Word: novels
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...next decade. The new series of the 1979-80 season are a mostly flavorless assortment of retreads, spin-offs and ripoffs; there are no innovative programs and few fresh faces in sight. Though the past few years were not much better, they did at least offer such novel phenomena as Soap, Lifeline, Suzanne Somers and Robin Williams. The 1979-80 network lineup is so tame that it even lacks that saving spice of commercial television -triumphantly bad taste...
...possible to say both words, with equal emphasis, about much of Vonnegut's fiction. Jailbird is no exception. Still, it is his best book in years and may prompt a new generation of college kids to adopt the author and the novel. That act will, at the very least, teach them one important fact: reading...
Margo eventually finds her husband, who faked the accident in order to disappear discreetly with a girl half his age. But by then, Margo's own affairs (including one with the reformed Boonton drunk) are no longer so simple. Neither, unfortunately, is the novel. Into just 214 pages Clark crams, along with Margo's story, the restlessness, trials, past deeds and dreams of a score of other characters. There are Hannah Palz, a motherly musician-in-residence; Jim Pace, an unscrupulous real estate dealer; Brit Horton, a grizzled farmer; Mercy Grout, the local adventuress. There are also touches...
Based on former Footballer Peter Gent's good novel, the film shows this sadomasochistic world through the eyes of Phillip Elliott (Nick Nolte), a pass catcher with good hands and, in the view of the coaches and owners, a bad attitude. Elliott's insouciance springs from a developing conviction that he and his mates are exploited (if well-paid) field hands, risking their lives, or anyway their health, to assuage their owner's ego and their coach's desire to turn them into ciphers...
...Elliott and his all too dense girlfriend. Dayle Haddon's inexperienced playing adds nothing even faintly convincing to the badly written love interest, and the rest of the film has to struggle to recover from the resulting dead spots. Still, North Dallas Forty retains enough of the original novel's authenticity to deliver strong, if brutish, entertainment.-Richard Schickel