Word: urban
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski played on such popular fears by giving unprecedented television coverage to the strikes. Alluding to the demand for the legalization of Solidarity, Government Spokesman Jerzy Urban ruled out "gunpoint negotiations with strikers on political issues." A curfew was called in the heart of the mining-strike region near Katowice, and others were authorized for the port cities of Szczecin and Gdansk. After declaring the strikes illegal, authorities accelerated trials, and jail sentences of up to three months were imposed on charged strikers...
Mostly, though, they run in circles, aimlessly looking for trouble, just like a modern urban gang. That is not, however, an apt analogy. The film is basically a drag, and not helped by Christopher Cain's stand-around direction. And one's thirst for the clear, cool taste of traditional narrative -- motivated movement, defined antagonists, building suspense -- soon reaches maddening levels. A grownup could die in this wasteland...
...screen (Carrie, Yentl), but movies have rarely caught her witchy allure. Arquette seemed a cinch for stardom after Desperately Seeking Susan, but her elfin sensuality has proved too weird for mainstream fare. As for the wondrous Winger, she anchored three big hits of the early '80s. But after Urban Cowboy, An Officer and a Gentleman and Terms of Endearment, her career loitered. Nobody saw Mike's Murder; nobody needed to see Legal Eagles. She was outglammed by Theresa Russell in Black Widow and nearly unrecognizable as a hobo angel in Made in Heaven...
Susan Sandler's script takes this same Old World view of urban feminism. Isabelle would be emotionally independent, but the movie knows better: she needs a man. Forced to choose between man the European snake and man the American sofa, Isabelle chooses domestic comfort. Crossing Delancey takes Sam's cozy tone too, when it should be screaming its way into black satire. If that's all there is for a modern woman -- or for an actress of Irving's sorceress smarts -- then she might as well curl up in bed with Henry James or Henry Miller and turn...
...summit in his literary career and chose that moment to make a surprising announcement. After building a quietly distinguished reputation with two collections of stories, Prince of Darkness (1947) and The Presence of Grace (1956), he had just won the National Book Award for his 1962 novel Morte D'Urban. In the hubbub after his prize, Powers dropped his revelation. His next novel, he told reporters, would not have a priest...