No Surprises, Please: Movies in the Reagan Decade

by Steve Vineberg

This work argues that moviegoers' intolerance for the unconventional left truly innovative or politically controversial films virtually ignored and, in their place, stupefying simple-minded fantasies from the Right and manipulative tracts from the Left.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0028726863
• ISBN13: 9780028726861
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Schirmer G Books
• Length: 385 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

How does one sum up a man and his work?

The Iroquois believe that before man walked the earth there was a great tribe of sky people who lived without worry or pain on a floating island. One day Sky Woman became pregnant with twins and was pushed by her murderous husband from their happy island home. Instead of plummeting to her death she was caught by birds and carried to safety. There was no land for her so they sprinkled earth on the back of a turtle and placed Sky Woman there. Sky Woman gave birth to two healthy boys. She named her first son Sapling and he made all that is good and right in the world. He made the trees green and heavy with fruit. He made the waters cool and potable and he filled them up with a bounty of fish. Sky Woman's other son represented all that was dark in the world. He made the rivers flow away and turned the fruit to rot. He salted the earth where he walked and burned the forests to ash. He was the unmaker, the despoiler, the scourge and bane. He was VINEBERG and VINEBERG he remains. He'd like two of the Lucky Millions scratch-offs, please. VINEBERG is going to climb Everest just to steal George Mallory's corpse. VINEBERG watches NASCAR for the crashes. VINEBERG forgot to leave off the pickles and he has hidden the complaint box. VINEBERG is a first responder. He's going to press his ear to your face and listen to your eyes glaze over. VINEBERG is going to taste your tears. When the tempest crashes against the lighthouse and the beacon leads the ships aground, VINEBERG will be there riding on his trusty octopus Mephisto. VINEBERG is preoccupied with knitting. VINEBERG can fly but he prefers to travel as an airborne pathogen from host to host. VINEBERG is mutating the avian flu because he likes chickens better than you. VINEBERG loves kudzu, enough to marry it. There are only two certain things in life: death and VINEBERG, taxes can take a hike. VINEBERG invented hide and seek to lure unattended children into abandoned refrigerators. VINEBERG wore a yarmulke when he traveled through time and beat up teenage Hitler. VINEBERG is digging up a pet cemetery and calling UPS with your address. The Chinese keep crickets as pets and VINEBERG keeps the Chinese as pets. VINEBERG has forbidden dancing on the weekend. VINEBERG is anaerobic. VINEBERG is running a fraudulent cancer wig program to make sweaters for rich German eccentrics. VINEBERG is using Comic Sans. VINEBERG is opening the attachment. VINEBERG is entrusting a Nigerian with your banking information. VINEBERG just said "LOL" out loud just because he knows you hate it. VINEBERG is framing an expired gift certificate from Burger King. VINEBERG just blamed it on the dog. VINBERG is sewing dolphin fins to amputees at Walter Reed. Don't blame VINEBERG, he voted for LaRouche. VINEBERG'S car is made entirely out of magnetic ribbons. VINEBERG supports the troops but not the war. VINEBERG is issuing a fatwah. We would all die alone if it weren't for VINEBERG. VINEBERG is rowing you across the River of Dea