Word: pseudo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Shah sees his failure as political. Every relaxation of controls was interpreted by his enemies as a sign of weakness. "There was a strange alliance between certain Tehran merchants, a feudal pseudo-theocracy and parties of the extreme left with the backing of a religious fanaticism foreign to the principles of Islam and Iranian traditions...
Since there is no action in the film, dialogue is the only thing left to compete with the special effects, and the dialogue is uninformative, full of jargon, and plainly pseudo-intellectual--almost as much as unfriendly critics would have us believe the television series was. The non-effect scenes didn't have what it takes to counterbalance lengthy visual scenes with little intrinsic interest and much bore potential...
...what we get is the Allen persona of all his films, at least up to Annie Hall--ingratiatingly awkward and insecure, morbid, conscientious; intellectual and only saved from pseudo-intellectualism because his sidekicks are transparently far more pompous and shallow. Above all, he's acutely aware of all these things about himself, and, therefore, by an easy step, somehow above all his failings because he knows about them, After all he wrote the film--A Woody Allen Film...
Sanchez has his own line on the Stones: they are not nice people. His Jagger is a megalomaniac trampling over his friends, even members of the band, to achieve millionaire respectability, a pseudo-hipster who never outgrew his banal suburban upbringings and mother-love. His Keith Richards is a vicious junkie, a coward, a racist, a cruel manipulator. Richards exploits Sanchez throughout, to smuggle drugs or take the rap for auto accidents or whatever. Since he was paying Sanchez a grand a month to do almost nothing, it doesn't seem all that reprehensible...
Though the immediate crisis facing the world is the direct responsibility of the Ayatullah Khomeini and his pseudo-government in Iran, the danger would not be nearly so grave if the U.S. had not allowed itself to become so dependent on foreign oil. Under the circumstances, there is no guarantee that economic disruption can be avoided no matter what steps the nation takes. But the best hope for avoiding real trauma is to cut consumption, conserve supplies and, at the very least, make do with 700,000 bbl. less of crude per day. Such an effort would put some slack...