Word: plot
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Towering Inferno is one hell of a spectacle. The dialogue ranges from the banal to the trite, but only the most primitive phrases are appropriate to the very simple dynamics of the plot. A builder constructs a 135-story office-building-cum-apartment house, but in cutting costs, his son-in-law installs a faulty wiring system that starts a small fire as soon as the first switch is thrown. The fire detection and sprinkler system malfunction, of course, and, as a gala party of 300 bejewelled and tuxedoed guests gathers in the penthouse...
Salt's adaptation follows West's novel closely in most of the plot details. It misses what is most crucial: West's tone of level rage and tilted compassion, his ability to make human even the most grotesque mockery. The novel, a series of interrelated sketches, does not have the strong narrative that lends itself best to film adaptation. So this movie has trouble finding a focus. The protagonist is Tod Hackett (William Atherton), an aspiring artist who works in the production department of a major studio. Hackett also nourishes a private vision of cataclysm, which...
SUCH AN EXERCISE in grand tragedy is difficult to take seriously, however, when none of the characters avoids two-dimensional typicality. Clara, particularly, as the martyred Working Woman, displays ludicrous malleability in her metamorphosis from Cinderella to Princess at the caprice of the plot. All the romantic music, charming mountain cafes, melting glances and scenic forest idylls De Sica produces cannot lend authenticity to this melodrama, so that the inevitable denouncement is devoid of pathos...
Thirty-two FBI offices had helped unravel the crime. Ironically, it was the red-herring reference to the Weatherman that brought the FBI into the case at the outset. The alleged conspiracy sounds something like a Mannix plot on TV-with a few Fellini-esque wrinkles. According to the indictment, Moeller paid $50,000 in company funds to David Bubar, 47, a trim, wavy-haired Baptist minister and self-proclaimed clairvoyant from Memphis who purports to have foreseen a variety of specific deaths, illnesses and other disasters. Bubar met Moeller about ten years ago, became his spiritual guru and ultimately...
...garden is no whimsical undertaking. The first step is to pick a fertile, well-drained patch that gets as much sun as possible. For the average family, advises Derek Fell, director of the National Garden Bureau and author of a new book, How to Plant a Vegetable Garden, a plot 15 ft. by 25 ft. can save $250 or more above its investment in seeds (about $12) and tools. Fell recommends 18 varieties of vegetables, which can be grown almost anywhere from early spring to fall...