Word: seldomly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That does not mean that the civil rights revolution was unnecessary. There were injustices that needed to be redressed and resistance to doing so, as the book acknowledges. But it also paints a vision of racial progress in America that we have seldom seen. Blacks have not advanced by being passive recipients of government largesse or by high-decibel rhetoric. Most have made money the old-fashioned way: they have earned...
Prosecuting the frauds, however, is difficult. Often there are no witnesses to a phone con except the scammer and the victim. The rare con artists who are convicted seldom get sentences anywhere near as long as O'Donnell's 16 years. Far more typical are the prison terms of one to three years imposed on operators of one New York State pyramid scheme. The House in July passed a telemarketing-fraud bill that for the first time sets minimum jail terms for federal convictions. But the minimum will be only six months, or 15 months if the victim is over...
This contrast between subtlety and silliness, improbability and believability, makes for a thrilling yet well-balanced summer blockbuster. And, best of all, the ever-reliable Ford is there to save the day. Though the action seldom descends below 15,000 feet, and Ford wears a rumpled suit and tie rather than his trademark fedora and bull-whip, as always, his hero triumphs and survives with what is perhaps his greatest treasure: his family...
...main plot thread off which Altman works involves Blondie O'Hara (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a punchy, fast-talking gal looking to get her husband Johnny (Dermot Mulroney) back from a gangster, Seldom Seen (Harry Belafonte), whom he foolishly irked. Kidnapping Carolyn Stilton (Miranda Richardson), the doped-up wife of a prominent politician, arises as the logical solution: she hopes to force Mr. Stilton to sic the police on the gangster...
...addition to the touching relationship that develops between Blondie and Carolyn, Altman (who co-wrote the story) presents lingering buffer shots of Seldom's jazz players at the Hey-Hey Club; an amusing ballot-stuffing sequence, headed by the ubiquitous Steve Buscemi as Blondie's sister's main squeeze; and even an odd story line about a young jazz musician and the pregnant 14-year-old he befriends. Rounding off the historical side are various pleasant touches: one political makes a mistake about a friend's wife ("Oh, Bess is Truman's wife!"); Blondie takes Mrs. Stilton...