Word: primally
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...PRIMAL FEAR. OR, ALTERNATIVELY, Fatal Fear, Primal Attraction, Indecent Instinct, even--why not?--Basic Exposure. Who cares, finally? These interchangeable titles all promise the same thing: the black glamour of privileged people abandoning common, repressive sense for a mad moment, thus putting their nice clothes in serious danger of becoming mussed, if not downright bloodsplattered...
These films are about upsetting decorum, not scaring the wits out of you. But Primal Fear at least offers the reliable pleasure of watching Richard Gere succumb to the sin of pride. He's awfully good at playing sinuous, cynical men who are just a little too smart for their own good. In this case he's Martin Vail, a media-mad defense attorney in Chicago, who takes on--mostly for publicity--the case of a young man accused of murdering the city's beloved Catholic archbishop. Before he's through, Martin uncovers civic corruption, some hanky-panky with...
...John Mahoney and Frances McDormand, among others) but not much suspense. The only potentially scary guy--Edward Norton's weirdo defendant--is safely behind bars most of the time. Diverting without being fully absorbing, this is a film best appreciated as an exercise in--shall we say it?--Primal Gere...
...EVER BEEN RINGSIDE knows that boxing is a blood sport. When the going gets rough, it's not unusual for the referee, the cornermen and even the first few rows of spectators to find themselves covered with a bloody spray. That's always been part of boxing's primal appeal. But what if the blood that flows so freely in the ring contains the virus that causes AIDS? That was the issue on everyone's mind last week when heavyweight fighter Tommy Morrison confirmed, just three weeks after Magic Johnson's triumphant return to basketball, that...
There is a cutting, angry quality to almost everything Kincaid has written, some recent, eerily serene essays on gardening excepted. Her primal theme, repeated well past the point of obsession, has been her abiding resentment of her mother. A remarkable short-story collection, At the Bottom of the River, and two autobiographical novels, Annie John and Lucy, have not been enough to wash her feelings out to sea, and she restates them again in Autobiography. Anyone who imagines that tensions between husband and wife exceed those between parent and child is not paying attention to Jamaica Kincaid...