Word: wallows
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Calling attention to the scurrilous elements of the Southern tradition is not merely regional prejudice or a needless rehashing of evils better forgotten. Those who acknowledge that the rebel flag is a detestable symbol but take umbrage when its legacy is discussed seem to prefer to wallow in escapism and denial. And those who still revere this flag have even less grounds to complain when I graphically recount the barbarism associated with it. If the South, and Georgia in particular, wishes to cling to the Confederate flag, then its heritage of shame cannot be glossed over...
...Scarlet Letter--the Cliffs Notes version. Bibliophiles who purchase that slim volume in lieu of dozing over the original will get a much clearer view of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 tale of heroism and hypocrisy than those visiting the new movie adaptation. It's a lugubrious, often ludicrous, wallow...
Would that it were. Hollywood films often wallow in bloodlust and sexual smirking--it's the Kingdom of Leer--but genuine eroticism is hard to find. Maybe Verhoeven is right when he says, "Americans have a problem accepting sexuality. American society is more impregnated with Christian beliefs." And to those who find the very idea of sex unholy, it may be as pointless to prefer the erotic to the lurid as to choose a call girl over a hooker. But Showgirls is cold, antierotic. It just ain't sexy; it's only...
...terrific cast, which understands that playing madness is very serious business, and by Richard LaGravenese's wonderfully modulated script. From The Fisher King through A Little Princess and The Bridges of Madison County, he has demonstrated a gift for conveying honest sentiment without permitting us to wallow in it, and he's at his craftsmanlike best here. The flaky charms of Unstrung Heroes will be lost on some hardened souls, and it does have its self-conscious, even slightly self-congratulatory moments. But don't listen to their braying. Listen instead for the minor-key melody of a very seductive...
Cotan's work oscillates between desire and denial. Its fruit and fish and vegetables are more sacramental than gastronomic, emblems of the variety of God's creation (one of Cotan's still lifes contains a chayote from Mexico, an exotic rarity in 16th century Spain). Your eye can't wallow in such spareness, as it can in the abundance of Flemish still life. It sees the vegetable as Idea, a reading promoted by the fact that Cotan deliberately arranged the objects on strings and shelf to form a hyperbolic curve. The melon opens its delicious interior...