Word: toye
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...learning to accept it." Catherine Tuerk, a nurse psychotherapist who is Washington chapter president of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, regrets sending her son Joshua into therapy from ages eight to 12 for an "aggression problem" -- preference for games involving relationships instead of macho play with, say, toy trucks. Says she: "We were trying to cure him of something that doesn't need to be cured. There was nothing wrong with him." On the other hand, mothers who used to blame themselves for faulty upbringing may start blaming themselves for passing on the wrong genes...
There's no denying, though, that Free Willy is a clever movie toy for the kid market. Most of the time Willy is played by Keiko, a killer whale (actually a type of dolphin) that the company found in a seaquarium in Mexico City. But frequently Keiko is spelled by a stunt double: a high-tech robot coated with 3,000 lbs. of eurythane rubber. (There is also a Turbo Willy - -- essentially the top of the whale, with mammoth hydraulic propellers on the bottom.) How real were the fake Willys? Persuasive enough so that the real Willy got the hots...
...fact the place is not so much a museum as a kind of genial time capsule about a small-town boy who made good. A snapshot of two-year-old Danny clutching a toy football, a small boy's grimace of determination on his face. A letter he wrote to his uncle when he was 12 explaining why he lost a nine- hole Jaycee golf tournament ("A 14-year-old kid who shot a 49 he ((sic)) beat me on the 17th"). A photo of an awestruck Dan as a college student shaking hands with Ronald Reagan (not unlike...
...their closet." Jurassic Park exploits that passive dark side: that moment, just after your mom shuts off the lights, when a T. rex leaps out of its wall poster and into your fevered R.E.M.s. And Last Action Hero taps the aggressive impulse: to engineer the apocalyptic collision of every toy car in the playroom. The two films may talk the parenting game, but what they show is the Big Scare and the Big Crash...
...Hammond played by Richard Attenborough in Steven Spielberg's movie version is another fellow altogether; the director calls him "a cross between Walt Disney and Ross Perot." Hammond is certainly a visionary, a fabulous showman, an enthusiast, an emperor of ice cream, a kid with a great new toy. "Top of the line!" he chirps. "Spared no expense!" Why, he might be Spielberg as a foxy grandpa...