Word: pleasantly
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...looking back on the "moral equivalent of war" against energy waste and excessive vulnerability from oil imports, I see nothing exhilarating or pleasant. It was a bruising fight, and no final, clear-cut victory could be photographed and hung on the wall for our grandchildren to admire. The results will have to speak for themselves; they are already doing so. Our Administration left the country with petroleum inventories at record levels, a natural gas surplus and a fair distribution system for it, more exploration under way for new petroleum than at any time in history and an orderly plan...
...Favorite Year's innocuousness has its virtues: because of the film's eagerness to please, even the stalest jokes and cliches have a short half-life, and evoke a comfortable haze of nostalgia as they decay. The directing also comes a pleasant surprise. While always irritating and oily as an actor. Richard Benjamin turns out to be quite skillful behind the camera. He doesn't overwhelm with individual touches, but he does keep things moving deftly along, and he has had the good sense to let O'Toole follow his own course. My Favorite Year was produced by Mel Brooks...
Though the testy interrogation had little if anything to do with his substantive qualifications as an economist, Feldstein, 42, took the ordeal good-naturedly. Said he afterward: "I went into the hearing room knowing that it wouldn't be a social chat. It wasn't particularly pleasant, but nothing about it was overly surprising...
...Israel. There is no doubt Begin's purpose all the time was to cut a separate deal with Egypt. He disavowed that intention, but all his actions, all his words, indicated that. Begin was the most recalcitrant of all the Israelis at Camp David. I almost never had a pleasant surprise in my dealings with...
...Hollywood: like his protagonist, he profits by axing the System. But perhaps this is too heavy a weight for 87 minutes of soufflé-light surrealism to support. The film is best seen as a canny survivor's notice of current determination and future availability. It would be pleasant to think that what Bartel did for love could be redeemed for money, and a chance next time to make it his way a bigger way. Like the Old Dope Peddler in Tom Lehrer's song, Bartel should do well by doing good. -By Richard Corliss