Word: wits
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This process does not ensure drivel. Casablanca had seven writers, Tootsie eight, It's a Wonderful Life 10, yet each film summoned a seamless verbal style, abundant in wit. These commodities are out of fashion today. Sister Act could have been written by one guy who looked at old movies and decided they were about spiritual uplift made easy. If the picture in fact turns out to be a hit, Midler may be miserable, but the suits will be happy. It will prove to them that films needn't be written; they can be assembled like Lego blocks. To others...
...USED TO BE A BAD WORD. THIS was decades ago, when the creators and consumers of popular culture shared a notion of quality. A good movie possessed wit, style, coherence -- competence. It had a story and stars that persuaded the viewer to get lost in the fiction. Movies did what entertainment was meant to do: suspend disbelief...
...Sometimes the tactic backfires. This is what happened to P.J. O'Rourke, whose last book, Parliament of Whores, a sidesplitting broadside at Congress, was a best seller last year. GIVE WAR A CHANCE (Atlantic Monthly Press; $20.95), a compendium of columns and random thoughts, has all the wise- guy wit we've come to expect from the fiercely traditional Rolling Stone columnist, but it feels old. O'Rourke's shots at American antiwar protesters, jabs at Arab sheiks and some predictable jokes about poorly stocked shelves in what was the Soviet Union give you the feeling you've read...
...wit, my upstairs neighbor, a St. Paul's alum, strolled towards the Hasty Pudding club. I found myself in the newsroom of The Crimson...
...book a gently bred young woman lives out a hopeless love for a charming drunk named Claude Collier. Not much plot there, but the story is peopled with New Orleans madcaps and eccentrics who go to parties that the author describes with just the right blend of romance and wit...