Word: sitcomming
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There is nothing at all extraordinary about this scene, which has the bad flat feel of a Spanish language sitcom, and I mention it only because of the murder at the end. It is a non-murder; director Cassavetes chooses to show us a window being blown out by a shotgun blast into the sunlit air, and no more. No blood, no violence, and that is a disappointment. Of course there is nothing intrinsically good about violence in the cinema, and those who would tell us that there is come off as silly as those who would picket The Warriors...
Democracy fares very poorly in the ratings this year. Obviously the public is trying to tell politicians and networks something-about conventions as well as about the choice of candidates. If a political convention were a sitcom, it would be canceled by now. If it were a miniseries, as in some respects it is, any producer would be devising more ways to skip the boring parts and speed it up. Conventions, however, are the work of four different and uncoordinated producers-the party chairman and the three networks-all vying for an audience that gets smaller and smaller. Almost...
...When J.R., after 17 episodes of malign neglect, finally embraced his infant son, viewers responded with nearly 10,000 letters-half saying "Thank God!," the other half saying "Don't ruin it by reforming him.") Hagman developed a touch for light comedy on TV in the '60s sitcom / Dream ofJeannie. He plays the villainy sotto voce and the humor-the infectious delight J.R. brings to the business of malevolent one-upmanship-fortissimo. He struts, whinnies, talks out loud to himself; he has a grand time being bad. His soft, smooth, surprisingly characterless face expresses J.R.'s childishness...
After the Air Force, Hagman tried his luck off-Broadway, then did a two-year stint on The Edge of Night. There were several modest roles in movies, including one memorable semivillain in The Group. But Hagman's most important part before Dallas was in the airhead sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. For Hagman it was the big break. He worked constantly, rewriting scripts, fighting to get the best possible performers. "I was driven, compulsive," he remembers. "I yelled at people. Finally I couldn't take it any more. I started to vomit...
Ouch! As with a lot of other things in this curious little movie, which has the bland air of a sitcom but is blacker in spirit than it pretends to be, there is bitter, discomfiting truth in that moment. Writer Kaufman's guiding spirit is not misogynistic; he lays about him with a fine, impartial hand. For example, Jane Curtin, who could turn out to be Saturday Night Live's most valuable contribution to the movies, plays a woman reduced to instant penury when her husband abandons her and raids all their bank accounts before informing...