Word: climax
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...comes to complicating and resolving a plot, Tesich falls back on the conventions of melodrama. Around the soft center of Daryll and Tony's affair, he has woven a crazy quilt of stereotypes-the cold-eyed killer, the silent accomplice, the wealthy parents, the deranged Vietvet. At the climax-a reprise of Equus-resourceful Daryll does what every dumb thriller hero or heroine must do: wanders into an ominous abandoned building. His assailant is even dumber: he is intent on killing Daryll but won't shoot the horses protecting...
...This climax neatly parodies one of the sillier conventions of romantic thrillers, but the picture is rarely that delicately tuned. Ugo Tognazzi remains a marvel of sympathetic understatement as the, er, straight man, but Michel Serrault's performance has a forced, even panicky quality here, perhaps because his role is not as well written as it was the first time, lacking as it does both sympathy and well-made gags. Director Molinaro handles most of the action scenes perfunctorily, never realizing their full value either as suspense or as comedy. Since no one has bothered to think up anything...
...party mentioned was the climax of NORML's annual conference held in December 1977. The atmosphere was such that $400-an-ounce marijuana was being passed around on silver trays at a party frequented by members of the Carter Administration and congressional staffs. At this party, Dr. Peter Bourne, Carter's adviser on health and drug issues, was seen doing cocaine. Six months later, angered by what he felt was a betrayal by Bourne on the paraquat issue (the U.S.-financed poisonous spraying of Mexican marijuana later shipped to America), Stroup leaked an account of the cocaine incident to Jack...
...viewer is likely to smile along too, until Woman invades Cheech and Chong territory for stock comic complications and a slapstick climax. By film's end, the viewer's hopes have shrunk along with wee Lily. The razzle-dazzle finale - and a barrage of TV commercials and guest appearances by Tomlin and Co-Star Charles Grodin - may be working...
...point, all the characters freeze while a very fast electric strobe flickers on the black and white stage, accompanied by an electronic whirring that increases in speed rhythmically with the light. The effect adds to the sense of impending doom and chaos that builds to a climax in the last scene during Faustus' magnificent final monologue...