Kevin Smith, who wrote and directed it and plays an off-the-wall prophet, thus weighs in alongside such serious grapplings with faith and belief as " Hail, Mary,"
12.
And because " Swimfan " pretends to be a relatively wholesome teenage movie, it has no sex scenes comparable to the frantic animal grapplings of Close and Michael Douglas on a kitchen sink and a stalled freight elevator.
13.
Directed by Gloria Muzio, " Grace and Glorie " draws laughs from Glorie's grapplings with Grace's wood-fired stove, the mice that live under the sink and the cackling animals that wait outside the door.
14.
In a movie column in The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, Patrick Goldstein said that " Town and Country " seemed dated by a quarter-century or so, underscoring the fact that sex farces with wife-swapping and breathless batrachian grapplings are a defunct genre in Hollywood.
15.
David Browne of " Entertainment Weekly " wrote, " For all her grapplings with self-enlightenment, Madonna seems more relaxed and less contrived than she's been in years, from her new Italian earth-mother makeover to, especially, her music . " Ray of Light " is truly like a prayer, and you know she'll take you there . " Roni Sarig, in a review for " City Pages ", was most impressed by Madonna's vocal range, depth, and clarity and called " Ray of Light " " her richest, most accomplished record yet . " Music critic Robert Hilburn from " Los Angeles Times " wrote, " One reason why her new " Ray of Light " is the most satisfying album of her career is that it reflects the soul-searching of a woman who is at a point in her life where she can look at herself with surprising candor and perspective . " Writing for " Melody Maker " in February 1998, Mark Roland drew comparisons with the music of St Etienne and Bj�rk's " Homogenic " album, highlighting " Ray of Light " s lack of cynicism as its most positive aspect : " It's not an album turned on the lathe of cynical pop manipulation, rather it's been squished out of a lump of clay on a foot-powered wheel.
