Word: townsfolk
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Omaha! lasts only 6 1/2 minutes, but on radio it must have sounded like forever. A spoof of Oklahoma!-style Broadway musicals, it features an overture, a story and three original, fully orchestrated songs, including one in which a chorus of townsfolk implores the "Omaha moon" not to shine on Council Bluffs. Only in the last minute does the reason for this lavish parody become apparent. Omaha, Neb., it seems, is the hometown of Butter-Nut Coffee. Omaha! is a commercial...
...more than a decade, Butte has been perversely proud of its strange monument. Townsfolk, in fact, celebrate the acid lake, which, deceptively green and picturesque, sparkles on postcards. The Chamber of Commerce runs a trolley to the viewing stand and gift shop that it operates high over the waters. "Biggest tourist draw in southwest Montana," a chamber official crows. But even as visitors stream in, authorities must take elaborate steps to scare away waterfowl with loudspeakers, firecrackers and a boat. Such precautions weren't in place three years ago, when migrating Canadian snow geese had the misfortune to touch down...
...necessary for the townsfolk, who are stupid and sinful in more ordinary ways, to avoid being drawn into his vengeful scheming, to find a sweet hereafter in which they can at least partly heal. It is a young woman (Sarah Polley)--surely the daughter Stephens wishes he might have had--who opens them to that state of grace in this solemn, subtly structured, beautifully acted and ultimately hypnotic movie...
...twist is that the teacher in question, Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline) refuses to admit he's gay, and what's more, is virtually on the eve of his marriage to a fellow schoolteacher (Joan Cusack). Nonetheless, despite his protestations, he's immediately confronted with throngs of reporters and townsfolk who turn his well-ordered life and his unconscious complacency upside-down...
...oeuvre also has a pleasing misanthropy. The lead character typically believes himself hated for what he is--black or paraplegic or just decent--while the background people are weak, mean souls. The townsfolk in High Noon and The Wild One have the same suspicion about the star whether he is a heroic sheriff or a cool motorcyclist. There's a bootstrap isolationism at work here: the world is out to lynch you, so you'd better make it on your...