Word: nightmarish
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
WITHOUT MARX OR JESUS, there's still lust; erotic desire galvanizes the nightmarish sweatglistening discotheque and toilet-stall world of Andrew Holleran's first novel. The title, of course, comes from Yeats' "Among School Children," as does the epigram, and the book emerges from Yeats, admixed with desire: desire, the force of the gyre spinning Malone and Sutherland and their coterie, binding them to the center till it scatters them like a merry-go round gone haywire; desire, the lesser mythology in the absence of religion, that turns the X's on a suicide note from crosses to kisses...
...Chinese had requested the opportunity of meeting "old friends" in the U.S., including former President Nixon, whose own visit to China in 1972 paved the way for U.S.-Chinese diplomatic normalization. In fact, Teng wanted to stop off at Nixon's home at San Clemente, Calif., a nightmarish thought to Carter's advisers.* As a compromise, the White House invited the former President to the state banquet for Teng in Washington on Jan. 29. Invitations were also sent to former President Gerald Ford and former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and William Rogers. Some initial reactions...
Although based on the outlines of a true story, "Midnight Express" is more akin to fantasy, albert a nightmarish one. How else can one explain the wholesale brutality of the Turkish characters, the unreal prison conditions, and the imaginary arbitrariness of the Turkish judicial system, not to mention Billy Hayes' unbelievably easy escape? Not one technique is spared to impress on the audience the repulsiveness of Turkey. Violent scenes are accompanied by Turkish folk music as if to show the necessary relationship between the two. Even the normally beautiful Istanbul skyline is transformed by the camera into somber and gloomy...
...scared the living hell out of all but the most maniacal "science marches on" people. The world had already seen enough carnage during the Big One; suddenly this omnipotent man-made monster appeared--a god of death that could vaporize entire cities in one nightmarish burst. Thirty years ago no consensus of feelings about The Bomb existed, but one thing was certain--everyone had a lot of respect, and fear, for nuclear technology. In some ways, that ominous and justifiably paranoid feeling remains in America, but for all practical purposes it has disappeared as nuclear devices--warlike and domestic--become...
Things start to roll in earnest when Teddy arrives with his girlfriend, Cheryl. Very soon, the psychopathically hostile hippie has alienated everyone, shattered their self-made fronts, and catapulted them into a nightmarish movie which he directs between outbursts of violence and brutal degradations of the other characters. Teddy bears the thematic weight of the play, battering the egos of Red and Richard with his brutality and cynicism until they have lost their illusions and their dignity and are forced to confront the truth about their vanity and foolishness...