Word: melodramas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...with a crusty exterior covering up his sentimental inside, and Rees Morrison is the innocent young rat who's just migrated from Greenwich. Connecticut to make his way up in the big city. The two play well opposite each other moving quickly back and forth from over acted melodrama to flip humor and they've already learned how to adjust to the specific atmosphere generated by each audience...
...hard time deciding whether the play is a comedy or a tragedy (despite all the jokes, one of the rats kills the other in the end), and the actors tend to vary their technique according to the prevailing mood. At Fliot for example they began to exaggerate the melodrama when they found it provoked laughter. "I think the play is funnier than Currier House thought it was, but not as funny as they thought it was at South House," said Glenda. The cast, on the other hand, enjoyed the South House performance tremendously. "When everybody's laughing, people...
...dwells in a tone of wistful resignation. The problem again is Rafelson's self-conscious world-weariness. He shows Nicholson improvising in the bathroom. "The form of the tragic autobiography is dead. I have chosen radio...because my life is hopefully, comically unworthy." If this is a snub at melodrama, it is hardly less sentimental. Rafelson has merely traded in emotional pathos for grotesque wihimsy David's jadedness is supposed to be glamorous, but David is drugged by his own disillusion; and this is irresponsible escapism...
Neither good intention nor Prince's talented direction are enough to support the crushing weight of O'Neill's foolish aspirations. Instead of settling for good melodrama. O'Neill has dug up actors masks from their classical graveyard and with them hopes not only to represent his characters' divided souls but also to express the "mystery" that is the meaning of any event...
...imprisonment, rape, unhappy love affairs: the elements of Billie Holiday's life sound like a soap-opera maker's dream and any serious film based on it would have to be handled carefully so as not to result in a tear-jerker. However, while the Berry Gordy production avoids melodrama and the extravaganza often used in filming the life of a legend, some inconsistencies exist that are so extreme as to be incongruous...