Word: charisma
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Like another doomed (and much more enjoyable) summer movie, Prince's Under the Cherry Moon, this one attempts to fit a very modern one-name pop superstar into a traditional, golden-age Hollywood format. And why not? Who else has that old-time charisma? Only the bad boy and material girl of rock 'n' roll. With Prince it worked, mostly, because his blend of Little Richard and Little Egypt spiced the stew. But Madonna seems straitjacketed by her role, and Penn, for once, looks bored. She smiles, he glowers. Neither glows like the incandescent movie stars they can and will...
While their opponents grumble about the Kennedy name and the attendant media fuss, both Joe and Kathleen are trying to wage issue-oriented campaigns. Though his broad smile and raw physical presence recall his father's energy and charisma, Joe Kennedy's politics are not quite Robert Kennedy's. After completing an academic career that included stints at three colleges (he finally graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Boston), Kennedy founded a nonprofit corporation called Citizens Energy Corp., which provides inexpensive heating fuel and prescription drugs to low-income families. Citing his company's solid success in almost every...
Ringwald in particular combines cinematic charisma and unaffected behavior, as Goodgame discovered when she drove him to his car from a photo session at the beach. She became so involved in talking and listening to the music thumping from her tape deck that she was soon doing 60 m.p.h. in a 35-m.p.h. zone. "A motorcycle policeman pulled her over," says Goodgame, "and I anticipated an Oscar-winning performance." But instead of blandishing smiles, Ringwald soberly admitted speeding and took her citation. "As she wheeled back into the traffic," Goodgame says, "I asked why she made no appeal. 'Because...
Pretty in pictures, she is prettier in person. Critic Pauline Kael's phrase, "charismatic normality," has Molly nailed. The charisma sets her apart as the one young movie actress who can set teens queueing at the box office--though typically, in today's fragmented pop culture, she remains virtually unknown to anyone over 30--and whose punk-flapper fashion sense is imitated by thousands of "Ringlets," her very own girl groupies. They pay tribute by dyeing their hair orange (as she does, from her natural dark reddish brown), smearing lipstick from nose to chin and dressing in Molly's unique...
...Baby Boomers reach the age of responsibility not only for their families but for the country, their leaders are disconcertingly difficult to identify. The heroes of their youth, Kennedy and King, are gone, and their charisma and idealism sometimes seem to have died with them. When the Princeton class of '69 was asked ten years later whom they most admired, the leading choice was "Nobody." To be sure, the generation has produced a few able young politicians like Senator Gore, but he is still very much a junior Senator in a minority party, hardly a national figure. The presidential aspirants...