Word: scripted
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This semester, for instance, his 'something to do' includes writing the winning script for the annual Hasty Pudding show, directing one play and starring in another, not to mention joining On Thin Ice--Harvard's improvisational theater troupe--and having his first-ever play performed by a theater group in Boston...
...inspiration for the script stems from Tolins' passion for opera, he explains. "Also, I'm a big fan of show biz and all its tackiness," he says...
...with thumping self-recognition scenes. But if the scales finally fall from Harvey's eyes, they do not clang loudly to the floor but slither there ambiguously. Although Gillian surely understands that she is a kind of human sponge, sopping up all her family's messy emotional spillovers, the script never gives her the sort of revolutionary speech that would make a feminist stand up and cheer. Such words would be out of character and would not make the point as effectively as her steadfastness does...
...GOTTA Have It follows in the noble independent film tradition that also includes Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise. Like Stranger, the low budget heavily dictated the nature of the script, but it didn't dampen the spirit of the film. Filming in 11 days, with minimal sets (either Nola's boudoir or the streets of Brooklyn) and a small no-megastar cast, Lee made the most of what he had. And that includes a terribly talented family circle: his father, the esteemed jazz pianist/composer Bill Lee, furnished the splendid score as well as a nice cameo performance as father...
...Gotta Have It does, alas, bear some traces of its rushed production schedule and quick script-writing. Although every actor delivers the direct camera addresses with genuine skill and wit, dialogue can occasionally sound forced or recited. Several scenes seem contrived. Take, for example, the Thanksgiving dinner Nola sets up to introduce all the rivals on the theory that "you were all going to meet one day..." Of course, the results are disastrous and Nola should know better than to have expected civility on such an occasion. Still, Lee can be forgiven almost any such questionable twists of plot because...