Word: banality
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...unfolding and embrace -- coming with such conviction, or perhaps at all, from a man. O'Keeffe was a woman of exquisite moral vigor. Now that she is dead, no effort will be spared to convert her into a mere culture heroine. In the gap between her death and this banal transfiguration, one can at least look at her paintings...
ALWAYS IS A poor man's Annie Hall, giving us an ordinary man's meandering and never-ending journey through his existentialistic, and sometimes banal thoughts. We constantly get questions (never answers) on what life is all about, where happiness can be found, how meaningful relationships are nurtured and why we torture ourselves by asking such stupid questions...
...good news is the eponymous Del Amitri (Chrysalis). At first glance, these four Scotsman would seem to fit in with the U2 Alarm mode of loud banal political folk songs. This debut effort abounds with youthful metaphors about pollution and nuclear war and all the things that are so gosh--wrong with this world. Most of the time these societal barbs are more embarassing than effective. All of this only goes to prove that it takes time to learn how to write lyrics. Fortunately, the ultimate success of Del Amitri does not depend on its words but rather its presentation...
Nothing could be more banal, but Bartlett attacked this motif from dozens of stylistic angles and levels of attention, from Dufyesque silhouettes of color to gaudy calendar-art cliches, from cautious realist scrutiny to Warholian transcriptions of holiday-snapshot cropping. Sometimes the scene is light and sun-drenched, sometimes it is drowned in bloom and speckles, or elided by pastel smudges, or darkened into an eerie nocturnal calm. There is no favorite medium; Bartlett uses gouache, watercolor, ink, pastel, crayon, oil and pencil with almost equal facility...
...only problem is that Subway isn't as smart as it would like to be. In fact, it really isn't smart at all. Visually, stylistically, thematically, et cetera, it comes up empty in the Brains Department. The script is banal. The acting, deadpan-dull. And the images clutter up like so many hip books on a crowded coffee table. With the possible exception of Gremlins, Joe Dante's unintentionally horrific testament to the decline of Western Civilization, Subway may be the most completely offensive, manipulative, and downright irritating picture in recent memory...