Word: villainous
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Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, one of the most talked about documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival and the first to sell here this year, unfolds like a noir thriller about the director's notorious 1977 statutory rape case. But the shadowy villain in this film isn't Polanski - it's the judge who presided over his case, Laurence Rittenband. Through dozens of interviews and deft use of archival footage, director Marina Zenovich untangles the dense web of legal issues that surround the Chinatown director's sensational story and exile to France...
...complaints have become as predictable as the patter for the villain's henchmen in a Disney cartoon: Disney shows are too big, too commercial, too over-marketed - not real theater so much as bloated "theme park" extravaganzas that only children and undiscriminating tourists could love (though the criticism of Disney's last show, Mary Poppins, was somewhat different; the critics found it too heavy, not theme-parky enough.) Disney's latest offering - The Little Mermaid, based on Disney's 1989 animated hit, which opened at Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre last week - has received the usual fusillade. "Washed...
...people, and did it with so much con-artistry, that they often enjoyed it too. That's the secret of a successful politician: If you manipulate Them (the voters, the lobbyists, your colleagues) suavely enough, they'll think they're getting massaged. On TV, of course, J.R. was a villain, the snake with a smile. Charlie, dipping into the same bag of tricks, is a hero...
...carbon dioxide, the main gas that causes global warming, and you'll likely picture a polluting factory in China; neon lights in Tokyo, an SUV sitting in traffic on the freeways of Santa Monica. But while industry, electricity and transportation all add to the greenhouse effect, there's another villain less well known: our forests. Or, rather, the lack of them. Forests, especially in the lush tropics, suck and store carbon, which is released when trees are cut down or burnt. At the current rate of destruction, deforestation is estimated to account for up to 20% of human-caused greenhouse...
...very souls, of the humans they're attached to. Yet they're called "daemons"; and that's the first hint of Pullman's agenda. As the trilogy progresses the author reveals a battle between a dictatorial deity and the rebel angels determined to defeat Him. God is the villain of the piece, Satan the hero. And Lyra's on the side of the devils. As Pullman said to the Sydney Morning Post, "My books are about killing...