The PAD Awards: 1980

Time again for the Paul and Doug (PAD) Awards. This year we came to the end of the 1980s, a decade filled with sentimentality, high budgets and some men in running shorts. We were joined at the Awards again by a variety of great stars, including the superb Mary Tyler Moore who didn’t let her being dead stop her from knocking back the tequila shots. We say go Mary! 

Mary Tyler Moore, seconds before doing a fourth tequila shot,
falling bodily into a dinner table, and shouting 'Mary Tyler RAWR'.

So let's crack on with the awards. 

Least favourite film

Paul says: Terms of Endearment

I was rather spoilt for choice here - the '80s was very style-over-substance which never bodes well for me. For my choice of Least Favourite Film, I’ve picked something that I think epitomised this level of triteness. Terms of Endearment covers quite a large amount of material but, in my eyes, provided no insight into any of the issues it skims over. Despite some great character work from Shirley MacLaine, this is nothing more than the edited highlights of a basic soap opera, and the musical fades between scenes made it feel like a lengthy tv advert for a bad interior design company. Give it a miss.

Doug says: Platoon

For me the 1980s was filled with quite a few duds. Out of Africa was overlong and so so dull, while Chariots of Fire seemed to miss every point it was trying to make. But in terms of sheer ‘I cannot bear watching this mess’, Platoon takes the biscuit. I’m never a fan of war films, and this explains why. A long, dull, bloody mess with lots of posturing and Men saying Manly Things - a turn-off if there ever was one. 

Favourite Male Performance

Paul says: Dustin Hoffman, Rain Man 

I’ve raved about him already in my review for Rain Man, but Dustin Hoffman is the most convincing Autistic man I’ve ever seen. Every mannerism, movement, form of speech and reaction is something that I have seen in my professional life with real Autistic people. The fact that he makes such an unchangeable, repetitive and detached character develop and display more humanity than his non-Autistic brother is a credit to Hoffman’s skill and the writing of the film. Shout outs also go to Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People and Ben Kingsley in Gandhi.

Doug says: Ben Kingsley, Gandhi

This wasn’t even a question. Dustin Hoffman was great in Rain Man, and there were some lovely male performances in Ordinary People but Ben Kingsley gives possibly the greatest performance of his life - and certainly in my eyes the greatest male performance of the Oscar-winning films we’ve seen from 1927 up till now - as Gandhi. We feel every facet of his rage, his humanity, his flaws and his hope; and it’s a stunning, beautiful example of an artist using every colour in their palette to the best possible end. Just the moment when he silently surveys the carnage of the Amritsar Massacre with fury and disappointment wins him this alone. 

Favourite Female Performance 

Paul says: Mary Tyler Moore, Ordinary People

Bearing in mind that I’m already a fan of her, I probably chose Mary Tyler Moore as my favourite '80s female performance before I’d even seen the film. Moore plays completely against her ditzy-nice-girl type, effectively presenting the stoic, punctilious matron one often finds in the upper-middle classes. You feel hatred and pity for her simultaneously, and Moore fully deserved her Oscar nomination. Shout outs to Joan Chen and Jessica Tandy too. 

Doug says: Joan Chen, The Last Emperor and Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy

I’m doing something we haven’t seen since 1969 when Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn tied and jointly won ‘Best Actress’. I

literally cannot choose. Joan Chen uses two or three scenes to deliver a devastating portrayal of a woman decaying, destroyed by her wanton husband. It’s nasty, pulls no punches, and lingers long after the film ends. Jessica Tandy though pulls out an equally great performance, delivering witty put-downs with enough sass to make a gay man do a z-snap, and matching it with beautifully judged, wistful monologues. Her eventual frailty is performed emotionally and with respect, and again remains long after the rest of the film has faded from the mind.

Favourite Film 

Paul says: Gandhi

This is a tough one. Nothing in the '80s rated higher than an 8 for me, and most gathered around the 5/10 “safe” zone. So I’m picking a film that, despite my misgivings about some elements, still displayed the highest level of emotional involvement, skill and passion- and that is Gandhi. Three hours is nowhere near enough time for the story this tells and I could have happily had it continue for a further 3. It’s the only film in the '80s that took me through a profound array of emotions, and had me in an endless Wikipedia hole for weeks. It’s a great watch, and manages to pull away from the sort of flowery softness that the 80s movies fall into. Rain Man came a close second. 

