Word: shtick
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...fingers crossed. There's no excuse, though, for the limp material that host Jonathan Ross, the BBC's high-priced answer to Jay Leno, was tossing out all night. His running gag - that the writers' strike had left him with nothing but a bunch of lame puns - is a shtick Leno used months ago. And it doesn't make sense anyway, since Britain's writers aren't on strike. The evening's evidence does suggest, though, that in sympathy with their U.S. counterparts they just gave up trying. Schooling the Oscars
...well on stage, and that lack the comic propulsion that keeps The Producers moving along. That puts a lot more burden on the usual Brooksian jokes about big knockers and small penises - which, as a result, seem more desperate this time around. The Producers was comedy; Young Frankenstein is shtick...
...dogs and shaved ice and took his family to the park in clown costumes to perform. "I hated selling hot dogs. I hated dressing up in clown," LaBeouf says. "But the minute somebody would buy into my thing and buy a hot dog from my family because of my shtick, my parents would look at me like, 'All right, man.' Besides performing, I've never had that validation from anything else I've ever done in my life...
...Remy enters, crashing, to the final happy fadeout, Ratatouille parades the brio and depth that set Pixar apart from and above other animation studios. The flood that separates Remy from his family is turbulent, terrifically choreographed, action-movie excitement. The budding Remy-Linguini friendship grows naturally, without clamor or shtick--quite a feat, considering how dense and gauche the young man can be. The tonal quality is pretty amazing for a CGI movie. The usual harsh plastic visuals are replaced by muted, luscious views of late-afternoon Paris...
...Life, as I see it, is R-rated," Rogen says. Then he giggles. It's so R-rated that Knocked Up--despite scenes depicting childbirth from health-class angles--is a muted version of Rogen's shtick. "We said, 'The dude gets married? That's kind of lame,'" says writing partner Goldberg. "We write stuff where the universe ends and Martians land." But Rogen says he has learned from Apatow to focus on story and emotional honesty over aliens and punch lines. "Apatow kept saying, 'Less semen. More emotion,'" says Rogen...