Word: taut
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...parody of the average male body? And what is female body building if not a parody of the male body too? Instead of aspiring to Daisy Mae curves, and turning to cotton or cosmetic surgery to fulfill the image, women on the cutting edge of body building demand the taut bulges of an Arnold Schwarzenegger and pump iron (lift weights) like crazy to achieve them. Pumping Iron (1977) was a deadpan docufarce that transformed Schwarzenegger from a curiosity into a celebrity. Pumping Iron II: The Women will probably not do the same for Bev Francis, the Australian Amazon...
Walker not only attacks the United States' ties to South Africa but also criticizes the attitudes that have made "people of color" doubt their own value. "Without Commericals" is a taut poem that appeals directly to the reader. Like a revolutionary manifesto, it repeats its message, both exhorting and assuring in one phrase. But for Walker, the enemy is not The White Man: She is perceptive enough to identify cosmetic beauty as oppressive because of the impossible ideals we are told to reach for and admire. Physical beauty has become a commodity we can acquire but at the cost...
...GLITTER DOME (HBO). James Garner and John Lithgow were two burned-out detectives in this taut, cynical adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh's novel about murder in movieland. Possibly the best movie yet made...
...decry its ambling and the failure of writer and director to develop out of a fertile premise either a well-twisted mystery or some truly wild comic turns. But Murphy is very much present, and it could be argued that their task was not so much to provide a taut story line as to create a cheerful climate where his marvelous talent and his compelling yet gracefully stated energy could sprout in all directions...
...Body Double presents a familiar De Palma loner: a pleasant enough wimp who becomes fascinated, then sexually obsessed, with a faraway female figure. This time the wimp is Jack, a movie actor (Craig Wasson), and the love object is a wealthy young woman (Deborah Shelton) with a body as taut and talented as a porn star's. Too soon, Jack finds he must share the fantasy. Another man is watching, one who has more violent designs on the woman: murder by a power drill that moves toward her and through her like the phallus of death. As usual...