Doug says: Gandhi

Not only my favourite film of the ‘80s, this is my favourite film we’ve watched so far. For three hours Richard Attenborough holds us spellbound, with a uniformly superb cast, extraordinary cinematography, and a real, evocative portrayal of India. Kingsley leads of course, but everyone else is pulling their weight, and moments including the aftermath of the Amritsar Massacre, the forming of Pakistan, and the death of Gandhi’s wife are covered sensitively, powerfully and with great feeling. Even the closing shots of the sun setting on the rippling waves is unforgettable. 

Average Film Scores 

Paul: 5.5/10 (Paul’s lowest-rated decade)

Doug: 6.35/10 (Doug’s second-highest rated decade)

62. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

Plot Intro

Elderly Jewish Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy) is struggling to drive safely in her old age. Daisy’s son, Boolie (Dan Aykroyd) insists on employing a chauffeur in the form of Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman). Although initially hostile towards the idea of being driven around, Daisy and Hoke’s friendship grows and blossoms as the years go on.

Paul says...

With the advent of 1989, we are officially into my lifetime, hurrah! And what better way to celebrate this than with some lashings of mid-20th century racism? Driving Miss Daisy has a similar atmosphere to Terms of Endearment. It focuses on two specific characters, follows their trials and tribulations over an extended period of time, dissects their characters in excruciating detail with a few well-timed monologues, and most importantly, there are flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. My God, the '80s loved flowers.

But where Daisy triumphs over the dreary, slow-moving humourlessness of Endearment is in its focus on one particular theme: racism. Interestingly, there are no scenes of racist confrontation, violence or a particularly high level of tension. Indeed, one might complain that the film shies away far too much. But it touches on it in deeply subtle ways. Daisy and Hoke are suddenly under slightly more scrutiny from the police when they cross the border from Georgia to the more Medieval Alabama; minor looks and background reactions abound; the affinity Hoke has with Daisy’s maid Idella; and Daisy finds out that her synagogue has been bombed, but we never see the event nor the ruins. There is a sense that Daisy lives a sheltered life herself while Hoke has seen much more, that somewhere not far but still distant from this world of hydrangeas and white picket fences, there are acts of unspeakable hatred and violence. This makes the relationship between the two main characters all the sweeter because they are symbolically clinging to each other within a warmer, safer shell than the neighbouring states.

The downside is that the film probably goes a little too far with this. By the end, no real climax has been met. Indeed, their friendship meets no snags from about a third of the way in, there’s no villain, no real impetus at all. The whole thing is a series of vignettes showing their relationship over time- it’s basically a truncated, mild-mannered soap opera. My esteemed friend and fellow-viewer, Shona, pointed out that this is actually refreshing. Racism is dealt with not through hard-hitting drama but through a tender and genuine bond between two seemingly different people. As true as this is, I was still wishing for that one set-piece event that would create a dilemma, or at least send the storyline into unpredictable territory. But it never happens, and Driving Miss Daisy’s tone is just as soppy as a majority of the '80s. 

The film hangs on a spectacular performance from Jessica Tandy, however. At 81, she remains the oldest recipient of the Best Actress Oscar, and she deserves it for this. There are moments where she breaks out into monologue that feel spontaneous and I hung on her every word; her comic timing was on point throughout, and there were many sassy finger-clicks made at her cantankerous put-downs. The permanently-50-year-old Freeman is great too, but Tandy steals the show, and saves the film’s hesitancy to increase the drama.

Driving Miss Daisy ends the '80s well. While it steers dangerously close to the triteness of Terms of Endearment and Out of Africa, it is saved by a stronger focus, a sweet nature, and an inspirational central performance from Tandy. And also the fact that it doesn’t overdo itself at a mere 95 minutes.

Highlight

Daisy gives a beautiful monologue about her childhood whilst on a roadtrip to Alabama. This scene is immediately followed by the approach of two very unpleasant cops. They do nothing more than check their paperwork, but the juxtaposition of Daisy’s tender trip down memory lane, and the cop’s obvious attempt to find an excuse to arrest or beat up Hoke is gripping

Lowlight

The film steers clear of shocking or surprising its audience. As sweet as it is, someone had to get brutally murdered or abducted by aliens or something to elevate this above TV movie status.

