Word: melodrama
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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This production includes some new and inventive scenes not found in the script--pantomimes set to Carmina Burana that provide some melodrama and historical background, not to mention a great way to draw us in to this historical scandal. Drama permeates the whole show, and the intimidating music and effective lighting help the actors excel in this production...
There's more than one way to film a sex scene. You can use MTV's strobe-lit quick cuts of gleaming torsos or Melrose Place's campy, heaving melodrama. But when Rick and Lily, the fortyish divorces (O.K., Lily doesn't have hers yet) whose romance fuels the new series Once and Again (ABC, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. E.T.), first make love, it's done like this: long, somber takes. Clumsy false starts. Cuddling. Tears. And talking. Lots of talking...
...Wring me out!" cried one normally stone-faced critic at the Cannes Film Festival after seeing this vivacious screwball melodrama, which won Almodovar the Best Director prize. Hot tears are an apt response: the two most innocent characters die; the others grieve and carry on womanfully. At the center of the film is Manuela (Cecilia Roth, in a heroically clenched performance), who goes to Barcelona looking for her ex-husband and ends up mothering half a dozen lost souls. She is Mother Courage, Mother Teresa and your mom on her very best day. But All About My Mother also gives...
...throwback. Unlike other broadcast biggies, he doesn't bully his callers or sensationalize his material. He knows it's sensational enough, so he sells it with a soothing baritone and the coaxing, folksy manner of a modern Arthur Godfrey. He doesn't whine or blurt, even if melodrama is swirling around him. When Bell abruptly left Coast to Coast last October for three weeks and took another hiatus this April, he showed old-fashioned reserve in keeping his private anguish private...
Still, there are signs of progress even here. Felicity's virginity loss last season, though tinged with guilt, was refreshingly free of melodrama. And TV's embrace of bad sex is, at best, a stab at honesty, which isn't always pretty. Carrie wonders, "Have we put such a premium on being open and honest with one another that we've misplaced the boundaries of propriety?" Perhaps, but they often came with fictions and stereotypes. For City's cool superwomen, a little cynicism can be empowering, as on an episode about an acquaintance's whirlwind wedding. A lesser sitcom would...