Word: conceptions
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Allen is lucky that his clever though slight concept is bolstered by actors who breathe an impressive amount of life into their limited characters. Sean Penn gleefully slips into Emmets skin. Stuttering, overconfident and vulnerable, Emmet is a bundle of nervous tics that Penn knows how to make believable. Emmet is, in addition to being a performance artist, a kleptomaniac, pimp and all-around heel, who somehow comes off as a nice guy despite himself. The running joke of the movie is that Emmet Ray is the second greatest jazz guitarist of his time, and the two times that Emmet...
...Despite its short running time the movie does occasionally become tiresome in its second half, when Morton drops out of the picture to make way for a fancier enchantress. Unfortunately, Uma Thurman disappoints as Blanche, an Anais Nin wannabe with a fetish for performing geniuses: the amusing concept of her character doesnt justify her time on screen. The period detail, though sumptuously photographed by Chinese cinematographer Zhao Fei, doesnt hold interest on its own. Happily, the film finds its way back again in the end when Emmet shows up outside Hatties laundry. A lovely scene between Penn and Morton...
...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...
That was the question on my mind after reading about the "New York Times Capsule" last Sunday. On the face of it, the concept of a millennial time capsule sounds simple enough: Create a vessel--sealed with late-20th century artifacts--with instructions that it should be opened no earlier than the year...
Sound ludicrous? That's what her friends said. So Clemmons did some research and conferred with Mory Gharib, an aeronautics engineer at the California Institute of Technology, who surprised everyone by endorsing her concept. According to Gharib, two 6-ft. by 15-ft. kites, used in conjunction with three pulleys, will easily lift the average pyramid stone in a 25-m.p.h. wind. "It needs more study," Gharib says, "but all of the math works." Others were persuaded by what they witnessed. "I thought it was bull," admits Lynn Velazquez, an administrator at Pepperdine University who assists with the field tests...