Word: slam-bang
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THERE'S AN OLD cinematic recipe for directors of suspense films: Mix quirky but endearing characters. Add love story and dash of intrigue. Garnish with slam-bang conclusion in odd place, i.e., merry-go-round, theater, Mount Rush-more. Alfred Hitchock, the master of such concoctions, entranced audiences with well-developed characters and more than the usual quota of suspense. He involved audiences in his mysteries, by sharing the guilt of the crimes: they knew where the gun was hidden, who was the double...
Whatever political comment Used Cars aims to make (and there is a hilarious moment involving a presidential address), it gets lost in the car race that consumes the second half of the film. All of it is tongue-in-cheek, silly with a hint of satire but the slam-bang plot turns the movie into a predictable demolition derby...
...dreadlocks and kielbasa, an "industrial squeeze" that "looks like a luxury,/Feels like a disease." This is Modern Man bombarded by machines, crying for the human touch as he vocally ascends the scale to keep from being swallowed, and succumbs with a heart-rending wail. The song is followed slam-bang by "Beaten To the Punch," in which Elvis races to keep up with the noisy, busy instruments, seizing opportunities before everyone else, and discovering, as he goes under with a shriek, that he has become a prisoner of his choices...
...first period last Friday, the Americans left the ice with a 2-2 tie, thanks to a last-second goal scored by Mark Johnson from the University of Wisconsin. When the Soviets returned from intermission, they came out playing as if they had had intimations of Siberia. Their slam-bang forechecking kept the Americans from penetrating much beyond center ice. The game got brawlingly physical. Trailing 3-2 as the final period started, the Americans started skating better and controlling the puck with more authority. Thrown offstride, the Soviets were unable to set up then-intricate plays or pass cross...
...sequences, especially one involving Pepe le Pew, the amorous French-accented skunk, and it may be a mistake to use Bugs as a host-narrator. His specialty was one-liners, and a mouthful of words ill suits his style. But why quibble? Jones was a latecomer to the unpretentious, slam-bang Warner Bros, animation department, and if he did not invent most of the studio's great cartoon stars, he brought the house manner to its finest flowering, less elaborate than Disney's, but often far funnier. This modest retrospective provides a fine occasion to salute an American...