Mark

7/10

Doug says...

Driving Miss Daisy ends the ‘80s as a film that suitably sums up the whole decade of Best Picture winners. It’s a slow-moving, emotion-ridden thing, spanning decades with inexplicable jump cuts across years, and it’s full of flowers! So many flowers! 

I wonder why the ‘80s film-makers were so obsessed with nature? Out of Africa springs to mind, with hundreds of scenes of beautiful gardens, and certainly Terms of Endearment had plenty of outside scenes. Perhaps it was an antidote to the grey, urban grit of the ‘70s, but ultimately it feels a bit niche, rooting the films firmly in the ‘80s. 

I wasn’t impressed with the film itself. It deals with racism and anti-semitism, but far, far too lightly, and the real subject seems to be an unlikely friendship. But if the film was really centred around friendship, then there should be a scene where that friendship is at the very least challenged. The closest we get to that is a moment when Hoke turns on Miss Daisy after she half-heartedly invites him in to see Martin Luther King speak at a dinner. And this is dealt with briefly in a scene and then moved on from. 

So what’s good about this film? For me it wasn’t Freeman, who turns in a decent performance as Hoke, but he does waver on the edge of obsequiousness. He appears to be playing the stereotype, with a high pitched giggle and an awful lot of tugging the forelock. I understand this is how the character might have been, but it’s hard to imagine this film being made now with that same interpretation - put simply, it feels awkward, as if someone animated a golliwog cartoon. Freeman does develop the role through the film, but there’s a lot of moments that felt awkwardly played for laughs at the beginning. 

Jessica Tandy on the other hand is tremendous. One gets the feeling she gripped onto the script the moment they gave it to her and never relinquished it, so great is her enjoyment and superb delivery of her several monologues. And as Miss Daisy ages and decays, Tandy shows the slow falling apart of Miss Daisy with sensitivity and power - something we saw with Joan Chen as Wanrong in The Last Emperor too. It’s a fantastic performance and Tandy balances the emotion of this strong, isolated woman against the sheer comedy of the role. Marvellous work.

Highlight

The same as Paul’s! The sheer softness with which Tandy delivers a monologue about how she visited the lake when she was young is a beautiful, gentle moment in a ever-moving film. 

Lowlight

Why do film-makers decide to jump years at a time and not tell the audience till halfway through the next scene? It’s very confusing. 

Mark

7/10 

61. Rain Man (1988)

Plot Intro

Charlie Babbett (Tom Cruise), a greedy, money-driven yuppy, finds out one day that his estranged father is dead. Charlie is furious to discover that his father has left the $3 million estate to an unnamed beneficiary. After a little investigation, Charlie discovers that the beneficiary is a long-lost autistic brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), of whom Charlie has no memory. Charlie plots to steal Raymond away, and use him to find some way to access half or all of the $3 million he believes he should have…

Doug says...

I’ve never actually seen Rain Man before, but I’m obviously aware of what it’s about. It’s one of those films that has somehow seeped into the general consciousness. We all know it’s about autism - and more specifically, a savant - that is to say, someone with genius tendencies. It’s lampooned, mocked, and satirised constantly even today - and that is usually the mark of something that was groundbreaking. 

Because just as now people challenge and attack Germaine Greer (rightfully so at points I should add), they are doing so on foundations of feminism that she herself helped to lay. It’s easy to attack the forbears of a movement that has since developed, and may have become troublesome, but it’s not fair to wipe away their initial achievements.

So it is with Greer, and so it is here. Rain Man by modern standards is somewhat problematic; casting an autistic person as an otherworldly figure. Raymond is a genius, set apart, unable to interact with the world and yet his extraordinary talents shine out. It’s not an accurate portrait of autism, certainly many autistic people are actually quite ordinary. And the film has come under many attacks for this over the past decades. 

But I don’t think it’s entirely fair. This is the first time in this Oscars project that we’ve seen something like autism taken on and explored so thoroughly. Hoffman gives easily the best of his three performances that we’ve seen. It’s monotonous, rambling, repetitive and at times excruciating, but such is Hoffman’s craft that we see glimmers of feeling and of desire to partake in the world. He must watch certain television programmes at certain times, and he notes down whenever he feels he has been attacked in different coloured notepads (the colour equating to the severity) - but he also is attracted to a woman at a Vegas bar, and is noticeably eager to meet her again. 

