Word: slam-bang
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Some evolution has taken place in this crippled genre. Take last month's "Losing Isaiah." Hmm, you think, could be about death, kidnapping or even a slam-bang lost-in-the-big-city caper. But no, "Losing Isaiah" draws its plot from the topical problem of surrogate motherhood. How did I know? Luckily, I saw the subheading: "Who Decides What Makes a Mother?" Yes, these titles have become so vague that a whole other title of unlimited length--defeating the entire original objective--becomes necessary...
...remark, "I'm not sure there's a play here, but there's certainly a playwright." Just such tempered optimism is being triggered right now by two emotionally intense, fiercely funny and sadly flawed works by dramatists in their early 30s. One writer -- Howard Korder -- has the slam-bang dialogue and macho preoccupations of a David Mamet in training. The other -- Jon Robin Baitz -- can infuse domestic drama with the burdens of history in the fashion of a budding Arthur Miller. But neither can yet write two cumulative and cohesive acts. In each of their current offerings, one act sings...
...rationale is not simply the need to meet the demands of the American car market or harness the spirit of innovation. From the homogeneous vantage points of Japan and Germany, the exuberant free thinking seems to be a function of L.A.'s slam-bang Anglo-Afro-Latino-Asian ethnic mix -- cultural democracy by default. "The Southern California area is like a melting pot -- there are so many different races," says Mitsubishi vice president Satoru Tsujimoto. "From those different backgrounds, there are many different values. So there are many different designs." For companies acutely conscious of their need to sell cars...
...movies, these dog days are a time of atonement. Out go the slam-bang gonadal giants of June and July; in come a passel of fellows on their onerous journey toward becoming more sensitive souls. They take their cue from Harrison Ford, the selfish lawyer in Regarding Henry, who gets a shot in the head and suddenly feels so darned . . . human. But the newer films go a step farther. In Doc Hollywood and The Doctor, the ones in need of redemption are good guys...
...against considerable odds, the two FBI special agents who authored this slam-bang policier placed a bug in the Staten Island mansion of Paul ("the Pope") Castellano, New York City's boss of crime bosses. The tap eventually led to the indictment of Castellano, along with more than 100 of his underlings, in the so-called Commission case. Joseph O'Brien and Andris Kurins did the honors, but more like courtiers than arresting officers. They took Castellano to the federal court complex in Manhattan by a back way to avoid the flashbulbs. When the aging diabetic felt a little peckish...