Word: woo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Action movies don't have to fail. The Fugitive, The Rock, The Long Kiss Goodnight satisfy the dramatic unities while kicking beaucoup butt. And sometimes a gifted director can go beyond the conventional pleasures. With Face/Off, John Woo, the Hong Kong auteur (The Killer, Hard Boiled), has made his smartest, wildest, positively Woo-siest American thriller. Working from a vigorous script by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, Woo weaves his familiar touches--the slo-mo, the gleaming candles, the long coats flying in the breeze, the doves flying in a chapel as an omen of death--around the central fantasy...
...actors go bigger, so does the film; it's the most delirious major-studio melodrama since Natural Born Killers. But it's also dead serious--because Woo has restored moral gravity to acts of violence. This isn't just a thrill ride; it's a rocket into the thrilling past, when directors could scare you with how much emotion they packed into a movie...
Studios would be wise to lure more foreign directors like Woo, who knows how to transform summer's dumb-and-dumber product into a gnarly, white-knuckle action film for all seasons...
...bundle. Capital spending of $228 million last year outweighed $190 million in sales. Bryan has raised a $1.1 billion war chest; without deregulation, he says, "the financial markets wouldn't have been open to us." But a payoff is in sight. In Ohio, where the company is attempting to woo customers away from Ameritech, ICG marketers' cold calls have led to a remarkable 50% in follow-up appointments. Bryan says ICG will probably have a positive cash flow next year...
...conservative candidates to defeat. Le Pen's contentiousness may cost Chirac his majority. His conservatives head into Sunday's runoff having netted just 29.9 percent of the vote, with the Socialists, bolstered by a broad leftist coalition, taking 40.6 percent. To keep their jobs, conservatives need not only to woo the Le Pen crowd but convince the 32 percent of eligible voters who sat out the first round to get to the ballot boxes. And leave the produce at home...