Word: formulaic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...film's setting is an idealized Lancashire town where American G.I.s are stationed while waiting to invade the Continent. The plot is Hollywood's ancient love-today-for-tomorrow-we-die formula, taken to the third power: three Yanks of varying rank (Richard Gere, William Devane, Chick Vennera) relentlessly pursue three Englishwomen of varying social status (Lisa Eichhorn, Vanessa Redgrave, Wendy Morgan). Since two of the heroines have home-town heartthrobs fighting overseas, the American interlopers meet with some early but usually temporary setbacks. By the time the movie reaches its climax-an irresistible train station farewell, complete...
...Graham Chapman's snooty King Arthur deserved to have shit flung upon him. In Jabberwocky, a 1976 bomb starring two Python members, the mock-epic dropped out entirely and left the cast wallowing in a cesspool of gore and unbearable toilet humor. Life of Brian returns to the successful formula of Holy Grail, spoofing a genre of film and its directorial cliches with both skillful imitation and derision...
Another key goal of the conference is finding a formula for the installation of a peace-keeping force, probably supplied by Commonwealth nations, to supervise a truce until new elections can be held. If that compromise cannot be achieved, neither side has any alternative but to keep fighting it out on the battlefield, where no one has any hope of a victory...
Foley also said that he favored the Boston "formula" in settling the dispute over the costs of the visit...
Peter Yates' PG Breaking Away returns to the old formula. Against a tide of cinematic drivel, Yates and a few other directors are making a stand with small-scale movies which make up in honesty for what they lack in monumentality and pyrotechnics. Cheered on by his audiences and lauded by critics, Yates, with a movie about bicycles, has out-distanced power-driven, Dolbyized, super-slick monsters like Rocky II and smug, summer-hyped star vehicles like Meatballs...