Word: portrait
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...Silence of the Lambs, Beloved and a forthcoming Gulf War-based remake of The Manchurian Candidate) behind him and, it would seem from just glancing that immense composite list, little time to dwell on the historical particulars and hardships of tracking down footage for a documentary. Yet, in his portrait of Jean Dominique, a Haitian activist unknown to most American ears, Demme takes aim at a slightly obscure topic and turns up a final product that not only serves as a fascinating narrative biography but an excellent debriefing of Haiti’s turbulent political history...
...PORTRAIT OF THE POET
Among other highlights, "Super Unleaded" sketches a devastating portrait of dysfunctional family dynamics in just a few short pages. The unnamed teenage narrator has become the reluctant communication bridge between his non-verbal parents. That he is the child of a Korean mother and Caucasian father only adds to the story's complexity without making it strictly about cultural gulfs. On the opposite end of the comix scale is "Oliver Pikk," featuring a walking, talking skewered olive who complains about his sex life. Why doesn't he believe in aliens, for example? Because, "the thought of an entire species...
...terrorist organization, with its own targeting agenda and operational commanders." And though the CIA drafted "thousands" of reports on aspects of al-Qaeda's operation beginning in June 1998--some of them for the "highest officials in the government," the panel said--the agency never produced an "authoritative portrait of [bin Laden's] strategy and the extent of his organization ... or the scale of the threat his organization posed to the United States...
...President is a compelling presence in this book, as he was in Woodward's last. He fairly leaps off the page, brisk and unflappable. It is difficult to know how accurate this portrait is, and how much of it consists of sweet nothings whispered into the author's ear by loyal retainers. I suspect the Woody Allen and Joe Public stories are true. They are moments when the curtain of platitudes is parted and the quality of Bush's sensibility is revealed. I also suspect the larger picture-the world as seen from the West Wing bunker-is distressingly accurate...