Word: smile
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey...
Unfortunately Rushdie rests his case on banal political rhetoric; what little analysis The Jaguar Smile does offer makes a Big Mac look like a cordon bleu original...
Although in general The Jaguar Smile ignores the plight of the Nicaraguan middle class, Rushdie does make one anomalous attempt to critically evaluate the closing of La Prensa, Nicaragua's main opposition newspaper. While he does not support this move, Rushdie asserts that the government should not be condemned for it. If we look at the broader picture of the country's civil liberties, he argues, the Sandinistas come off looking not nearly so bad as it is portrayed by the Reagan Administration...
...presiding on the high ground overlooking the mobile-home encampment where she lives. The metal cartons behind her may not look like much, but her own satisfaction is not to be denied. She has a mythic weight, as well as a bit of the literal kind, and her sly smile makes a strong case in favor of whatever it is that accounts for her contentment. When people spread into the landscape, who is to draw the limits? Sternfeld's picture may not answer the question, but he poses it in terms sympathetic to democratic sprawl. The asphalt road that rises...
Gary Oldman looks spookily like Joe, with that puckish smile that told the world, "You want me to get away with it." Vanessa Redgrave has, and deserves, many of the best lines as Orton's sardonic agent. Bennett's script is a mine of epigrams and a model of construction (except for a framing device that portrays Lahr as an Orton manque and his wife as a pathetic Ken doll). But the workmanlike style of Director Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette) emphasizes the drab and the obvious. Frears cannot match the script's sleek malice, so he gets his laughs...