Word: melodrama
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Sonny is a composite of preachers from rural Texas, Virginia and Tennessee. "I listened to the way they whoop," he says, "then hold the note and cut it with a cadence." If you expect a Jimmy Swaggart-style spellbinder, who coaxes near operatic melodrama from his rich baritone, E.F. will disappoint you. The narrow range of Duvall's voice can convey muscle and danger; the music is lacking. His whoop is a thing of will, not an expression of soulful exuberance. For that, listen to the real preachers Duvall hired for small roles. Black or white, they'll have...
...Amistad, the story of a shipful of African slaves and their struggle for freedom, Stephen Spielberg pulls out all the stops, pouring on the pathos and the pity, spooning on the sympathy and drenching it all in melodrama. Spielberg has apparently decided to stop making films and instead to start performing "filmmaking." Despite a number of excellent performances, what could very well have been a poignant and emotional tale is so concertedly and self-consciously delivered as such that it just comes out muddied and misconceived. --Jon B. Dinerstein...
...more complex, Goldberg and Rabbit successfully humanize initially unlike-able characters. Frank, who begins to support his mother and her aspirations earlier than his sister does, shows great difficulty in dealing with her relationship with Claire. Goldberg is sensitive with an aspect of Frank that is scripted more as melodrama than depth of character, and instead portrays the ambivalence of a confused and threatened...
...Practice Set in a small, scrappy law firm, ABC's The Practice is a very entertaining melodrama, even if it breaks no new ground. The cast is good, especially Michael Badalucco as a struggling personal-injury lawyer, and the scripts are smartly plotted, with some humor thrown in too. As our hero, Dylan McDermott manages not only to have good hair but also to seem genuinely savvy and charismatic...
...Bible plays like wild melodrama: a father commanded to sacrifice his child, an ark in a deluge, God's son betrayed and murdered and reborn. Ideal material for Martin Scorsese, as he proved in The Last Temptation of Christ, his mean-streets-of-Jerusalem story of a tormented Jesus. By contrast, Buddhist texts are static and serene, antidramatic. And the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet is the ultimate good fellow, not a goodfella. So what can Scorsese find to make his own in KUNDUN...