Word: melodrama
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...almost as if the producers of popular culture sensed, and tried instinctively to compensate for, this defect. For the content of movies, popular music, latterly television, has remained stubbornly locked to the 19th century traditions of melodrama and romance. We may admire the multiple narrators of Citizen Kane, not to mention its sheer panache; we may adore Bart Simpson, not least because he's such a self-conscious little transgressor, so aware of both his self-destructive impulses and his generally thwarted impulse to be better. But we have to admit that these remain rather lonely modernist gestures in mass...
...movie's most tragic--and heavily fictionalized--passage. There is something tiresome in her toughness. But that's emblematic of the whole movie, which misses what was most engaging about Kaysen's memoir--the unique sound of her voice, mostly drowned out here by too familiar attitudes and melodrama...
...ABOUT MY MOTHER A Madrid nurse (Cecilia Roth), luxuriating in grief, goes to Barcelona, where she learns to live again by tending to creatures even more wounded than she. Pedro Almodovar's screwball melodrama has all the kooky verve of his early comedies, but with a depth and life-enhancing warmth that proves Spain's bad boy has reached a vibrant maturity. If this movie doesn't touch your heart, consult a cardiologist. You may be missing something...
...Unfortunately, the plot and screenplay detract from the film's artistic merit. James Schamus' screenplay might reflect the language of the Civil War, yet the dialogue is entirely self-important and melodrama destroys any stake the viewer might have in the plot. Lee wishes to establish the North as a human presence, so Roedel reads some found union letters to the camp. Similarly, Lee has Roedel and Chiles talk under the stars to emphasize the characters' brotherhood...
...dramatic moments of this play do not tend toward melodrama; they reveal the talents of Hur and Kim. The loss of Karen's mother, the collapse and death of Bibi's father, and of course the Massacre itself are such powerful moments that very real emotion travels between Bibi and Karen and reverberates through the audience. Bibi and Karen seem to be connected through their experiences. Throughout their friendship, they learn that they have much in common, and although the premise is that they are never reunited after their first encounter, they often speak directly and even touch across...