Word: tropes
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...Galactic Empire or dumping The Ring in Mount Doom, but shouldn?t there be a place in the canon of epic films for a story about a man trying to keep his dying beloved alive? Kids, who think they?ll live forever, might not hook up to this trope, but adults should. They?ve certainly seen it before: Armand trying to breathe life into the dying Marguerite Gautier, or Romeo trying to shake the poison out of Juliet, or Isolde going operatic over Tristan. The Fountain is essentially a classic deathbed scene, at feature length and sustained intensity...
High-ranking Vatican sources say Benedict will avoid repeating the Islam-and-violence trope in any form as blatant as Regensburg's. Instead, suggests Father Thomas Reese, a senior research fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, an independent nonprofit institute at Georgetown, the Pope may take a less broad-brush approach to the issue by repeating his sentiment from Cologne: "He could say, 'You, like me, are concerned about terrorism' and he would like to see Islamic clerics be more up front condemning it." Once over the hump, happier topics should be easy to find. "Quite frankly," says...
...familiar, and holds very few twists. Included within is the traditional “boy meets girl, girl changes boy” formula along with the rather tired “city-boy leaves city, falls in love with country, understands error of former city-boy ways” trope. Despite his reliance on over-used plot structures, Scott presents a film that both charms and captivates the audience. Some credit is due to Peter Mayle, who wrote the source material, a best-selling novel of the same name. However, the change of setting from the United States to Europe...
Clueless, desperate-to-fit-in, optimistic foreigners are a classic comedy trope--the Clouseaus, Cousin Balkis, Morks, Two Wild and Crazy Guys--because they spotlight the ridiculousness that we accept. When he's at a rodeo, driving the crowd into a frenzy with anti-Iraqi, pro-war cheers, Borat demonstrates how much aggression is intertwined with patriotism. And his attempts to be American pinpoint exactly how the world sees us: garish, violent, nouveau riche, a land of Donald Trumps and 50 Cents...
...quite-convincingly-graying Pitt likewise has little to do other than alternately bristle and cower. The usually charismatic Gael García Bernal (“The Science of Sleep”) is unfortunately given only a peripheral role. Iñárritu tries to underscore his miscommunication trope by riling up characters too quickly, and without much cause. As a result, interaction between characters never feels entirely authentic and the message is undermined.Like his characters, Iñárritu’s no good at telling, but he’s wonderful when it comes to showing...