Word: swaggers
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...Files, directed by series veteran Rob Bowman, looks damned handsome under the big-screen magnifying glass, with a rapturous clarity of golden and dark hues replacing the enveloping murk of the series. The two stars smartly fill their close-ups: David Duchovny (Mulder) adds a bit of cowboy swagger to his Prince of Dweebs intensity, while Gillian Anderson (as Mulder's skeptical partner Scully) radiates a '40s-style pensiveness that alchemizes glum into glam. The characters' devotion to each other--a caring that stops tantalizingly short of sexuality--constitutes one of the great unconsummated marriages in popular fiction. And their...
...victory that strengthens Starr's hand, also stiffens the resolve at the White House to refuse to say a word. There are times, Clinton confidants say, when the President fantasizes about marching down to the grand jury and saying, "Go ahead. Take your best shot." But that is pure swagger: his lawyers and the President know this must never happen, because they have spun out all the elaborate scenarios for how this drama might play out and concluded that Clinton has everything to lose by talking and everything to gain by his silence. The more he defies Starr, the more...
Sinatra's attitude about all this was simple enough. He was responsible to the world for his music, but for his life answerable only to himself, and to hell with the rest of you. There was, all through him, a kind of animating anger, an Italian street-kid swagger that made such good cover for his black-and-blue soulfulness that it was easy, especially when he was living high or mouthing off, to take it at face value. But as much as anything else, that attitude was a dodge, barbed wire for the unwary, protecting his private preserve...
...behind--from I'll Never Smile Again of 1940 to Hey Look, No Crying of 1981--there were songs that eluded him till the end. Studio outtakes and bootlegs show him chiding the arranger, bugging the conductor, riding the band and beating up on himself with a good-humored swagger that doesn't hide the disappointment and frustration that are chewing him up. You can hear the defeat in his voice, as if he had lost a chance at lasting love...
...what about the rest of the contemporary music crowd? Can Sinatra's influence be seen? Yes, mostly in the swagger. Luther Vandross, 47, the R.-and-B. singer who teamed with Sinatra on his 1993 album Duets, says he was drawn early on to Sinatra's blunt Hoboken, N.J., charisma. "When I was growing up," says Vandross, "he represented success and respect." Another pop star who has learned from Sinatra is Bono, 38, lead singer of the Irish rock group U2. Presenting Sinatra with a special "Legend" Award at the Grammys in 1994, Bono pinpointed Frank's appeal...