Word: swank
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...massacre is well underway at the House of Blue Leaves. The swank Tokyo nightclub's spacious dance floor?a sheet of glass that floats above an immaculate Zen rock garden?is strewn with the bodies of dismembered yak-uza. A willowy blonde with wild eyes, clad in a blood-smeared yellow tracksuit, brandishes her Samurai sword, preparing to dispatch three more victims. She grits her teeth. The yakuza scowl back. As sword meets flesh and the three villains slam backwards through a wooden lattice, the mastermind behind the mayhem can't suppress a smile. "Pow!" exults an elated Quentin Tarantino...
...Bangkok suffered by the royal family on their beach outings. (Commoners went by canal and oxcart.) For the ensuing half-century, Hua Hin was the place to sun and be seen by upscale Asians and resident expats. But the onset of group travel sent beachgoers to a succession of swank, new beach resorts, leaving Thais largely alone for the past few decades in their unheralded but tranquil retreat a quick dash from the congested capital...
...Grubman Attacks! But The Hamptons' antisensationalism--occasionally to the point of dullness--is also its strength. It avoids cheap shots, even at a couple who model their wedding on Sean (P. Diddy) Combs' famous "white party" by having their guests dress up like Good Humor men. It treats the swank partygoers and the workers setting up the shrimp-cocktail bar with equal sympathy. Like Gatsby, The Hamptons shows how a summer place comes to represent and be changed by the dreams and appetites of the people who love and consume...
There are two kinds of directors in Hollywood: despots and doting parents. Despite his focus on the darker corners of the human psyche, Nolan is shaping up as one of the latter. "He's so calm," says Hilary Swank, who plays Insomnia's idealistic local detective, "and really aware of people's safety. In the scene where I get punched by Robin, Chris made sure it was all worked out and rehearsed, and we did just three takes. Usually directors want 20 to make sure they sell the punch...
Nolan had three leads with wildly different styles of working. Pacino required rigorous rehearsals, long conversations about character, and numerous takes; Williams wanted many takes but minimal rehearsal; and Swank preferred to do simply a few takes and save her energy. Nolan's solution was to let Pacino and Williams experiment as much as they wanted while they worked alone. "The best actors," says Nolan, "instinctively feel out what the other actors need, and they just accommodate...