Word: humor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Many of the characters in Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll are failures at the American dream. They're marginalized, unhappy. By illustrating the humor and the sadness in their lives, Bogosian asks us to redeem them...
...comedians struggling for recognition in a Manhattan night club. Even their jokes provoke more thought than laughter. Steven (Tom Hanks) is a medical school dropout whose comic routines are pointed reminiscences of his own failures as a student. Lilah (Sally Field), a New Jersey housewife with a yen for humor, fails miserably at first at the business of being funny. She resorts to time-worn Polish jokes--you know the type: "My husband's Polish. He gave me something long and hard when we got married...a last name." Understandably, these earn more catcalls than applause, and for advice...
Yeah, the film could be a lot funnier. Few of the jokes have anything to do with the situation. Most are sight gags and double entendres, and a lot have to do with Elvira's cleavage. Though this sort of humor is usually enough to carry her TV show, it is not enough to carry a feature-length film...
...least impersonal of cities. Understatement has no place here. Rather, this is a brawny, rough-and-tumble, rollicking place, animated by the earthy good humor of its Chaucerian folk. Hurly-burly impromptu is the way of Seoul. Round-faced women set up huge speakers on busy street corners, then sit beside them, crooning along to organ music as they entertain themselves. Hypervendors stack up rows of imitation Reeboks on the hoods of cars, using the backseats as storerooms for their goods. A man wanders out onto the sidewalk in his pajamas...
...fallen asleep while reading the text. Bush's own acceptance speech was peppered with such put-downs as "I'll try to be fair to the other side; I'll try to hold my charisma in check." The aim is both to lower expectations and defuse the critics with humor. But does anybody want Rodney Dangerfield for President...