Word: starks
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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TEMPEST IS BEST in its simplest moments. Cinematographer Don McAlpine's opening shots of the stark geography of Phillip's island do more than just stir a feeling of wonder--they wrench it from deep down inside, ably abetted by Stomu Yamashita's eerie, haunting score, Miranda (Molly Ringwald) and Aretha provide welcome lightness with their a capella renditions of the pop tune. "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?," a protest of the harsh conditions of their voluntary captivity. As the island's actual inhabitant. Raul Julia as Kalibanos is a nearly perfect primitive, adoring his goats and his Sony...
...jokes. "Needing the eggs" is her analytic code for a type of humor she never defines, but which can be deduced to be the sober, questing, wistful quality in Allen that sends him harking after illusions. Likewise, the Take the Money and Run gag in which inept crook Virgil Stark well whittles a soap gun in jail, only to have it dissolve in the rain, becomes the officiated symbol of Allen's early humor, heavily based on such lively incongruities. To suggest a more subtle gagging which marked Allen's work from the earliest, there is The Moose...
Along with this reconstituted heavy breathing, McClintick provides new trivia about the trappings of entertainment power. Business with Producer Ray Stark (Funny Girl, Annie), a Begelman ally, is done in Chow's Kosherama Delicatessen, a noshery whose menu features tongue on rye and chicken with walnuts...
...deficiencies are stark, indeed. The state of Georgia, for instance, recently had to adopt a "floor score" for all state university applicants to try add boost standards. The minimal requirement: a student had to score 250 on either the math or verbal component of the SAT. Even so, state laws set aside a number of places for disadvantaged students who can't qualify. "That ain't much of a minimum," allows a state Board of Regents official...
...audience. Fortunately, they could be seen in the new productions as well. The Götz Friedrich staging of Parsifal, produced in honor of the opera's centenary, is a deeply pessimistic view of Wagner's valedictory ode to the redemptive power of Christianity. Colored in stark blacks, whites and grays, it takes place in what appears to be a gigantic mausoleum. More radical was Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's Tristan, new last year. Ponnelle has staged the last 40 minutes of the work, including Isolde's famous Liebestod, as the hallucination of the dying Tristan...