Word: plot
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...seem to have consciously avoided that course of action. Instead, they give us John Kelso (Cusack), an idealistic young writer from New York who comes to Savannah to write an essay on a Christmas party and ends up getting involved in Williams' murder trial. By embroiling Kelso in the plot, the refreshing detachment of Berendt's narrative is lost. The story shifts from the town and people of Savannah to the fictional Kelso--his life, his ideals and, I'm sorry to say, his loves...
That's right, there's a love plot, and an underdeveloped one at that. The writers have taken Mandy Nichols (Alison Eastwood, Clint's daughter), a relatively minor character in the book, and turned her into a nubile tart for Kelso to romance. You can almost hear the producers saying, "Let's get some old-fashioned heterosexual love into this story...
Deprived of an effective narrator, Berendt's brilliant anecdotes are enslaved by the "trial plot," which the writers have chosen to reign supreme over the storyline. The movie starts to play like a day at the zoo: look at the goofy Southern people! Strong personalities like the volatile hustler Billy Hanson (played awkwardly by Jude Law) dissolve into mere plot devices or cheap gags. The score doesn't help (Billy Hanson enters room, cue fore-boding music. Drag queen walks down the street, cue sultry saxophone...
...makers of this super-animatronic clunker were so enamored with themselves for creating swarms of giant bugs, big fancy spaceships and massive explosions, and so sure the audience would be equally enthralled, that they neglected to make a passable movie. The effects are unsupported by any semblance of plot, character development, directing, editing or acting. If you've seen the preview, then you've enjoyed it considerably more than anyone who actually sat through...
...Cold War, James Bond espionage thrillers and the theater itself, along with more pratfalls than even Chevy Chase could dream of. Wallace (Bill Murray) drops in on his richer brother (Peter Gallagher) and, thinking he's doing participatory theater, quickly finds he is the "wrong man" in an espionage plot. The name of the game is irony and near-misses, as Murray keeps the audience laughing--when he's not tossing Russian nested dolls...