Word: elemental
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...Pamela subplot, which has the most potential to be something resembling a drama, is the most disappointing element of the monologue; we never hear enough about Pamela to believe that Marler is interested in her, and when he loses her we don't see it as any kind of defeat. The closest thing we get to an absorbing problem is Marler's struggle with social phobia, which he presents honestly and sympathetically; but this too is unresolved, apparently cured by having passed his exams...
...industry's optimistic reaction seems justified. Take coats, for instance. They were the strongest single element in the shows held in the three major fashion capitals-not innovative, but fastidiously cut and elegant. They even looked warm. Many of the best were redingotes, originally an 18th century man's mantle, with a fitted waist and full skirt. Hermes, which went far beyond its traditional horse-culture clothes, had some midnight-blue beauties. For the truly romantic, Yohji Yamamoto continued his exploration of Victorian dress with very full crinoline coats. All around the designer map, from Dior to Ralph Lauren...
Authenticity is an essential element of the blues, and the problem with Polly Jean Harvey's CD is that there is not a single honest emotion in it. A listener feels like shouting at her, e la Tom Cruise confronting Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, "I want the truth!" Alas, Harvey can't handle the truth. She obscures her feelings (and her vocal shortcomings) with screaming and squealing. The title track has an absorbing groove, but Harvey's self-consciously raw and distorted vocals push listeners away. The throbbing, mysterious Down by the Water is another melodically intriguing...
...technique set a standard for all films to follow; anyone who believes that "Pulp Fiction" was the first film with a nonlinear plot should take a front row seat at the Brattle on Monday night. The film is told, in present and past, as a quest for the elusive element that drove him through his triumphs and to his downfall. The only clue is Kane's dying word, "a piece in a jigsaw puzzle": "Rosebud...
...Billy Crudup) has the aplomb but not the haunted intellectual uneasiness Rufus Sewell conveyed. A pleasing surprise, however, is Robert Sean Leonard, playing Valentine Coverly, a modern-day biologist and computer scientist. As Claudio in Kenneth Branagh's film Much Ado About Nothing, Leonard looked thoroughly out of his element while trying to do what stage actors traditionally do--proclaim words of love in ornamental verse. Here, in an odder role that requires him to speak of mathematics in hard-edged, gemlike prose, he is gratifyingly convincing...