Word: penal
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...English Parliament was not the only grinch. In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 a penal offense; Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans were given a five-shilling fine for "observing any such day as Christmas...
...books: Talking Pictures and Greta Garbo. Once a year, Corliss interrupts his hectic schedule to serve on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival, which means screening as many as 200 films over a period of seven weeks. "Film festivals are usually part summer camp and part penal camp," he says. "But it helps to know that amid the rubbish, it is still possible to recognize a truly fine film when it surfaces...
...condition he had once likened to "a free man's dreams of heaven"-he was also a celebrity, invited to literary parties and interviewed on Good Morning America. His work would be hailed in the New York Times Book Review as an "awesome, brilliant, perversely ingenuous . . . articulation of penal nightmare." Says Henson: "He had everything a man needs to start a life outside." Then a new nightmare intervened...
...believe that the plot is convoluted, savor this: Air Force One is hijacked by the National Liberation Front for America and crashes into Manhattan Island, which is now a penal colony, a sort of Devil's Island-on-the-Hudson. The President (Donald Pleasance) survives the crash only to be taken hostage by the prisoners. From their headquarters on Liberty Island (home of the Statue of...), the police hire an ex-military hero turned crook. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) to rescue the leader of the free world. He has 24 hours to make the rescue, because the Leader...
...that is a shame, because Carpenter is talented (Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13), and because the idea of New York as penal colony has so much potential. Carpenter, though, simply wastes the possibilities. Manhattan, with its mounumental architecture on every block, has an abundance of magnificent locations for titanic, evil struggles. Why then did Carpenter choose to set Escape mostly in the anonymous alleys and burntout storefronts of other cities? And why does he employ location shots for a meaningless wrestling match (featuring a performer who bears an admirable resemblance to that titan of professional wrestling. George "The Animal" Steele...