Word: gimcracks
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...fooled. The scooped-out gimcrack is nothing more than a TV antenna. It is quite a bit more, however, than the rabbit-ears atop the family console...
...kind of coverage Britain was getting last week on American television. The anchorman heavies (Rather, Chancellor, Walters, Brokaw) arrived early to cover the preparations, but soon wearied of the familiar banalities -curbside interviews with the first people to stake out viewing spots, guardsmen shining their boots, the trafficking in gimcrack souvenirs. They had come to cover a spectacle but got themselves diverted by the earthier scent of real news. It was point and counterpoint all week...
...above his head, letting it fly farther and farther, in ever widening circles, like a lariat. The stunt was Daltrey's trademark as lead vocalist of The Who; it is still a profitable skill onstage and in films. Tommy, The Who's rock opera, was a gimcrack parlayed into a remunerative cultural artifact. So far, the various Tommy albums and movie receipts have accounted for some $50 million, in which Daltrey retains a generous participation...
...setting sets the mood. Richard Sylbert has devised a marvelous high-rise apartment in full view of-what else?-another highrise. The rent is just as steep, but the fixtures are gimcrack, the partitions are parchment, and the terrace looks like a handy suicide perch. The acoustics are superb. Says a sleepless Mel: "Two-thirty in the morning. I can hear the subway in here better than I can hear it in the subway...
...film's world is a historical movement. Another sort of world is also presented: that of the nobility exiled in Germany. The gimcrack-filled hostel where they lodge perfectly establishes the decadence and staticity of their lives. The scene showing them is diverse in character and conduct; the variety of the aristocrats' feelings and actions is the substance of their social actions. But their entire milieu is doomed, simply because it does not move. Set against Renoir's virile shots of the revolutionaries, simple and full of strong light-dark contrast, the over-refined nobles stand no chance...