Word: comic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Comic artifice is better served in a static rendering of Dorothy Parker's Dusk Before Fireworks (directed by Ken Russell, adapted by Valerie Curtin). In the giddy days of bathtub gin -- much guzzling in all three stories, by the way -- the coitus of an aging rake (Peter Weller) and a nubile flapper is rendered interruptus by untimely calls from his other women. Former teen queen Molly Ringwald delivers her lioness's share of the Parker sallies with engaging zest but seems a bit too twentysomethingly modern for a tart of the Roaring Twenties...
...popularity and state budget may be anemic. But when the lame-duck Governor was asked whether he would ever run for President again, he said, "I don't think you rule it out, I don't think you rule it in." Retorted comic Jay Leno: "I hear he's already working on his concession speech...
Baldwin delivers a strong performance, but his role as a foil is unfortunately limiting. Platt is vaguely amusing, and blessed with the most of film's comic lines. "I did not come to medical school to kill my classmates," he deadpans at one point, "no matter how deranged they might...
...smirk at each other. Ducey is especially charming as he strokes the machine and strikes up conversation about "high-altitude plums." Beneath his black cloak, Jeff Branion as their supervisor Beck adds just the right ridiculousness to the play, and lifts the door slam to a level nearing comic genius...
...creation of sound and slapstick. Carefully choreographed characters clomp up stairs, slam doors, charge and claw the professor while screeching lines like, "You're not just trying to jolly along the fish, are you?" The laughter evinced in this scene alone would guarantee the work a place as a comic success...