Word: barely
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...advent of a certain date in April that has certain significations for certain people who engage in a certain herbal substance, Gossip Guy found himself, err, swamped this week. Fortunately his energetic younger sister, Gossip Gal, is back to heed the call, wearing her spring best and bringing you bare-legged rumors, strappy lies, and pastel-colored innuendo...
...steps of the Cathedral at Salzburg as a sort of dramatic-religious festival. Although God, Death, the Devil and a host of other abstractions put in their physical appearance, it is more than a mere translation of the English 16th century original "Everyman." Hoffmannsthal has taken the bare outline of the old play, and molded it into a work not only dramatically satisfying, but also sincerely effective as a plea for some kind of religious faith in a time of loose, money-grubbing morality...
...Cambridge is a strange time. For all the familiar clichés of the season as a time of miraculous regeneration—cue soft-focus images of fluffy bunnies and blooming bouquets—these delightfully wholesome tableaux seem conspicuously absent from the local environment. The stripped-bare foliage continues to bear more than a passing resemblance to the set of the Blair Witch Project (preponderance of red brick aside); deluded optimists who insist on wearing flip-flops outside end up with toes a distinctive shade of magenta by sunset; and carb-loaded comfort foods still retain that elusive...
Which town? Our Town. Von Trier asserts his intention to rethink the classic Thornton Wilder play with his film's magnificent first shot: an overhead view of a nearly bare stage set, with Dogville's properties and props designated by painted lines. The old mine down the road is identified by a sign reading OLD MINE. A townsman closes an invisible door and we hear a slamming noise. Von Trier presumably wants us to attend to his characters' yearnings and prejudices without the distractions of period furnishings...
...brilliant idea, for about 10 minutes. Then the bare set is elbowed out of a viewer's mind by the threadbare plot and characterizations. Into this town of ostensibly decent folk comes a fugitive named Grace (Kidman), a familiar Von Trier heroine-victim, like the ones played by Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves and Bjork in Dancer in the Dark. Grace is the beneficiary of the townspeople's Christian charity, then the victim of their envy, malice, lies and sadism. She stoically endures a spate of abuse nearly as long and relentless as Jesus' in the Mel Gibson gospel...