Word: melodrama
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...when Aronofsky and Williams tone it down for the modest middle sequence, where modern-day researcher Thomas hunts for a cancer cure that will save his wife, the book becomes an unconvincing melodrama with two stock archetypes: the driven scientific male who struggles to defeat death and the beatific, artistic female who courageously accepts it. Without the star wattage of real people to put over the chemistry of the characters, the authors never build up a convincing case for the timelessness of this relationship. They need to stretch out the quiet bits, but, even at over 160 pages, the pace...
Tatsumi's The Push Man collects stories written in 1969, with an eye towards annual volumes that will collect more of this prolific artist's decades-long career. Totally absent of giant robots, schoolgirl romantic melodrama or any manner of supernatural beings, the stories of The Push Man are set exclusively in the gritty, working-class world of Japan's modern cities. Mostly kept to eight pages due to their original appearance in a Japanese comic anthology, they are endlessly inventive, compact tales full of cruel irony, quiet desperation and schadenfreude. Editor Adrian Tomine (author of Summer Blonde), correctly points...
...focusing on Japan's urban underclass, Tatsumi's stories feature many characters traditional to crime melodrama - pimps, prostitutes and hitmen - but without the glamour often associated with them. They toil and suffer in their labor as miserably as their counterparts in the "straight" world. The pimp, for example, begins to hate himself for sponging off of his prostitute girlfriend. So he runs off with another girl to the country to start a new life. On the way she says, "I'll work hard and take care of you," as he looks at her askance. Who among us hasn't made...
...should be all too familiar with this brattiness and those bruised egos. Between two sisters and several roommates, I should be outright sick of Midol and melodrama. Tired of Greek sororities and female societies (Kappa Beta Bee what?). Dozens of dames in a dorm—I must be requesting damage control...
BLEAK HOUSE PBS, SUNDAYS, 9 P.M. E.T. Even at eight hours, this adaptation of Charles Dickens' tale of an interminable inheritance case is quite nimble a feat for writer Andrew Davies. The Masterpiece Theatre coproduction captures the novel's satire, melodrama and horror-movie suspense without undercutting any of those disparate tones. Gillian Anderson is haunting as Lady Dedlock, a claimant tormented by the mystery of a long-lost lover. But the emotional heart of the story is Esther (Anna Maxwell Martin), the sensible orphan caught up in the suit. This is law drama such as Boston Legal's David...