Word: comical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When in Three Sisters Olga, Masha and Irina yearn for Moscow, they echo the youthful Chekhov. He fell under the city's spell while attending medical school, where none of his fellow students connected him with "Antosha Chekhonte," the pseudonym under which he wrote comic stories. It was not until 1887, with the staging of his play Ivanov, that the public knew the author as A.P. Chekhov. Reviewers were generally hostile; "a flippantly cynical piece of foolishness, foul and immoral," said the man from the Muscovite Newssheet. But with the appearance of the story The Steppe in 1888, Chekhov...
...search of humor, A Summons to Memphis provides it. The comedy is situational, two spinster sisters preventing their octagenerian father from remarrying; descriptive, this same eccentric duo frequenting nightclubs, dressed in sequined, clingy, front-and-back plunging fashions; and double-edged, undercut by a gently cynical realism. The comic sensibility is particular to Taylor's novel, but the truths revealed are universal...
...project to mount flowers on trees around Harvard Yard and the revival of a ballet based on the comic strip "Krazy Kat" were among the 10 offbeat proposals selected this week to receive funds from the Harvard-Radcliffe Arts Council...
Clockwise, like Peter Seller's The Party, is a comedy of slow self-destruction. Mr. Simpson merely misses his train, and the inevitable chain of disasters begins, reaching a comic critical mass in a mud patch in the English countryside. On his journey into an ordinary man's heart of darkness, he incurs the wrath of wife, ex-lover, police, and hapless passersby, and attracts the affections of one of his older students. The climax at the headmasters' conference is a hilarious recreation of Simpson's schoolroom with adult students, bringing the plot into a neat full circle...
...biggest problem with this film is that the audience sees the comic premise coming, and while there are plenty of surprises, there are also a lot of gags that one would expect in this sort of comedy. One can often easily guess the next measure of desperation to which Cleese will be driven, whether it be stealing transport or lying to the authorities. So, while the film has plenty of paralysing funniness, it also has long stretches of British dryness and worn-out conventions...