Word: tales
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Royal "We" called on The Clock Maker (an unbelievably pretentious bore) to get out of town before sundown a month ago. Yet the sun keeps setting on this tale of a clock tinkerer whose son turns terrorist. Phillipe Noiret is still quivering with emotion for two hours, and anything more has failed to materialize. Director Taverneir is content to focus on Noiret's face forever--who need dialogue, plot, or motivations? Apparently not Taverneir. Noiret has an occasional temper tantrum, which might in some circles pass for character development. We, however, are still not buying...
...opening message tells us, these hung-up aristocrats fled to the cities and found the streets lined with mattresses. Polish director Walerian Borowczyk's film leers away at one of them, the young Ewa, as the world of decadent prewar Europe opens her eyes. Story of Sin tells the tale of a Victorian miss gone va-va-va-voom...
...lady-or-the-tiger ending leaves doubt as to whether or not the unlashing of this slender tale will eventually consign Jerry and Sally to each other's arms in holy matrimony. It is difficult to care very much one way or another. Even so, Updike's old white writing magic has not lost its skill. He can still set a domestic scene, describe a sleeping child or evoke the sights and sounds of the marriage bed-and-bored sharply enough to bring a tear to the eye of the recording angel...
Rocky is a slum fairy tale, its plot simple even by Hollywood standards. A broken-down neighborhood fighter, who boxes, "because I can't sing or dance," is picked as a last-minute replacement to fight the heavyweight champion of the world, mainly because the champ sees the promotional possibilities of the hero's monicker: "the Italian Stallion." The hero produces a rousing fight and, of course, finds love. The movie is fun- ny, unpretentious and relentlessly upbeat, sort of what Mean Streets would have been if Frank Capra had made it. Its only message-endure, reach your...
...simplest level, Carrie is a rendering of that familiar fairy tale of the adolescent misfit-misunderstood and cruelly treated by a parent, despised and tormented by her peers-who finally turns on them all and gains dramatic, and emotionally satisfying, revenge...