Word: manic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Played as unregenerate soap opera-like Doctors' Wives, for example (see following story)-it might have been diverting enough. But Director Jerry Schatzberg, Scenarist Adrien Joyce and Star Faye Dunaway are resolutely serious about every single moment, and the result is embarrassment. Miss Dunaway plays (quite badly) a manic fashion mannequin named Lou Andreas Sand, whose beauty and psyche crumble under the assorted and predictable pressures of the Big Time in New York. Even her language becomes stylized and stilted...
...Manic Pixilation. In the early stages of Bed and Board, the marriage is deftly presented as an even mixture of affection, innocence and Gallic eccentricity. Antoine and Christine play games at bedtime; Antoine manages to land then lose a succession of unlikely jobs; Christine bears their first child. But Doinel, the eternal mooncalf, is lured away by a Japanese girl. He moves in with the Oriental, who speaks no French and proceeds by slow inches to drive her new lover crazy with boredom. Antoine then woos Christine anew, discussing his general dissatisfaction and lassitude. Long-suffering but still loving...
...their own comic innocence, Truffaut's people owe much to the creations of William Saroyan, an author to whom Truffaut paid homage in Shoot the Piano Player. But in Saroyan there is still much pain. In Truffaut it is increasingly concealed behind a general air of slightly manic pixilation...
...Where's Poppa?. Carl Reiner's manic and excruciatingly funny film about what a son is to do when his aged mother just won't leave him alone. The whole movie operates at a hyped-up level that does not so much ignore reality as compress it. Reiner has also succeeded in finding a visual equation for his primarily verbal humor on occasion. George Segal is the son, Ruth Gordon is Mom, and there are awfully nice bits by character actor Ron Leibman and an ingenue named Trish Van Devere...
...occasion, Director Carl Reiner offers an ingenious sight gag, and the energy of his cast is never allowed below the manic level, producing some legitimate, if frantic laughter. It was not for nothing that Reiner was the greatest second banana in TV history; it was for next to nothing. His film is but a single joke, and the punch line is the commonplace twelve-letter obscenity...