Word: plot
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...novel. It is a euphonious mystery story set at a U.S. Army Air Corps training base during the 1940s. Flying, in the mechanical as well as transcendental sense, is basic to the action, which is surprisingly abundant for a book that is shaped by poetic impulses rather than plot...
These echoes contribute a great deal to a novel that is stronger on atmosphere than plot. In the beginning, the U.S. has just defeated Spain, gaining sway over the Caribbean and, by way of the Philippines, a foothold in the Pacific. A lot of talk ensues about whether an American empire is a good idea. The speakers include William McKinley, McKinley's Secretary of State John Hay, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Adams, William Randolph Hearst and Henry James, who comes onstage briefly to wonder, "How can we, who cannot honestly govern ourselves, take up the task of governing others?" James' point...
Martin, who wrote the pretty-funny, too-soppy script, means to drink from the river this time. He wants it all: laughs, tears, low comedy, uplift. It doesn't quite happen, partly because the movie begs for poignance like an orphaned puppy, partly because modern plastic surgery makes the plot anachronistic, partly because, even with his Cyranose, C.D. is a darned sight more attractive than his beefy rival. Aaaahh, who cares, as long as Steve Martin gets a chance to strut his physical grace, wrap his mouth around clever dialogue, clamber up to rooftops like a Tarzan of the Northwest...
...stage is chockablock with tenpins aloft, batons atwirl, trapeze and low- wire acts, fire eating and belly dancing, pratfalls, cartwheels and unicycling. Somewhere amid all this are the rudiments of Shakespeare's farcical plot about twin brothers and their twin servants and even a modicum of his language, although not without elaborate nose thumbing at his low and labored puns...
...contends "makes no sense and is for the critics to figure out") is actually the collaboration of Guterman and most of his close friends and roommates. In the film, Guterman--who deftly plays himself with a Woody Allen flair--speaks to the audience of his suspicions concerning Sinai's plot to kill...