Word: witnessed
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Princes, a wry and rowdy tale of a Massachusetts burg corrupted by drug money. The first-person narrative is a running comic diatribe against such targets as ignorant bartenders, hash-house cooking, thick-necked lawmen and macho, possessive Latin lovers. Most of the talk is badinage rather than wit, but it serves to deflate the pomp without completely devaluing the circumstance. Violence pervades the landscape, yet Parker always pauses to evoke compassion for the victims. And despite the ebullient entertainment, his purpose is as serious as ever: to remind readers that so-called victimless crimes generate huge amounts of cash...
...park bandstands in the rain (Isn't This a Lovely Day?) and on roller skates (Let's Call the Whole Thing Off), and used an entire country club in The Yam number, which for compressed intricacy may have been their most heart- stopping routine. But more than skill and wit informed their partnership. Rogers, as Critic Arlene Croce said, offered Astaire a "genial resistance," bringing out "toughness" and "masculine gallantry" and, one must add, his narrative skill. Their best pas de deux tell full romantic tales: challenge, hesitation, soaring consummation, wistful afterglow...
...modest houses so the sky is evident. He hopes that your mornings are absolutely still except for birds, but that the evenings bulge with human outcry, families calling to one another in the darkening hours. He wishes you small particulars: a letter received indicating sudden affection, an exchange of wit with a total stranger, a moment of helpless hilarity, a flash of clarity, the anticipation of reading a detective thriller on a late afternoon in an electric storm...
...closely followed his source novel, Gustav Hasford's taut, scary The Short-Timers. Now -- we will say no more -- Kubrick pretties up the climax with a bogus moral dilemma and some attenuated anguish. A viewer is finally left to savor earlier delights: the dialogue's wild, desperate wit; the daring in choosing a desultory skirmish to make a point about war's pointlessness; the fine, large performances of almost every actor (Ermey and D'Onofrio seem sure shots for Oscar nominations); most important, the Olympian elegance and precision of Kubrick's filmmaking. Full Metal Jacket fails only by the standards...
...Undergraduate English Oration," written and delivered by Karen Fingerman '87. This speech, supposedly an example of the finest eloquence Harvard and Radcliffe can muster, was delivered in an undistinguished style, riddled with the moronic cliches Harvard students have tried to live down for years, and written with the wit and grace I might expect from a not very intelligent ninth grader in a remedial composition course. To judge from the comments of my friends and the reaction of the audience, I surmise I was not alone in finding this speech insulting in its unctuous stupidity...