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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1993-04-08
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REVIEWS, Page 75SHORT TAKES
TELEVISION: Prescription Refilled
You have to say this about Fox sitcoms: They've certainly
got a style. RACHEL GUNN, R.N., the network's new Sunday-night
entry, displays all the earmarks that TV critics have grown to
know and hate: broad gags, crass caricatures and a nervy
avoidance of sentimentality. The show, set in a kooky hospital,
has no pretensions to realism, or even to common sense, and the
jokes seem a quaint throwback to an earlier comedy era ("You can
call me a doubting Thomas -- or you can call me Marlo Thomas .
. ."). What makes it work is the zingy performances by
Christine Ebersole (as feisty but lovable Nurse Gunn) and Kevin
Conroy (as a conceited surgeon), two pros who tackle this fluff
as if it were Moliere.
THEATER: Passion and Chintz
Like fellow cartoonists Jules Feiffer and Garry Trudeau,
William Hamilton of the New Yorker plainly reckons that an eye
for the absurdities of character and an ear for dialogue make
him a playwright. But unlike those colleagues, he seems not to
have grasped the basic dramatic principle that showing is
better than telling. In his INTERIOR DECORATION, at San Diego's
Old Globe Theater, a woman executive senses her biological
clock ticking and fancies an even fancier executive as a sperm
donor, but no more. They are introduced by their mutual interior
decorators, and romantic complications ensue. Most of them,
alas, happen offstage and are reported in monologues by the
decorators.
CINEMA: B-Musing
Three murderous drug dealers (Billy Bob Thornton, Michael
Beach, Cynda Williams) blast and bludgeon their way from Los
Angeles to rural Arkansas and a face-off against a hick sheriff
(Bill Paxton). Tracing a similar itinerary, ONE FALSE MOVE has
snaked across the country. Too pensive for the action houses and
way too violent for the croissant crowd, the movie has earned
many critics' indulgences. It does have some B-movie virtues:
director Carl Franklin gives the actors space to breathe the
rancid air of paperback tough-guy tragedy; and Williams, with
her lovely insolence, looks like star quality from here. But to
pin four-star raves on this modest melodrama is to mistake a
7-Eleven candy snatcher for a master thriller killer.
BOOKS: Psychiatrist, Heal Thyself
Just in time for the annual August vacation of
psychiatrists there arrives a splendid mystery set in the
Jerusalem Psychoanalytic Institute. In THE SATURDAY MORNING
MURDER (HarperCollins; $20), by Batya Gur, an analyst has been
murdered. The suspects include her psychologically astute
colleagues, who harbor mixed feelings about the victim.
The author sketches characters with deft, quick
brushstrokes. Her chief detective is a former scholar who spots
similarities between medieval guilds and the rigidly
hierarchical institute. Throughout, Gur draws intriguing
parallels between psychoanalysis and police detection. They are
both lonely jobs, she writes, demanding time, patience and a
sharp ear for the things that are not said.
MUSIC: Who's on First
The voice isn't what it was. Age and hard use have
diminished its power so that, in his top register, ROGER DALTREY
sounds like Jackie Wilson with strep throat. But the Who's
former lead singer still has his cunning and intensity, on
exemplary display in the new album Rocks in the Head. Best of
all, Daltrey has found a stellar songwriting partner in producer
Gerard McMahon. They get caustic in the power-pop You Can't Call
It Love, sweetly paternal in Everything a Heart Could Ever Want
(Willow) and incandescent in the set's first single, Days of
Light. This infectious blue-collar anthem, which laces Crosby,
Stills & Nash harmonies through a tune reminiscent of Dire
Straits' Walk of Life, should keep roadhouses hopping in a daze
of light every weekend this summer.