Word: slapsticker
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...Wagner's demand that his works be called "music-dramas." But most scoff at that today, and take the music much more seriously than the drama. Sellars does the opposite, and compensates for the loss in musical clarity with wonderfully adroit stagecraft. Sometimes it descends to the level of slapstick pot-shots at Wagner's Nibelungs, Gibichungs, forest-birds and bears, but at least as often it sensibly comments on the eternal production problems of the Ring...
...Show. In the new show, these writers have again loaded a simple sitcom premise with a wide variety of well-drawn (and exceptionally well cast) characters, sophisticated jokes and astute social observations. The first episode, which may be a classic of its kind, also manages to work in unforced slapstick gags, a touch of pathos and a double-whammy final punch line...
...parables written out of anger at some inexplicable kink in the collective psyche: blind trust in science and scientists (Cat's Cradle); faith in war as a rational activity (Slaughterhouse-Five). After a lengthy period of mellowed-out serenity (and two mediocre novels, Breakfast of Champions and Slapstick), Vonnegut is mad again. His target in Jailbird is money, specifically the odd systems that people have invented for distributing and withholding...
THROUGHOUT the silent film era, comedy was one of the most cinematic genres due to the tremendous visual dynamism of slapstick. With the advent of sound, film comedies became merely photographic recordings of funny dialogue and burlesque situations which could be effectively mounted on the stage. Even comedies of the 30's (including those made by the Marx Brothers which were unique in their own way) continued to exploit non-verbal, absurd gags. More contemporaneous comedians such as Jerry Lewis, Peter Sellers and Mel Brooks also rely heavily on verbal puns and physical mise-en-scene, yet still with...
Director Arthur Hiller (Silver Streak) keeps the cast in tight control, and that is all he does. He misedits the slapstick sequences, bathes every scene in pasty white light and seems incapable of placing the camera in its proper position. Then again, maybe it is just as well that there is not a first-rate film maker behind The In-Laws. Had someone directed this movie for all it is worth, the audience might never get up from the floor...