Word: shanley
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Written by John Patrick Shanley, whose other credits include "Moon-struck" and "Joe vs. the Volcano", "Four Dogs" opened to rave reviews in both New York and Los Angeles. And deservedly so, since it takes the worst stereotypes plaguing the film industry and weaves them into a complex web of machinations, as each character tries to manipulate the others into fulfilling his, or her, own desires. No one is above seduction, threats overt and covert, back-stabbing, or just plain simple bitchiness...
...these intrigues are played out in separate scenes, each featuring a different pair of characters. This device focuses the attention of the audience on the characters on stage, allowing every detail of Shanley's carefully constructed comic situations to come across. The cast luxuriates in the limelight, and makes full use of it to exhibit their comic ability. Punchlines are delivered with precision, and no gesture is lost on the audience...
...that forced its surviving passengers to cannibalism: early on, the movie has a great avalanche. After that, it's all downhill. The acting (Ethan Hawke and Vincent Spano are the stars) starts at a pitch of whiny hysteria and rarely lets up. The dialogue, by ace playwright John Patrick Shanley, sounds as if poorly translated from the Spanish: "What have we done that God now asks us to eat the bodies of our own dead friends?" Dissing aside, that makes for a poignant ethical dilemma and a telling religious metaphor. But Alive strands its theme of haunted heroism -- what...
BEGGARS IN THE HOUSE OF PLENTY. The family is as quarrelsome as in Moonstruck, but this time John Patrick Shanley views the combat unforgivingly. His own off-Broadway staging is stylized and energetic. The role based on him is convincingly played by Loren Dean, star of the current film Billy Bathgate...
...VERSUS THE VOLCANO. In this wan bit of whimsy from Moonstruck writer John Patrick Shanley, Tom Hanks plays a young man who believes he is dying and so agrees to jump into a live volcano. The picture makes no more sense than its synopsis, though Meg Ryan beguiles in three different roles...