Word: plotting
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...WALL•E. And not to forget the bereft father, twisted by family tragedy, from last week's Law Abiding Citizen. "If you lose your son like this," a fellow scientist tells Dr. Tenma, "and you don't go crazy, you're not a human being." Tenma doesn't plot the ingenious murders of everyone in Metro City, the way the father does in Law Abiding Citizen; he simply, and more plausibly, averts his heart from the child he has created, because this Toby is so close to the real Toby as to be both painful reminder and a cruel...
...Ergo” is the story of three men—the widower Wacholder, his stepson Aslan, and the tenant Leo—living at “Custom House No. 8,” a dilapidated lodgment by an unnamed river. Much of the plot is chaotic or simply unclear. The novel takes for granted its unconventional structure; it frequently jumps from character to character, with each delivering bizarre and fanciful episodes. The narrative treats characters without any semblance of sympathy or logic. During the first half of the book, Aslan barely carries a significant role. All the reader...
...derived from the quote. However, the redundant use of crude language and even the purpose behind its use, which is always the same, become an annoyance. The structural chaos of “Ergo” only aggravates the redundancy. Lind’s technique—whether concerning plot, character, or language—disturbs for the sake of disturbance...
Thankfully, the cinematography and set provide ample relief from the humdrum plot. A whirling and occasionally unfocused camera heightens the camp of the freak show, filled with the patchwork tents and car parts that form the wandering circus’ home. This cozy shantytown contrasts perfectly with the imposing black car of the evil Desmond “Mr.” Tiny (Michael Cerveris), whose license plate, “Des-Tiny,” is one of the film’s many ingratiating flourishes...
...above all others it is John C. Reilly who steals the show. Clad in a flowing red cape and tight showman pants, Reilly as Crepsley manages to control the flow of the plot without sullying himself in its clichés. In addition to supplying the quips that help to develop the comedic aspects of the film, Crepsley’s cynicism also provides alternative messages to the film’s more obvious moral points about diversity: as a vampire who has lived for 200 years, he philosophizes that “life may be meaningless, but death...