Word: geniality
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...cold war to a metaphorically equivalent attempt to halt the chilly state of nonrecognition between his mother and father. The parents are former leftist activists who once lived for "the movement" and each other, and now find only regret in recalling either ardor. The father (Jeffrey DeMunn) is genial enough -- a mildly successful photographer who deflects his son's attempts to romanticize him -- although his affability fades into meanspirited vehemence at the least challenge to macho authority. The exceptional person in this triangle, and the reason Weller's play can arouse memories just as vivid for onlookers...
Bush won the debate largely because he triumphed in the congeniality competition. But has the pursuit of the presidency become trivialized by this intense emphasis on likability? After all, TV game-show hosts are uniformly genial, but few Americans want Pat Sajak presiding over the National Security Council...
...what we are pleased to think of as the American Dream of success: his factory produced only a few dozen cars before it closed. But there is another more common, more potent American Dream, which involves not the invention of products but the invention of self. And this movie, genial and fierce, is proof of Tucker's success in that more basic line. And proof of its sure grip on our imaginations...
Eddie Murphy, king of the box office, plays an African prince who goes to Queens in the genial, shambling comedy Coming to America...
...sure, there are similarities. Both men have been accused of using their office to benefit friends and acquaintances: Meese's former personal lawyer E. Robert Wallach and, in Wright's case, oilmen and investors in the Speaker's home state of Texas. And though the personalities of the genial California-bred Attorney General and the peppery Texas Speaker differ, they are alike in one way. Says Ted Van Dyk, a Washington lobbyist who knows the two: "Both apparently wear blinders" that prevent them from seeing appearances of impropriety in their actions...