Word: manically
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...school types. In their effort to meet the Beatles, the kids hijack cars and Plaza elevators; they defy parents, cops and gravity. The best scenes belong to the cast's two most talented actors, Nancy Allen (as the most demure of the girls) and Eddie Deezen (as a manic Ringo fetishist). In one delicious bit, Allen actually sneaks into the Beatles' suite, where she proceeds to have riotously raunchy encounters with her heroes' musical instruments and toilet articles...
...Bogart fan. In Bogart, Allen has found the perfect role model for all the short, ordinary-looking people of the world; after all, for Bogie, life--and dames--are simple. This is one of the few Allen films that Allen himself did not direct, and what is lost in manic humor is gained in coherence and sensitivity. Diane Keaton plays the paramour as usual, with the perfect blend of love, whine and neurosis. And the brilliant recreation of the famous Casablanca airport scene seems a perfect ending touch to this wonderful film...
There are times when Joffe sees himself as "manic, troubled, confused" and isn't sure exactly why Various people along the way have tried to suggest to him that his problems, his continuing confusion and uncertainty, are the result of his early Sha Na Na success and the way that it delayed traditional adolescent insecurities about adapting and conforming, about adjusting and pursuing a career. But Joffe never felt that that analysis rang true...
...crazy. He would do anything to get a laugh, and while his written gags frequently bore the stamp of genius, he often resorted to simply slapstick or "dirty" words. Either way, audiences loved him or his material, and today Brooks is perhaps the most successful comedian in America. His manic energy and his sense of humor carried him from Lake Kiamesha to television and finally, inevitably, to Hollywood, from whence he has just released his sixth film, High Anxiety...
Despite all the shenanigans--and there are lots of them--High Anxiety somehow fails. In his search for a less manic style of humor Brooks has gone too far in the other direction; his own characterization provides an apt example. Thorndike, as played by Brooks, is a very serious gent, with all the dignity that befits a Harvard faculty member (tenured, of course) and a Nobel laureate. Thorndike radiates a sort of nervous rationality, except during his seizures of High Anxiety, so most of his good lines seem like deadpanned straight lines. Only once is Brooks himself very funny...