Word: puppyish
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...their fate, an astonishing evocation of the terrors of the slave ships' notorious Middle Passage--Spielberg permits himself time to explore every aspect of his saga in rich detail. And he grants his actors--among them a warily compassionate Morgan Freeman as a black abolitionist; Matthew McConaughey as a puppyish lawyer growing into an attack dog; Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams, bent with age and crotchets, but finally lending his eloquence to the cause--a similar latitude. It's a shame that Amistad's release has been polluted with charges of plagiarism, for what's on the screen...
...jolt of renewed self-esteem and left foreign manufacturers struggling in the dust. Even looking backward, it is not clear why. Maybe the baby boomers, grown thick in the waist, were bored with being sensible. Without any question--the brief dawn a few years ago of the tiny, puppyish Miata sports convertible aside--cars had grown tedious and indistinguishable. A Lexus or a BMW or a Mercedes said, "I've got mine, and I'm rich." A Volkswagen Golf or Ford Escort said nothing whatsoever. Did we need talking cars? Apparently: a Jeep with a mountain bike or kayak rack...
...Marc Sherman, the teacher and student re-enact their encounter in parallel recollections. Rapp rampages through both, first as a bratty seducer who hides doubts about his sexuality by swiveling his hips, shaking a finger cockily in the professor's face, tearing off his own clothes and collapsing in puppyish self-pity, then as a mute but furious victim. His vengeance gives Pendleton a career moment too. Reduced to a job as Santa, he stands disheveled, muttering the words of one Christmas carol while hearing the tune of another. The moment is brief but perfect -- a lesson by established talent...
Still, grand dame Evans, puppyish Nall and embattled Wagstaff are likely to be overshadowed by Thompson and Summer Sanders, each competing in as many as five events. Sanders, maybe the team's most complete swimmer, is in the 100-m and 200-m butterfly and the 200-m and 400-m individual medley, plus a possible relay. She is likely to win only twice -- teammate Crissy Ahmann-Leighton is the fastest active 100-m butterflyer in the world, and Sanders tends to lose rhythm in the final freestyle laps of the medleys -- yet she could be somewhere on the victory...