Word: schoolmistress
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...garden, where one thing stylishly builds on another. She pulls all this off with total earnestness (except when she is paid to be ironic by American Express, lining her swimming pool with a mosaic of cut-up credit cards). Otherwise, she stays in character: that of a demanding schoolmistress who will be coming around to test for trace elements of bottled dressing in your salade nicoise. When Bryant Gumbel tries to poke a bit of fun at her during her segments on the Today show, she blithely ignores him. If she doesn't take cake decorating seriously, who will? Dominique...
MATILDA (August 2), about a girl's revenge on her cruddy parents and evil schoolmistress, has the potential delectations of a Roald Dahl story and Danny DeVito's knowing comic direction. DeVito also plays Matilda's dad, expectorating lines like, "Why wudja wanna read, when ya got the television set sittin' right in frunnaya?" Or, we might add, when ya got a 'plex-full of icky kids' films...