Word: offhand
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...high-class black men's club, which practices its own form of race discrimination. Prospective members are traditionally given a "paper bag" test: only those with skin lighter than the bag are asked to join. The messages are soft-pedaled, however, in favor of funky atmosphere, fragments of offhand humor and characters refreshingly free of sitcom shtick. No big laughs, but not Big Band either...
...epic Queen of Outer Space. Books: "Irving Sidney's" First Lady of the Evening, in which the President marries a hooker. TV: commercials for a synthetic hors d'oeuvre called Silly Pate and for the laundered lilt of Black Singer Don ("No Soul") Simmons. The whole thing has the offhand lunacy of Phi Beta frat boys on spring break. Don't miss...
...film-industry receptions and social contacts with actors and actresses. "Critics by nature are antisocial beasts. We dodge movie stars because we don't want to believe that those huge gorgeous creatures on the screen are real, tiny people with real, tender feelings that could be dented by an offhand joke in print." Each week he sees an average of a dozen films, usually in screening rooms but sometimes in crowded Times Square theaters. "I like to slip into theaters unnoticed. On Broadway the audience's critical comments are often more piquant than mine, and more interesting than the movie...
...bewitchingly malign marquise (Lindsay Duncan), a good woman tempted to self-betrayal by love (Suzanne Burden), a virgin eager to surrender to ecstasy (Beatie Edney) and the highborn roue who is their sequential wooer (Alan Rickman). The essence of the roue's sexual appeal is a chilly, offhand disinterest. Neither kind nor attentive nor particularly virile, he does not so much inspire devotion as command it; he does not so much arouse ardor as compel his victims to confront their suppressed sexuality. He believes all virtue is fraud, and he delights in destroying women by making them believe...
...King. Any discussion of horror movies or books leads to the inevitable disparagement of King as pop slash-master, ghoulmonger, corpsedragger, goresplasher--as anything but a writer of merit. When Rob Reiner's Stand By Me was released, the deservedly glowing reviews mentioned the story's author in as offhand way as possible--as if it was good despite being written by King...