Word: costelloe
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...Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth centers on a pair of drug-addled New York City teens who wrangle over what to do with the $15,000 one of them has stolen from his father. The dialogue and acting--a kind of slacker version of Abbott and Costello--are unrelentingly naturalistic, even as the play betrays a sentimental streak. A grittier take on youth culture is Trainspotting, Harry Gibson's riveting stage adaptation of Irvine Welsh's cult novel about disaffected Scottish youth, which was also the basis for the 1996 film. Staged with stark efficiency, it manages...
...hear you saying, "but Jim Carrey is funny!" Yep. Sandler is Carrey or Jerry Lewis without the physical dexterity, Danny Kaye without the verbal grace, Steve Martin without the patrician veneer. In the longer movie view, he's Abbott without Costello. Moviemakers and critics were probably not thrilled that, in 1941, with a mediocre B movie called Buck Privates, Bud and Lou were briefly Hollywood's top stars. What can we say? People want to laugh--at anything. Sandler happens...
...Marie Costello '35 said, "if you can find two alumnae who agree, I'll give...
Bacharach supports Costello with mostly excellent arrangements which may leave his fans with a sense of deja vu: the twin flugelhorns, the wispy strings, the fuzzy horns, the retro female background singers. Only when Bacharach stretches his orchestrations into more rock-oriented territory does the music suggest outtakes from the schmaltzy Michael MacDonald recordings from the mid-80s. Few of the songs, though, sound so maudlin, and the melodies themselves stay thoroughly grounded in reality; these pop songs may be old-fashioned, but they sound far from melodramatic or artificial. Heartbreak itself, after all, is awfully old-fashioned...
What makes Bacharach and Costello's achievement so remarkable is their articulation of the coexistence of radiant love and its passing. Betrayals and reconciliations, obsessions and evasions coincide in the same words and while a song may express the despair of heartache, the music exposes the allure of it as well. The grief is unbearable but its melody is so sweet, so fragile, Bacharach and Costello seem to wonder who can live without it. Like love itself, of course, no one can. As in these desolate and beautiful stories, Painted from Memory suggests, we too may linger on the comforting...