Word: comical
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...replied. Only one of them was joking. And yet they did have fun. She made him salads at 4 in the morning; he made her laugh with a manic-heroic rendition of Soliloquy from Carousel. He would be, she thought, just the guy to offer sex, schmoozing and comic relief, between babies. Oh, yes, and they were famous, at least in the emerald ghettos of Manhattan and Georgetown. For Heartburn was a smart, tattling novel pretty much about its author, the saucy wit Nora Ephron, and her second husband, Watergate Wonder Boy Carl Bernstein...
Heartburn is now a movie, one sure to stoke controversy because of a comic tone that swerves deftly from affection to irony to flippancy to icy revenge. In its portrayal of Rachel, who needs so much love, and Mark, who wants too much sex, the film may seem to suggest that all women are fools and all men knaves. In fact, it says that nothing is sadder than enduring the death of romance, and nothing more wryly poignant than looking at it from the outside. In Heartburn (as in Kramer vs. Kramer), the "outside" is the tunnel-vision point...
They provide comic relief, especially Hudson, whose "Let's get out of here" response to every situation makes him a kind of audience surrogate. For Cameron, however, the Marines have another unstated use: "Their training and technology are inappropriate for the specifics, and that can be seen as analogous to the inability of superior American firepower to conquer the unseen enemy in Viet Nam: a lot of firepower and very little wisdom, and it didn't work...
Shakespeare would have had a fine time with Sigourney Weaver: creating Viola and Beatrice with her in mind, collaborating with her on the odd comic masterpiece, vagabonding through London in some very comely company. Shaw would have been smitten by her combination of regal beauty and irreverent wit, of life force and light farce. The old Hollywood masters of penthouse comedy would have embraced this screwball Garbo, alive and kicking up her heels...
...rest of the crew; Hodgson, a dumb, smartass soldier whose terrified vulnerability in the face of the aliens makes him human after all; and a mean drill sargeant with a dry wit who has one of the film's greatest lines. Cameron manages to work in just enough comic relief to keep the audience from breaking down under the strain of intense fear...