Word: vermin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...VERMIN HAVE INHERITED THE EARTH . So proclaims the spray-painted graffito on a truck sprawled by a desolate stretch of road in this low-budget Australian thriller. At first horrified glance, moviegoers may be convinced that the vermin have also inherited the movie industry. In The Road Warrior, cars crash, somersault, explode, get squashed under the wheels of semis. Skinless bug-eyed corpses hurtle toward the screen. A mangy dog sups at a coyote carcass. A deadly boomerang shears off fingertips, creases a man's skull. That's entertainment? As a series of isolated incidents, no; our nerve...
...course rot about our uniquely human capacity to suffer makes it no easier to witness his writhing. Grab another beer and shake your heads. Poor Kafka. Why he clung so desperately to his father, why he endlessly romaticized him and even incorporated a piece of his shopkeeper, artist-as-vermin mentality--these are questions that Hayman knows are unanswerable. How 'bout that Gresor Samsa--transformed into a dung beetle so he kills himself with sorrow watching his family carry on the breadwinning without him. And with all that space on the ceiling where you crawl till your heart's content...
...infantrymen. Others stumbled to keep in step. But whether wearing face masks, field jackets or street clothes, all displayed orange armbands inscribed with the words FOR GOD AND ULSTER. Thundered Paisley from a makeshift reviewing stand: "My men are ready to be recruited under the crown to destroy the vermin of the I.R.A. But if the crown refuses to recruit them, then we will destroy the I.R.A. ourselves...
...prison yard. They sent a few new prisoners to the execution squads before my time came for interrogation. One of the clergymen asked me whether I remembered where my brother was. When I replied that I didn't know, the mullah said to his colleagues, "Why keep such vermin alive anyway?" They nodded. My interrogator came for me and waved a paper under my nose. "Well, it's all over, this is your writ of execution," he said. "By the way, if you change your mind about your brother, let me know. Maybe I can get the judges...
...conditioning pretty often, and far more sheltered space than anyone in the world (except for the most imperial and ostentatious) has ever had the luxury of rattling around in. Even the American poor fall victim to a bizarre profligacy. Neolithic villagers periodically burned down their huts to incinerate their vermin; in the South Bronx people burn out their own apartments to obtain the welfare moving allowance, or landlords torch their buildings for the insurance: life among the ruins. Americans who feel sorry for themselves about their housing, middle-class Americans at least, have not explored the alternatives on the down...