Word: subject
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...late- night series burst onto that scene with a countercultural whoop. It brought to TV, for the first time, the comic sensibility of the '60s generation: anti- Establishment, idol-smashing, media savvy. The show seemed to break new ground almost weekly: pushing the boundaries of permissible language and subject matter, rejuvenating political satire, breaking the "fourth wall" to make fun of the TV medium itself. It helped launch or boost the careers of comics like Steve Martin and Andy Kaufman, gave avant-garde rock an outlet on mainstream TV and made the world safe for David Letterman...
Sweet are the uses of efficiency. One of the pleasures of this near perfect piece of reportage is the sense that both writer and subject waste little motion. Fighting the clock, the calendar and the fiscal year, Bauer needs more than his seed cap. A mechanic's lid, a diplomat's Homburg and a gambler's eyeshade would come in handy...
Artistically, A Dry White Season may aspire to less than the previous movies, since it lacks both the epic ambition of Richard Attenborough's Freedom and the psychological delicacy of Chris Menges' World. Emotionally, however, it has a force unmatched by the other movies on this subject. For the new film does not stir you to thought (if you still need to think over apartheid, you are probably brain damaged) or sympathy (if you still lack compassion for South Africa's blacks, you probably need a heart implant). It stirs you to outrage...
Despite the subject matter, the legalese is not too confusing, however. Novick, a professor of law at the University of Vermont, does his best to explain in human terms the theories behind the decisions and their significance. And the author's characterizations of the other justices and his descriptions of way the Court made its decisions will be enough to hold the interest of those who are still not consumed by legal theories...
...mission to the Amazon. The local contingent of our jungle team, Rio de Janeiro bureau chief Laura Lopez and reporter John Maier, made its own treks through the region. Maier was struck by how virtually everyone in the region, politician and peasant alike, knew that the Amazon was the subject of intense international debate. In speaking with one poor farmer near the Peruvian border, Maier reports, "As soon as I began asking questions, the farmer said to me, 'Whose side are you on, the environmentalists' or ours?' " That question, Maier knew, has no simple answer...