Word: spined
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...oceans, the Panama Canal remains one of the engineering marvels of the world. At one end of the 50-mile-long waterway, the 12,000 ships that traverse it annually are lifted 85 ft. above sea level by a series of locks, enabling them to sail through the mountainous spine of the Panama Isthmus. When they reach the opposite coast, another set of locks floats them gently back down to the ocean...
...That spine tingler of a script is, with a certain amount of cinematic license, akin to sweet reality at the 55-acre Hollywood studios of venerable Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of Gulf & Western. A year ago, the company that distributed one of the first Hollywood feature-length movies (The Squaw Man, 1914) was close to the ropes, its revenues sagging and its film larder practically bare. Today, in the words of Gordon Crawford, senior vice president of Capital Guardian Research, a Los Angeles investment-management firm, "they're having the greatest year of any company in the recent history...
...easy enough to pick out the ringers, the professionals, in the choir. In the instant before she sings, Carole FitzPatrick, the lead soprano, sits forward and seems to assemble herself into a musical instrument, spine straightening, chest swelling, head lifting and tilting back. When the volunteers mumble through the first reading, she growls, sotto voce, "Come on, girls, sing!" "I was singing," comes the lament. The volunteers regroup to one side of their leader, for strength in numbers. They start to open up and "honk it," as FitzPatrick indelicately urges on the third...
...years ago, a tumor was discovered on Paul LaPorte's spine. It was benign, but it caused a symptom that he kept a darker secret than he would have had the diagnosis been terminal cancer. The growth pressed on the nerves to his bladder, causing it to empty unexpectedly. Surgery seemed too risky, and LaPorte's life became consumed by the harrowing effort to hide his embarrassing condition. He quit jobs and refused advancement. "One employer wanted to promote me to a sales position that meant traveling all over Canada," recalls LaPorte, now 36 and a factory worker in Windsor...
...going to have only himself to thank for his umpteenth Oscar nomination. As the long-suffering Gillian, Andrews provides a sane contrast to the frazzle-dazzle of Lemmon's performance. There is more than mere discipline in her work. Her tart, get-on-with-it Englishness stiffens the spine of her characterization -- and makes the one moment when she gives in to her dread all the more poignant...