Word: roughness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...with O'Connells and the other the Westerners. Their character motivation is sketchy, their verbal wit scant; at times a scene revs to its climax and, instead of issuing some clever deflating retort, the actor will gaze dumbly into the camera, as if this were a rough cut, with the punch line to be edited in later. To camouflage the dearth of smart dialogue, Fraser and Bello indulge in sheepish smiling and sweet preening; the film's working title might have been Indiana's Clones and the Dimple of Tomb. Fraser and Ford do get to run around...
...have an inarticulate romantic interest in Ray. There's trouble with the Indians over Lila and her illegitimate baby and, of course, over the fact that she is breaking the law. And Ray's sons, both nice kids, are restive and in need of closer supervision. In the end, rough, but not draconian, justice is meted out to Ray, but a thin ray of hope also gleams through the lowering upstate skies...
...comparison, the McCain campaign suffered through one of the rockiest weeks recently endured by a presidential candidate. One McCain advser told me on Thursday that the Arlington headquarters had been braced for a rough week. "We knew we were going to lose the week two to one," he said. "Instead we lost it 30 to one." They missed some opportunities early on, complained too loudly about press bias toward Obama, and then suffered from some notably weak stage management. I'm not sure why anyone in McCainland thought a photo opportunity with Bush 41 was a good idea...
...Alabama. Witnesses said that Sessions had called the N.A.A.C.P. and several other civil rights groups ''un-American,'' and once remarked that he had thought Ku Klux Klan members were ''O.K.'' until he found out they smoked pot. Sessions protests that he was ''caricatured'' unfairly by his opponents. ''It's rough on Capitol Hill right now,'' he says. ''Some good people are getting hurt.'' Anti-Reagan forces mean to get still rougher. And Manion is the next target. Last month a last-ditch Republican effort narrowly succeeded in getting his nomination released by the judiciary committee ''without a recommendation.'' The committee...
...Ancient Music (L'Oiseau-Lyre). Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 7. Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra (RCA). No greater contrast can be imagined. Original Instrument Specialist Hogwood offers light, fleet, graceful performances that explicitly evoke Beethoven's classical- period roots. Toscanini, on the other hand, is rough and hard charging in these readings from 1949 and 1951. Once, Toscanini's Beethoven was Beethoven, as surely handed down from on high as Schnabel's. Today, Toscanini's interpretations sound merely coarse, the vaunted NBC Symphony distinctly second-rate. What, one wonders, was all the fuss about? Beethoven: Symphonies...