Word: portrayal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...toward violence, a lack of compassion, a reveling in the bizarre. His comic scenes made viewers wonder whether he was laughing with or at his characters. His work has shifted from expressionist flights of fancy to a kind of grim, weird naturalism and has tended more and more to portray families as the poisoned wellspring of human evil. He has brought to life the same fumbling, feckless dreamers from the heartland that Tennessee Williams did and, like Williams, has shown a special sensitivity to the yearnings of women. But having seen the world with cold comprehension, he has lacked...
There has been a striking bifurcation between toys that portray war and those that suggest the psychedelic peace symbols of the '60s. In the former catagory we have black and gray Voltrons, Zybots, Immortals of Change, Gobots, Grapplors, and the TV stars Masters of the Universe. The latter group includes the Glo Worm Musical World (remember the Plastic Exploding Inevitable?), Care Bear Cousins, Hugga Bunch Dolls, Pianosaurus, My Little Pony with Pony Wear Clothes and Jewelry, Baby Hugs or Tugs (take your pick, I guess), Rainbow Brite and Co., and finally the Cabbage Patch Dimensional Gift...
IPPNW statements which attempt to portray the group as an apolitical information body only do more to reveal its nature as a purely Western pressure group with little or no influence on Soviet policy. Witness a statement by Dr. John O. Pastore, the group's secretary: "We intend to use the receipt of the Nobel Prize to do more and actually affect both sides." This sounds great; but how to get the Soviets to listen? Lown himself experiences odd swings between proclaiming an apolitical stance ("above politics from the inception...") and admitting his desire to affect national policies...
BERGER CLEARLY ADMIRES the resource restorers he writes about, and the admiration is merited. These people have struggled long and hard and have rejuvenated ecosystems to show for their efforts. Yet the most noticable weakness in his accounts is a tendency to portray his subjects with overly lavish admiration. His description of one person as "a decisive, heavyset man with keen blue eyes, extraordinary energy, unwavering determination, and intense curiosity about nature" is typical of the adulatory hyperbole that sometimes becomes boring and grates on Berger's otherwise compelling narratives...
...THEIR PART, the two actors portray the husbands to look, accurately, like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. In one of the movie's funnier scenes--the proverbial railroad station scene--the husbands cross paths en route to a train and realize they are wearing matching punctuation mark sweaters. Philippe's sweater has an exclamation point on it, which defines him perfectly as he rants and raves through the movie as a know-nothing know-it-all. Vincent's sweater, however, bears a question mark because his ranting and raving springs from his utter cluelessness. What a pair...