Word: variously
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...avenues, and sneaks into an old brownstone where, in an upstairs bedroom, a woman dies while giving birth. Sustained opening shots can be empty gimmicks (anyone see The Bird-cage?), but Jerzy Zielinski's vivid camera-work shifts moods so subtly in each new context that, within minutes, the various textures of Old New York--from public pageantry to private grief--are established...
...this initial burst of heat tapers off, it becomes increasingly obvious that, to put it tactfully, warmth is not the chief attribute of this household. Mia and Warren, who emerge as the two central figures of this menage, both evidently bear a deep-rooted hostility toward their father, thought various expressed: Mia seethes with a bitterness that continually cracks through the surface, while Warren's anger, being mixed with personal guilt, is internalized for most of the film. Their resentment envelops the more peripheral characters such that the air at each family dinner is not so much charged as brittle...
...movie's ending is sudden and inexplicably hollow: instead of focusing on any of the various types of violence portrayed, the film switches into epic mode and portrays Mike Max as a changed man who is grateful that he's been robbed of his job, his life and his identity. Several key questions are left unanswered...
...stand alone as an elegant short story, pile on thick layers of detail to create an intensely believable and likable character. Information given obliquely in one chapter may be stated directly, as background, four chapters later. But this repetition is never boring; the gradual accretion of detail makes the various twists and turns of Larry's life seem eminently plausible...
...Debauchery Dance" is an annual event in which guests are given 10 tickets upon entry. Those who perform various dares throughout the night gain tickets. Whoever accumulates the most tickets at the end of the evening wins a prize