Word: phantasmagoria
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...director of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. On his own he directed one commercial hit (Time Bandits) and one cult smash (Brazil). Critics, this one included, went crazy for Brazil; but not many citizens felt at home amid all the astringent whimsy. And the director's next phantasmagoria, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, was a $50 million flop...
...phantasmagoria in the U.S.S.R. has overloaded the circuits. For days on end, there was little room on the front pages for other news, and barely room in our minds for other astonishments and anxieties...
...Bush Administration may be forgiven for reacting slowly to the phantasmagoria of 1989. No one saw the collapse of communism coming, and no one could be sure that it would continue, much less spread. The next stage, however, is more predictable: sooner or later what started in the Soviet Union will engulf Moscow's clones in the Third World. This time there will be no excuse for the U.S. to be caught flat-footed...
Humbug, responds Dr. Meaden. "Those who like to fantasize that something from outer space is responsible can be excluded," he insists. "What does cause these circles is better than fiction." But with or without government research funding, it may be a while before students of the phantasmagoria come up with a totally convincing explanation. Indeed, some suspect that researchers and the locals may enjoy their novel oddity so much that another ring is more interesting than a conclusive answer...
...film, which Director Abuladze calls a "tragic phantasmagoria," uses allegory, fantasy and surrealism to evoke the terror of a totalitarian system. His central character is Varlam Aravidze, the mayor of a provincial town. Varlam combines Stalin's close-cropped haircut, Hitler's mustache and Mussolini's black shirt to embody the image of a universal tyrant. Although the setting and time are undefined -- secret police appear alternately as medieval knights or spear-wielding Roman centurions -- there is no doubt that the real subject is Stalinism...