Hoffman is matched, note for note, by an surprisingly impressive Tom Cruise. It’s so strange to see an actor who is again lampooned and mocked mercilessly actually be good. We share his frustrations with his brother, and in a very simple but effective scene, we see his overwhelming guilt and sorrow when he realises it’s his own birth that made their nervous parents lock his unstable older brother away. 

It’s a lovely film, and while I can see the problems, I’d also argue it works hard to put a face to the issue, and humanise autistic people to an audience who (in the 1980s) can’t have been all that sympathetic. Hoffman and Cruise match each other in performances which means, while it feels a little light, it’s an entirely gripping film, and we are willing Charlie to make effort to understand and engage with the isolated Raymond - making a final scene with some maple syrup actually very affecting. 

Highlight 

I loved the moment when Charlie’s girlfriend (the excellent Valeria Golino) pauses the Vegas lift, having seen Raymond’s sadness at being stood up. She coerces him to dance instead with her - and the slow, awkward dance in a lift becomes a quite beautiful moment; people helping and supporting each other and working out how to co-exist. Which is, I suppose, the moral of the whole film. 

Lowlight

There isn’t much, but I would have loved more backstory - we know why he is Rain Man but I felt there were more stories to tell. 

Mark 

8/10

Paul says...

I’ve worked with autistic people, so Rain Man works for me on many levels. Most important to say, anyone who claims that Rain Man is not an accurate depiction of Autism is an imbecile. Granted, Autism is such a colossal topic full of theories, behaviours and research that you can never learn all there is to know through one fictional character. It would be like claiming to know everything about naval engineering after watching Titanic. But I can safely say that I have seen all the mannerisms, habits and likes and dislikes encapsulated within Raymond Babbett spread across several children and adults that I have cared for or volunteered with. 

Working from these first-hand experiences, I think that what Rain Man captures so brilliantly is the irony of the main characters’ situation. Raymond is, ostensibly, the mechanical outsider. He is described as living in his own world; he can memorise the entire phone book; he is unresponsive to other people’s anger, frustration or sadness; his habits create barriers and delays endlessly. But the film shows us that his behaviour is incredibly human. He’s terrified of planes because of statistics he has read on air crashes; he loves to watch his favourite tv shows at the right time; he likes to drive because it brings back fond memories of his father’s driving lessons. If you were provided with these three facts, without the knowledge of Raymond’s autism, you’d think he was a pretty regular human being, wouldn’t you? Charlie, on the other hand, fits in well with '80s society. He’s ambitious, attractive, charismatic, affluent, well-dressed, driven, and his hair is excellent (in a “museum-piece” kind of way). But he’s totally inhuman- motivated entirely towards getting an inheritance he thinks he deserves, and utilises his brother’s mathematical prowess to win big in Vegas. Is it not a bit warped that Charlie can live the high life very easily, while Raymond must live in an institution, reliant on a family member paying the fees?

Raymond may not represent all autistic people, but the film certainly represents the contentious relationship between autistic people and the rest of the world. When Raymond stops walking on the pedestrian crossing because the sign changes to “don’t walk”, he is met with anger by drivers trying to get past. A similar situation occurred when an autistic man in my care got aggressively frustrated with a supermarket self-service machine and the shop assistant trying to help him. Even after apologising and explaining the situation, the shop assistant’s reply was “I’m not paid enough to deal with that”. So who’s the real “human” here- the one getting annoyed with a malfunctioning computer, or the one who, despite knowing the man’s condition, didn’t care?

All of these questions are illuminated by the outstanding central performances by Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman- especially Hoffman who nabbed Best Actor for this. This is our third and final Hoffman movie in this project after Midnight Cowboy and Kramer Vs Kramer, each about 10 years apart, and in all of them he is entirely transformational. I’ve never been massively familiar with his work before, but now I can see that he is an actor who dedicates himself wholeheartedly to his performance, and changes naturally from role to role. 

