Word: sasse
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Escape, for grownup moviegoers of a certain age, was when the archetypal cinema couple was Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, making silent-movie love more eloquent than poetry, or Tracy and Hepburn, turning sass into starlight. But that was long ago, when Hollywood was in its swoonily romantic adolescence. Now it is in its second childhood. The moguls have climbed back into their treehouse (NO GIRLS ALLOWED) to initiate their new holy couple: Any Male Star and Any Cute...
...sass, there is something a little too careful about this album: the rhythms are too studied and studiobound, the sexiness slightly forced. It's as if Jackson, aware that this was her premier effort under a new, $40 million record deal, felt weighed down by the burden of proving herself. When, however, she kicks loose on What'll I Do, a nifty, '60s-style soul stirrer, it's clear that Jackson's got nothing to prove to anyone, including herself. She does her best by just letting the pressure out and having what this record often promises but only sporadically...
Kamakiriad is worth the wait. Produced by Becker, who also pitches in on bass and solo guitar, the album picks up where Gaucho and The Nightfly left off and goes one step further, meshing Fagen's urbanely elliptic lyrics with the sonic sass and snap of Steely Dan. The faithful will be glad to know that Becker and Fagen are already writing songs together for a new album, and plans are under way for a Steely Dan tour this summer. Meanwhile, Kamakiriad continues the Steely Dan legacy while deftly sidestepping the quicksand of nostalgia...
...very many talents, is a former writer in TIME's Nation section who wrote cover stores on Lee Iacocca, Jesse Helms and the death penalty. He is committed to our straight-news mission, although he promises, in the TIME tradition going back to Henry Luce, "a certain amount of sass when appropriate...
There was another crucial factor. As a black star, Murphy was pigeonholed by the industry. "When it comes to black actors," says Reginald Hudlin, the (black) director of Boomerang, "many screenwriters find it difficult to get beyond race." Then, too, the zeitgeist was changing. For all his street sass and gutter gargle, Murphy is basically a middle-class star, closer to Bill Cosby than to the new wave of African-American filmmakers (Spike Lee, John Singleton) and rapmasters (all those hot Ices). Their marketable anger made Eddie look timid, irrelevant, a hipper but still compromised version of the old Negro...