After having a nervous breakdown, former ballerina Elsa Spann gives up her career to live in a trailer park with her husband Carl. One evening, he returns home and finds everything in disarray. Elsa tells him she was attacked by a man who almost killed her. Instead of going to the police, a vengeful Carl decides to get his own justice. He takes Elsa for a drive. On the way, she points to a man whom she says attacked her. Carl follows the man and kills him. As the couple head home, however, Elsa points to another man whom she says was her attacker. As police pull up behind them, Carl realizes his wife has gone crazy and that he has just killed an innocent man.
Oscar-nominated screenwriter and Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner has written the adaptation of the musical originally penned by Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim with music by Leonard Bernstein. Spielberg has spent the better part of the year looking for stars for his movie, with actors needing to be able to sing, dance, and, of course, act their hearts out for the story that transposes Romeo and Juliet into a 1950s New York setting featuring white and Puerto Rican gangs....I'll give this my "race and pop culture" tag. A white gang against a Puerto Rican gang. Let's hope the Tony Kushner rewrite finds a new way of living, a way of forgiving...
1852 V. S. Wortley Young Traveller's Jrnl. xx. 250 She said, she knew not what she did, but was ‘loco’ (mad) when we paid her a visit.I looked in the 15-year archive of this blog to see if I'd ever used the word "loco" (even in a quote). I'd only said "in loco parentis" and referred to the song "The Loco-Motion" and an incident in which someone had the name "Bloody Loco." And in the context of arguing that the word "locavore" should be spelled "locovore," because the Latin root for place is "loco-" not "loca-," I speculated that the "locavores" wanted to avoid the association with the word "loco" (meaning crazy).
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and his Republican challenger, Scott Wagner, sat on stage, their faces frozen and their hands clasped. And Alex Trebek, the “Jeopardy!” host and the moderator of Monday night’s debate, let loose, joking that the only thing with a lower approval rating that the Pennsylvania legislature was the Catholic Church.What do you mean, "but"?! We made a celebrity President of the United States and that leap of faith worked out pretty well.
Polite laughter from the audience quickly turned to boos. Trebek, dressed in a purple flowered tie with a matching pocket square, looked out at the crowd watching the two candidates face off at an upscale hotel in Hershey, Pa. “Don’t go there,” the white-haired television host said, wagging a finger. “I was born and raised in the Catholic Church and I’m just as ticked off as everybody else is over what has happened with the church.”
He went on, unfazed by the ticking clock and the fact that the debate was nearly halfway over. “When I was a young teenager I attended a Catholic boarding school run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Two-hundred and fifty students, other boys and I, spent three years sharing the same accommodations 24/7 with 44 priests and not once in those three years was there any sexual misbehavior. Now boys are pretty sharp, we talk, we would have known. So I believe that there are Catholic priests out there who are able to minister to their congregations without preying — that’s P-R-E-Y — on the young people.”
The comments on WNEP-TV’s live feed were merciless. “Where is this going?” said one. “When do we get to hear from the candidates?” added another. A third viewer put it succinctly: “Alex, shut up.”...
Trebek’s celebrity may have attracted some viewers who wouldn’t ordinarily spend their Monday night watching a political forum. But....
Jill Greene, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, told the Reading Eagle that Trebek’s conversational tone was “problematic” and criticized his frequent interjections and asides.I haven't watched the debate, but I'm leaning toward Trebek now. "Conversational tone was 'problematic'" — ugh. "Frequent interjections and asides." He brought style and spontaneity and a showbiz-based sensibility of moving things along and keeping people interested. I'm guessing.
