Word: conceits
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...store. The unhappy wife in Earthly Possessions (1977) plans to leave her husband but is relieved of the decision when she is kidnaped during a bank holdup. The eccentric hero of Morgan's Passing (1980) handles the problem of freedom not with flight but with flamboyant masquerades. The poignant conceit of Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982) is a beanery that resembles a kitchen where lonely people can assemble, if only for a meal. The Accidental Tourist (1985), Tyler's most winsome expression of imagination on a short tether, is about a travel writer who hates to travel...
...with no draft and no war, people really do join the National Guard out of patriotism. But the idea that a desire to serve one's country motivated anyone to sign up for press-release duty in Indiana while others were fighting and dying in Viet Nam is a conceit that won't fool anyone over the age of about...
...film's nice conceit that Roger, Baby Herman and all the other characters from '40s Hollywood animation are creatures of a subhuman species known as Toons. They breathe, they emote, and sometimes they get cuckolded by their sultry wives. Jessica Rabbit, Roger's spouse, is one such bimbette. "I'm not bad," Jessica pouts, "I'm just drawn that way." But all Toontown knows she's been spending time with Marvin Acme, who owns the local gagworks. So when Marvin gets bumped off, Roger is the prime suspect. His only hope is Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), a human detective...
Just as superpowers are doomed to coexist, every summit seems destined to produce, sooner or later, a letdown. That is because the buildup is artificial. Such meetings are, by intent, based on the conceit that relations between traditional adversaries can change profoundly for the better, that they can change quickly, and that they can change as a result of the interaction between the superleaders themselves...
Dole's main challenge now, as it has been for years, is to keep his dark side under control. Aides joke about his demeanor. Playing off Doonesbury's conceit that George Bush has an invisible "evil twin" Skippy, Dole staffers joke that their candidate has an invisible "happy" twin. Even after Dole knew he had won Iowa, he was slow to celebrate. When he finally accepted his victory, breaking into a genuine smile, Iowa voters must have got a special lift, having made this sad man happy for a moment. Before the week was out, the happy twin had again...