams and nightmares; he wants the first and last word on every subject he touches, whether Central America (Salvador), Viet Nam (Platoon) or Wall Street. This time he works up a salty sweat to end up nowhere, like a triathlete on a treadmill. But as long as he keeps his players in venal, perpetual motion, it is great scary fun to watch him work...
...Americans are not spendthrifts out of pure whimsy or decadence. Over the past several decades, U.S. consumers have been influenced by fundamental social and economic forces. To begin with, the Viet Nam era bred a mood of pessimism and cynicism that led many young people to live for today rather than save for tomorrow. Next came the inflation of the 1970s, which pushed prices up 87% in one decade. Consumers became accustomed to buying in a hurry because prices were always rising. Even as inflation has cooled off in the 1980s, the manic shopping reflex continues, notes F. Thomas Juster...
...Director Martin Scorsese begun on The Last Waltz concert film. He worked on music for Raging Bull, The Color of Money and The King of Comedy, for which he wrote his first song in five years. Called Between Trains, it was a spooky, heart-torn memorial for a Viet Nam vet, a friend who died too soon, and it was also a reminder of how badly Robertson was missed. No one else wrote songs like that...
...compromise better than anyone. Clifford, L.B.J.'s Secretary of Defense, remembers March 31, 1968, when Johnson tried to cut his last and biggest deal with Washington. He went on the air to "speak to you of peace" not war. It was the end of escalation in Viet Nam. Washington, with its peace marchers, Senate harangues, angry poets, editorial cartoons and leaky colonels, had stopped him. He left for the ranch because he knew enough to know he had to yield...