Word: raffishly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Blaine. Frank Gregory undulates admirably as Frank N. Furter, but the image of Tim Curry's entrancingly seductive performance remains etched in memory as the real thing; Pendleton Brown plays a fine Riff Raff, Furter's alien sidekick--although his dark hair seems somehow un-Riff Raffish to those accustomed to O'Brien's bald-eagle blond cranium. Rocky fans, who recognize the slightest deviation from the standard film version, will perhaps cringe at each "revisionist" inflection or gesture; but, unless in a savage mood to begin with--distinctly possible given the overpriced tickets ($12.50, $15.00)--they should enjoy this...
...struggle is not developed with much style. There is none of the menace and mystery that attended a similar conflict in Robert Redford's 1972 Jeremiah Johnson, which also dealt with the trappers who first explored the West. Brian Keith is at his best as Heston's raffish companion. But Heston seems emblematic of what is wrong with the film. He strives to be as free-spirited as a wanderer of the wilderness should be, but the ease that comes naturally to Keith is beyond him. He is a tired act, and this is a tired movie...
...opposition is not a simple matter of Good (noble conservatism) vs. Evil (predatory pragmatism) because one factor is dependent on the other. The Ewing Oil empire supports the ranch home; the business keeps the family together. J.R. may behave like a raffish amalgam of Machiavelli and the Marquis de Sade, but if he is evil, he is a strong, necessary evil for the weaker family members. His ruthless devotion to expanding the Ewing empire almost justifies his weakness for the three Bs: booze, bribes and broads. Oil work and no play would make J.R. a dull boy-and would have...
True, the raffish-brother act has had its more edifying counterpart. Milton Eisenhower, the brains of the family according to Ike, enjoyed a sort of unappointed super-Cabinet status during the '50s. John Kennedy formalized the fraternal arrangement by making Bobby Kennedy Attorney General...
...quite a narrative trick, one that allows the author to hit the emotional highs and bawdy lows of Shapiro's lurch through a world of dubious achievements and even more dubious respectability. Joshua, with his raffish background and inherited street smarts, is an arbiter of such matters. Most of his childhood friends make it to Montreal's affluent suburbs and lose their roots in wall-to-wall carpeting. To put on occasional airs is human, but to be a full-time phony is to risk devastating caricature, like Yossel Kugelman who becomes Psychiatrist Jonathan Cole, author...