Word: swiftian
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Less than Swiftian (though not without an occasional flicker of appeal) are Shapiro's modest proposals, which include raising the minimum age for drivers' licenses to at least 30, denying foreign travel to children unless granted as a privilege from their school, putting dissidents on reservations, and destroying all concepts of adolescence. He cannot be serious; yet one pokes vainly through Shapiro's overcooked simplifications for a scrap of wit or irony. Finding none, the reader concludes that To Abolish Children is little more than a late-middle-age temper tantrum...
Galbraith's humor usually registers somewhat below Swiftian satire, as when he writes that the Air Force's contingency plans for Puerto Santos calls for bombing "with maximum emphasis on winning the hearts and minds of the people." Much of the novel bears this slightly self-satisfied straining for effect. As a glimpse of Foggy Bottom, The Triumph has its uses; but its tone begins to grate under the suspicion that the author is enjoying himself more than his performance justifies...
PLANET OF THE APES. This screen version of Pierre Boulle's abrasive science-fiction fantasy has replaced Swiftian satire with self-parody; even so, $1,000,000 worth of ape makeup and costumes covers a lot of blemishes...
PLANET OF THE APES. This screen version of Pierre Boulle's abrasive science-fiction fantasy has replaced Swiftian satire with self-parody; even so, $1,000,000 worth of ape makeup and costumes cover a lot of blemishes...
...novel by Pierre Boulle (The Bridge on the River Kwai) about the conflict of man and monkey was a clever, abrasive piece of science friction. But on the screen the story has been reduced from Swiftian satire to self-parody. The script is cluttered with man-monkey analogies, as crude as "Human see, human do," "I never met an ape I didn't like" and "he was a gorilla to remember." At one point, three of the simians simultaneously cover their eyes, ears and mouth. The best thing about the film results from Producer Arthur P. Jacobs' decision...