Word: pseudo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Segal, whose comic gifts are evident even in melodrama, is allowed a few light moments in the murky pseudo-sensitivity. But whenever the risibility reaches visibility, it is quashed by Director Irvin Kershner's instinct for vulgarity. Most of the time Segal lurches self-sorrowfully around town as if he had just received six bullets in the stomach. The rest of the cast, including such proven caricaturists as Keenan Wynn and Sterling Hayden, similarly behave as if they were dispensing painful truths instead of numbing fictions...
This problem, combined with the lack of singing voices, the near-fatal miscasting of the female lead, and the lack of style in much of the blocking and pseudo-choreography, gave me that feeling of death I associate with the Saturday afternoons I spent taking tickets at a theatre in Washington where so many hopeful Broad-way shows seemed to wilt up and die before my very eyes during their tryouts...
...Eggs" was whipped up by Sciences Staffer Harry Atkins with the full knowledge and encouragement of Editor Margery Barnett-who two years ago published another Atkins put-on, "Summer Migrations," a pseudo-analytical piece on vacationing Americans. Says Miss Barnett: "Once in a while it's nice to run something to get us out of the groove of reporting straight science...
...fault: the first two hours. In adapting Maxwell Anderson's pretentious free-verse play, the film makers have resurrected cliches that have lain dormant for decades. There are "get-out-of-my-sight" scenes that have not been witnessed since Bette Davis hung up her spites. There are pseudo profundities that recall the worst of The Lion in Winter: "I am the King of England; when I pray, God answers." Even the costumes are exaggerated. Lest the audience miss the villainous character of Cardinal Wolsey (Anthony Quayle), he is wrapped in a Satanic scarlet no vicar ever wore...
...course, demonstrations, like most of the other "events" the press covers (such as interviews, press conferences, ship launchings) are not real events (Daniel Boorstin calls them "pseudo-events"). They are not spontaneous; they are merely shows for the press. They "demonstrate" that people are dissatisfied with things. They are not a real reaction to the dissatisfaction...