Word: comical
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...nuns and monks, say, who are content with God's radiant attention--sets out in life to remain obscure? Fame is fun--and vindication. One need never be lonely, anywhere, ever. Fame has style, glamour, money, attention; ignites the sudden light of recognition in strangers' eyes, commands the comic deference of headwaiters as they sweep you past the serfs and hoi polloi to the best table...
...heart of its intricacy, the film basically follows the misfortunes of three Los Angeles cops as they trace the links among the murder of a corrupt colleague, a pioneer of sleazoid celebrity journalism (Danny DeVito, who brings huge comic relish to the role), a shadowy social climber (David Straithairn), who is enamored of underworld glamour, a call girl (an entrancing Kim Basinger) working for a service whose employees are obliged to imitate movie stars (she's the Veronica Lake look-alike), and, eventually, major players in the Los Angeles law-enforcement hierarchy...
...Burns, the filmmakers have commissioned a clay model of the comic's head, accurate down to "every blemish, wart and liver spot," as Greenberg puts it. The head will then be scanned into a computer and brought to life with what is known as motion-capture technology, using data from sensors that have been attached to an actor--in this case the old impressionist Frank Gorshin, who will give Burns' performance. No doubt this production will be watched closely by the effects industry, as well as by Rich Little's agent. Greenberg is promising pretty grand results: "Someone with...
...with our lawn mowers. If all goes well, our grandchildren will encounter the floodplains of Mars in a third-grade geography lesson, and maybe even find them a little dull. But cuteness short-circuits the whole process of learning and discovery. When we turn the Martian terrain into a comic strip, when we reduce a tragic hero to an action figure, we are making things seem tame and familiar before we even know what they are. We are insisting, in our pathetic provincialism, that there is nothing out there--either in the mythic past or the distant reaches of space...
...mutants, horror comic books and the birth of rock 'n' roll. But that was just kid stuff, the teen taste that eventually took over pop culture. The prevailing tone on '50s movie and TV screens was adult, earnest, upper-middlebrow. Dozens of hourlong teledramas probed modern and historical topics each week. At movie theaters people found that for every social problem, Hollywood had not a solution but a script. Are you looking for the Golden Age of Television? You'll find it in the work of Fred Coe. You want to send a movie message? Call Stanley Kramer...