Not to nitpick too much, but the film sags slightly about two-thirds of the way through. I think this because the scenes between the two actors in which Raymond does something frustrating and Charlie gets frustrated, become increasingly repetitive and predictable. Plus there’s no real urgency or tension to the storyline. It’s character-driven, and that’s commendable, but it needed some kind of villain or threat to keep the momentum. Thankfully, these feelings of tedium are quickly dispelled when the brothers finally start to bond. The final third is tender and tasteful and provides an ending that is believable and realistic.

Coming at the end of a mediocre decade, Rain Man is a sigh of relief. It has the best sense of humour since 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the most heart since 1982’s Gandhi, and this is nice to see after a series of epics that have placed showiness over substance.

Highlight

Besides Dustin Hoffman’s entire performance, I loved one of the final scenes in which Charlie finally tells Raymond how much he appreciates his older brother, and the two touch foreheads for a while. It’s beautiful, and you will cry, dammit!

Lowlight

The two-way scenes between Hoffman and Cruise may be expertly acted and written, but as I said, I felt like they were “more of the same”. A quick re-write could eliminate these and keep the pace up.

Mark

8/10

60. The Last Emperor (1987)

Plot Intro

Pu Yi (John Lone) is crowned Emperor of China at the age of 3 in 1908. But very quickly, Republican uprisings across the country lead him to abdication and a life of isolation within the Forbidden City. The film charts his life through his forced exit from the Forbidden City by the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek, his attempted allegiance with Japan to win back his imperial power, and his eventual imprisonment after the Second World War for his associations with the Japanese.

Paul says...

Our 60th film is probably one of the last lesser-known Best Picture winners. Up until watching it, I knew very little about the content of this film, and had never seen a clip, scene or heard of anything about it that made it particularly famous. This is surprising, as it is one of the few Best Picture winners to have a majority non-white cast, and it also garnered a whopping nine awards at the 1987 Oscars, so you’d expect something quite groundbreaking.

I think The Last Emperor fades into the background somewhat because it maintains the '80s style of filmmaking, but doesn’t develop it. I can’t fault the film’s visuals, particularly in the first hour almost entirely set within the Forbidden City in an age when the Emperor would live amongst opulence and grandeur that would stun even the Russian Tsars. The sheer size of the palace complex, the elaborateness of what the royal court wore, and the almost comical manner in which the Emperor is worshipped are all captured brilliantly by director Bernardo Bertolucci (who also won Best Director). In particular, there is a scene in which the 5-year-old Emperor and his brother start chasing each other in a game, and the colossal group of courtiers, who are also carrying his chair should he wish to sit down, have to run after him in circles to ensure that the Emperor is constantly accompanied. The film doesn’t shy away from humour here which I really enjoyed- it accentuated the sense of awe. 

These visuals are further amplified by the contrasting scenes of Pu Yi in prison, where the atmosphere is a lot greyer, more miserable, but ironically just as confined. The Emperor was not allowed to leave the Forbidden City, and the recurring image of imprisonment throughout the film provides a lot of insight into Pu Yi’s life and actions. 

But where The Last Emperor fails quite badly is in script. I’ve already criticised the '80s for its trite over-writing. But this film swings to the opposite end of the spectrum and felt under-written. For a film that covers a vast amount of events (Chinese history in the early 20th century is pretty transitional), the dialogue is surprisingly simple. The result is that, as in Out of Africa and Platoon, events happen, they are interesting and educational, but I felt nothing. 

This is especially apparent in the second half of the film which charts Pu Yi’s life as an adult. According to the film (and a quick Wikipedia read will tell you that there are some inaccuracies), Pu Yi was determined to re-establishment himself as a reformed Emperor, and was convinced that the intervention of the Japanese would facilitate this. But the script jumps through events in leaps and bounds leaving us little time to process them. Pu Yi has allies who suddenly become traitors, his secondary consort suddenly wants to leave him, his wife suddenly becomes an opium addict, Pu Yi has suddenly been in Tokyo and come back to a mysteriously pregnant wife. We probably needed a stronger, more explanatory script that could help us access these events and know who to boo and who to cheer. 

The first half is far stronger because it focuses more on telling story through imagery, and we saw the world through Pu Yi’s over-protected eyes. We hear rumours and sounds of revolution coming from outside the Forbidden City, but Bertolucci is careful not to reveal too much, so we share Pu Yi’s unease, but also his determination to escape.

