Word: swinging
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Both guest and host have diligently prepared for the occasion. In the month before his departure, Reagan sat through six 90-minute briefing sessions, instead of the usual three for a foreign swing. He watched a movie filmed by a White House advance team of the sites he would visit and perused a National Geographic book entitled Journey into China along with the usual policy papers. "I don't know why I didn't know enough about China to be as aware as I am now of the great scenic beauty of the land," Reagan confessed to a group...
...protégés. Eighteen months after he pledged his support to Mao's hand picked successor as Chairman, Hua Guofeng, Deng replaced him with General Secretary Hu Yaobang and installed Zhao Ziyang as Premier. Now most experts agree that although the "open door" will continue to swing on its hinges, it has been open so wide for so long that even if the leftists could close it again, they would only lock in Deng's changes. Says a Western diplomat in Peking: "If you gave Deng a 20% chance of succeeding in 1978, you would give him an 85% chance...
...SWING SHIFT...
...Swing Shift moves like a show horse with a faulty sense of direction. Rob Morton's script lacks both the grit and the incidents for flat-out comedy; it stolidly refuses to kindle the spark of romance between Kay and her swains; and while her girlfriends at the plant seem ripe to make an oddball ensemble, Director Jonathan Demme deflects their few chances for feminist fun. Through the oilcloth of nostalgia one can still spot some fine performances. Hawn unerringly registers Kay's every emotion with the wide-eyed intensity of a six-year-old; Christine Lahti...
...Many of Swing Shift's characters are simply stock "types" rather than convincing people. There is Kay's husband Fred, the high school athlete with a strong patriotic sensibility. When the enlists in the Navy he tells his distraught wife that "They've started it, we've got to finish it." In addition, there are Kay's fellow factory workers who, as the movie progresses, become recognizable by face, but never by a distinct personality...