Word: plot
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...keeps him too busy being wide-eyed and gulpy. The wonderful period sets, costumes and scenery (filmed in Spain, with horses and falconry and royal picnics galore) might have seemed heavy and historically meticulous except that there's always something faintly ridiculous going on, which never distracts because the plot keeps a driving pace...
...Barking Deer isn't a good novel. The completeness of the catastrophe seems a little contrived, and so does a lot of the rest of the plot. The whole book is fairly badly written, with uniformly short, monotonous sentences that often lack verbs. Sometimes this seems to be an attempt at ironic distancing--for instance, Rubin sometimes tries without success to tell us what Vietnamese think Americans think Vietnamese are thinking--but most times it seems to be just the way Rubin writes. Partly as a result of his syntax and partly because of the childish-sounding exclamations with which...
...Errol Flynn swashbuckle approach, with slapstick sloshed in every few minutes to douse whatever drama or gravity or sentimentality might begin to smolder. Lester and screenwriter George MacDonald Fraser don't play with any matches here--no pretensions, no messages, no appearance of over-exertion. It's all plot and pretty faces. This approach becomes more than just a safety precaution because it brings out a wholesome sense of exhilaration in the actors. as if they all finally have a chance to show their skills without worrying about making their career by giving transcendent performances or surrendering to constricting roles...
...Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra is the latest disc from the Firesign Theatre. It marks a return to the group's earlier mode: the 40-minute sound drama with crooked cast and treacherous plot line. The protagonist this time is Hemlock Stones, Firesign Theatre's addition to a history of Sherlock Holmes variants. He and his Watson, Dr. Flotsom, live to 99 Bakersfield St. in London, and produce cheap detective novels...
...play works on a certain amount of cleverness and a great deal of coincidence, but most of all, it works on the audience's patience. Sheridan milks his characters for everything they're worth, which isn't more than a few idiosyncrasies. And the plot's chaotic entanglements are as predictable as the first few tricky moves of a cat's cradle. The rivals, Bob Acres and Sir Lucius O'Trigger, vie for the hand of lovely Lydia Languish, who remains cloistered under the guardianship of her old-maid aunt, Mrs. Malaprop. Disguised as Ensign Beverly, Captain Absolute has already...