Word: ripoff
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...LATEST RIPOFF This con-artist ploy gives new meaning to the phrase "Shop till you drop." A letter in this month's Journal of Accident and Emergency Medicine reports on two British women who feigned collapse at cashier's counters every few days. When they were put into ambulances, bystanders also packed in their goods. Once at the hospital, "recovery is rapid." Result: free, if felonious, shopping...
...order, Mr. Tyson! This whole ring is out of order!" Who better to be host of a People's Court ripoff than MILLS LANE--ex-Marine, ex-prizefighter, Nevada district court judge and the ref who pulled Mike Tyson away from Evander Holyfield's ear. "Maximum Mills," as he is known in Nevada, will be seen in Judge Mills Lane, due to air next fall. The show will be produced by the folks who made A Current Affair and Inside Edition, and they expect swift, just decisions from Lane. Definitely tougher than Wapner...
Well, Universal has a right to have the blues. It was bad enough for the studio that a little Mad Max ripoff originally written for B-movie schlock king Roger Corman grew into the most expensive film ever made. It's worse that Waterworld, in its final ambitious form, provides a slow ride on very bumpy surf. So much effort expended, to so little effect...
Distinguishing between resurrection and ripoff can be a highly subjective matter. Performers are often fiercely possessive of their work and protective of their vision; such artists might be troubled at the thought of record-company executives altering their unfinished work after their death. In life Marvin Gaye fought Motown Records to release his classic, risk-taking soul album What's Going On just the way he wanted it. But in September, Motown will bring out a promising Gaye tribute CD on which other performers, from Madonna to Lisa Stansfield, offer renditions of his greatest songs, many drawn from that album...
...only unaffected performance. At this point your thoughts may turn back to East of Eden, which was a gloss on the biblical tale of Cain and Abel. When the Colonel suffers a stroke, just as the patriarch in that film did, you may begin to entertain suspicions of ripoff -- not to mention thoughts of escape from this tangle of portentous cross-references...