Word: main
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...problem is that it's difficult to maintain emotional identification with the main characters while we're having our minds and emotions numbed. For instance, the scenes of Max and Horst at work in the concentration camp--endless vistas of two ragged, small figures stumbling across the whiteness of stone or snow in their meaningless work--evoke echoes of the theatre of the absurd, of postmodern anguish a la Waiting for Godot. But it seems unclear why this effect is courted in the first place. The movie's ultimate aim appears to be a statement about the sublime aptitudes...
...looks like Harvard is still stuck in the days of wine and togas. Just as the artistic and unconventional visiting director's version of The Bacchae closes at the Agassiz Theatre, a grandiose production of the same play bursts onto the Loeb Main Stage. As the entire theater community, from performers to playgoers, watches with anticipation and some trepidation, one question still looms on everyone's mind: will the last production taint the response to this show, or will this one overshadow the memories of the last...
...entirely incompatible. While the courtroom drama is an exercise in laughable platitudes, Rudy's quest to save the abused Danes is imbued with vicious reality. Scenes where Danes' husband confronts her with a baseball bat completely betray the light-hearted mood--and, in fact, underscore the inadequacy of the main storyline. Indeed, when the movie drops this subplot abruptly in order to focus on the legal battle, the film grinds to a screeching halt...
Keillor's charmingly lucid writing, however, cannot hide the gaping flaws of the plot and main characters in Wobegon Boy. Almost halfway through the novel, a magazine with a front-page picture and article appears one day, depicting John as a "portly Lutheran Lothario" who "tried to 'psychologically seduce'" women at the public radio station where he works. However, up to that point in the book, readers are lead to believe that John is kind, quiet, in love with his girlfriend Alida, and not coming close to stepping on anyone's toes along the way. This sudden, almost violent disclosure...
...portrayed as unsympathetic whining yuppies, but John himself is far from innocent. When trying to entice a rich elderly lady to donate her fortune to his radio station, he describes an opera--which, incidentally, bears a startling resemblence to the Tony- and Pulitzer-Prize winning Rent--produced by his main competetor for the money. After describing it with much disgust, John declares that "people writhing around...singing political slogans does not constitute opera." Other potentially humorous moments in the text also ring with underscored conservative sentiments. Newt Gingrich is described as a "battling visionary" comparable to Susan B. Anthony...