Word: melodrama
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...spice to the old recipe. Sex is more explicit, and husbands and wives can now be shown in bed together-with naked shoulders, no less. An observer of CBS charges that the number of rapes on the network's soaps betrays an effort "to increase the melodrama, which means using either the penis or the switchblade." Even the good people are now seen drinking. There are also black lawyers and doctors wandering around Sudsville. Although some of the shows are trying to develop a social conscience and thereby attract younger viewers, a real discussion of racial problems...
...footwork. But with fourteen scenes, her steps rapidly grow familiar. The formula is for a surprise or hanging suspense finale in every episode. This would be fine if it ever relented, but finally predictability pushes The Bull over the edge of serious comedy to a surprisingly brazen brand of melodrama. "Teddy you can't do this to me," Casey tells her manager when he threatens to walk out. "Watch me," he says and then strides away. "I'm not going to protect you from life," another tells her, "the way your jokes protect you from feeling." "Casey please...
Kubrick's early successes were heightened journalism, always initially dependent on particular bits of recreated social reality. Now, perhaps believing that the Big Statement is the only one worth making, and that he's well qualified to make it, Kubrick's gone, after the flukey 2001, from high melodrama to melodramatic allegory. I had better feelings for his prior worst film Killer's Kiss: it had an amusingly-typed boxer hero, and interesting views of Brooklyn, of all places. Sadly, you can't work your way back to unpretentiousness. Kubrick's changed into a pseudo-intellectual's movie mogul, proclaiming...
...melodrama was right in keeping with the kind of picture Paramount had in mind. The company wanted a quickie exploiting the book's success, shot in modern dress in St. Louis on a relatively low budget of $2.5 million. To direct it, Paramount Production Chief Robert Evans approached Peter Yates, who had established his thriller credentials with Bullitt; Richard Brooks, who shot In Cold Blood; and even Greek Director Costa Gavras, the man who made Z. When, for various reasons, none of these choices worked out, Evans went for a dark horse: Francis Ford Coppola, who was only...
...result is a movie that - despite the mayhem and gallons of gore - is far more than the soap opera full of raw energy that might have been expected. It is far more than an efficient action melodrama - more, even, than just a good solid movie. It is a movie that exemplifies what is great in the Hollywood tradition. Out of all the false starts and chaos and hassles, Coppola has created something that promises to open a rewarding new phase in Brando's career and put Coppola in the forefront of American film artists...