Word: wit
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...story: boy meets girl, girl turns out to be his mother, boy kills father. Sophocles told it 2,400 years ago, as have many authors since. But few have tackled the Oedipal tale with as much wit, verve and retail success as Japan's Haruki Murakami has in Kafka on the Shore. The book sold 550,000 copies in its first month on his home soil in 2002, inspiring a sequel comprised of selections from the 8,870 e-mail critiques Murakami received and his 1,220 replies. Kafka has become a best seller in Germany, South Korea and China...
...people--the scar's not that bad--as weary them. It's so difficult for him to communicate that everyone else just finds it easier to leave him mired in his isolation. So does he. Because he's the book's narrator, we know all about his low-key wit and the sharp, sure turnings of his mind. Bystanders have to make do with the reassurance printed on the business cards he brings out to explain his muteness: PLEASE REMEMBER: I AM OF NORMAL INTELLIGENCE...
...potential profit, corporate America and hip-hop performers formed a relationship that would result in the near-total commodification of hip-hop. Some performers, like the Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff, accepted this incorporation outright; others, like Public Enemy and the gangsta rap collective NWA (or Niggaz Wit Attitude), saw hip-hop’s expansion as an opportunity to vent their frustrations with the social order in America...
...Moore?s Oscar-winning ?Bowling for Columbine? established the agit-doc tone, which mixes sober condemnation with japish wit. The approach was part ?Democracy Now? (Amy Goodman?s low-rent, high-IQ newscast on radio and TV), part ?The Daily Show,? which since 9/11 has become the Left?s CNN. Jon Stewart has made the President is an easy figure of fun. But the agit-docs aimed to nail Dubya for crimes graver than speaking English as a second language. They viewed Bush and his closest advisors as Pirates of the Constitution, exploiting the national trauma over 9/11 to pursue...
...traditional movie would have these princesses of the Third World teach the rich Anglos lessons in humanity as John and Flor join hearts across the border. Oh, that happens here, with dollops of the rueful, self-aware wit that is Brooks' unique gift; nobody else writes jokes with such acute ethical shading. But there's a tarantula on the angel-food cake: John's manic wife Deb (Téa Leoni). Deb is Brooks' first real villain, a character everyone in the film can reject. Leoni, investing an awful energy in her role, puts the pang in Spanglish and throws...