Word: shapelessness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...believe that our everyday behavior doesn't truly reflect our character, which is altogether deeper, more astute, suffering and sensitive. The procedure is increasingly cosy and conspiratorial-we go to a Woody Allen film knowing exactly what to expect, and sure enough there it is, a flabby shapeless dish, occasionally spicy, but altogether sagging and apologetic...
...been preserved cryogenically for the past 20 years. The old Havana Hilton, built in the late fifties and a white elephant by our contemporary standards, is now the Free Havana and operates in the sweltering heat of the Caribbean climate without working air conditioning. Awkwardly heavy shoes, shapeless polyester pantsuits, and two-piece bathing suits that conceal instead of reveal make it obvious that the island has remained relatively insulated from the influence trends in the West since the U.S. broke off relations in 1962. Yet the appearance of stagnation is just that: a deceiving appearance that masks the profound...
Like Hazelhoff's story, the movie has about it the patchy, shapeless quality of reality. And that's the trouble. Soldier of Orange does not wear its slick, Hollywood style comfortably. All that gloss raises expectations of a more suspenseful narrative, stronger melodramatic payoffs. It is the sort of thing storytellers invent but reality rarely provides; the sort of thing that makes even silly efforts like Force 10 from Navarone or the recent Hanover Street seem mildly exciting. Something simpler, more documentary in manner would have suited Soldier of Orange better. As it stands, the movie is unsatisfying...
...suddenly as they had begun, the women's marches ended. Three weeks ago, thousands of women spontaneously rose up to protest the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's apparent opinion that women should return to the veil, or chador (a shapeless garment that covers a woman from head to toe). When they shouted, "In the dawn of freedom, there is no freedom," they were supported by many others who feared that the promises of the revolution were not being kept: workers, ethnic and religious minorities, landless peasants, middle-class...
...something they talk about openly in China. Nor do they dress with it in mind. The country's slim, trim women wear no perfume, jewelry, nail polish, or shadow on their almond eyes; for the most part, they march around in the same austere white shirts, shapeless blue pants and sandals as the menfolk. While early marriage is discouraged (men are urged to wait until they are at least 28, women 25), the People's Republic frowns equally on premarital amour, and the unappetizing national costume seems designed to defuse dalliance...