Word: conceits
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...perhaps smoothing over, the complexities of a man whose only legacy was his music. Allen says of his creation: He was funny. Or if funny is the wrong word, sort of pathetic in a way. I mean he was flamboyant and he was boorish and obnoxious. The documentary conceit has the effect of making the story feel distant and made-up, but it also allows the screenplay to be uninhibited about making the characters into pure flights of fancy, without worrying too much about contradiction or consistency. The movie is more interested in portraying what we might imagine the life...
...films coda is satisfying enough on both an intellectual and an emotional level, but the very concept of Sweet and Lowdown, with its invented biographical framework and loosely connected scenes, works against the film burning itself in your memory. Even Penns fiery Emmet is too contained by the movies conceit to really stick with you. Perhaps its symbolic of what Allen has achieved here that Mortons Hattie is the only character who transcends the movies clever but self-limiting setup. Though Allen is traditionally known for his witty, fast-paced dialogue, youll remember her silent, expressive eyes long after everything...
...poles and the moon. Forced diasporas for populations in Africa, North America, Europe and elsewhere. Journeys across oceans for wars and police actions, and trips home in body bags. Forays around southern capes in tall ships and across Eurasia in caravans. And just as this millennium is a Western conceit, the story of the past thousand years is largely the story of the tourism of Western peoples over the span of the earth, to encroach on and economically dominate the rest of the world. If fewer representatives of the wealthiest peoples scatter to the shrines and monuments of the cultures...
Morris' bizarre conceit of inserting his fictional alter ego into some parts of Reagan's life story begins in the very first chapter, in which Morris recounts his (apparently real) agony over whether to accept the role as the official presidential biographer. He alludes, confusingly, to having seen Reagan as a youth, and then tells the apparently true story of spending an evening with the Reagans at the White House...
...Brooks plays a screenwriter, Steven Phillips, who, as everyone keeps telling him, has lost his edge. What he needs is a muse, who turns out to be a bubble-headed material girl (well played by Sharon Stone) who requires gifts from Tiffany in exchange for dopily delphic advice. The conceit is mildly amusing, but what Brooks actually seems to have lost is his comic rhythm. There's something distant and depressed about the film, which never develops the momentum it needs to link its occasional bright satiric moments into a convincing whole...