As a biopic, The Last Emperor provides insight into an area of history that the western world doesn’t usually hear about in school, and visually it’s an effortless tourism advert for China. But like most of this decade, it lacks the magnificent atmosphere of Gone With the Wind and the urgency and tragedy of Gandhi, epic movies that tackle similar themes of political change and discord. If you like Chinese history, then give it a go.

Highlight

There is a scene in which Pu Yi, as a teenager, hears sounds of gun fire and battles in the city outside of his palace. The camera pans upwards and shows the rooftops around him, but we can see nothing, just like Pu Yi himself. It’s a poignant insight into his frustration that the real world is so close, and yet kept so far.

Lowlight

The really awkward love scene between Pu Yi and his new wife is nauseating. They kiss each other like 3-year-olds licking the jam off toast. Yuck.

Mark

5/10

Doug says...

Once again I am faced with the annoyance of finding the DVD doesn’t have subtitles. As a pretty deaf person, subtitles have become pretty much essential to the way I watch television and films, and when I have to watch without them, I become rapidly aware of the fact that I’m hearing about 50% of the dialogue. Couple this with the fact that there are lots of muttering actors and heavy accents in this film, and I would confidently say I heard about three lines over the whole two and a half hours. 

So my experience of The Last Emperor was already going to be hindered, but luckily for me - this is very much a visual feast. It’s an epic, with thousands of extras and no expense spared in recreating the opulence and excessive grandeur of the Chinese Royal Court. One particular moment, in the opening scenes, sees the toddler Pu Yi being declared Emperor by his dying grandmother. She sits, with the most extraordinary headpiece balanced on her fragile head, in a bed, on a raised platform with a wall of shimmering gold behind her. It is only through the scene that you suddenly realise they are moving, and the camera pans out to show the bed, platform and wall are all on wheels, being pushed through the palace by an army of servants. It’s utterly bizarre and spectacular. 

The film is at its strongest when director Bertolucci is focused on this opulent wealth. We see private lakes within the palace where boats of painted and bejewelled courtiers placidly float by; and as Paul says, we see the rather disgusting way in which every servant bows and scrapes to the ten year old boy. It starts to become very obvious why China became communist. 

So when the film moves away, showing Pu Yi as a Westernised playboy affiliating himself with Japan, it loses some of the glamour and excessiveness that make this fun to watch, and doesn’t really replace it with anything else. As for the scenes in the prison, these were the most dialogue heavy and so with the aforementioned subtitle issues, I didn’t get anything much out of this, and had to wikipedia what was going on. 

It’s also a film where performances don’t stand out (and it’s worth noting no one was nominated for an acting Oscar). However there is one performance that begins normally and then builds to an exceptional, fascinating climax - and that is Joan Chen as Pu Yi’s wife and empress, Wanrong. It’s a performance that doesn’t draw much notice, but then Wanrong descends into boredom - and opium addiction. Chen plays the tragedy of the role so jarringly well that I was wishing it was actually a biopic of her by the end. High out of her mind and sat in the next room Wanrong devours a bunch of fresh flowers at her husband’s party, before vanishing off for some adulterous action with a spy/princess/aviator (apparently a real person?!). In her final scene, having lost a child and been essentially betrayed by her husband, she returns from the hospital, devastatingly changed. Chen bends her whole body, shuffling and limping through the house, stopping only to spit in her husband’s face. Her face, once beautifully poised, is now somehow warped, her jaw slack and her eyes unfocused. It’s a horrible, gripping moment, and made even worse by the spy/princess/aviator/former lover seeing her and her stunned reaction makes it all the more nasty. 

I wasn’t overwhelmed by this film, but there were moments of sheer wonder and opulence, and Chen’s performance was a real unexpected treat. If only there had been subtitles…

Highlight

I’ve talked about it here, but that scene when Wanrong returns, mentally unstable from having her child killed by the Japanese state (or so the film implies) is just phenomenal. I’d watch Chen in The Last Empress any day.

Lowlight

As with many of these films, the second half begins to drag. Film makers would do well to take a tip from Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again and when it starts flagging, deploy a Cher-sized narrative bomb to giddy it up again. 

Mark

7.5/10