Word: wilder
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Gene Wilder, who writes, directs, and stars in one quarter of Sunday Lovers, comes closest to generating some interest, playing a young divorcee who struggles to defeat his monumental impotence. But Wilder proves once again that Mel Brooks' waste basket is not a sufficient creative source for a movie, or even part of one. The problem is that in the one-dimensional logic of Sunday Lovers, in order for Wilder's character to be impotent, he must also be a freak. In fact, we learn that after his last premature ejaculation he attempted suicide and was committed to a mental...
Kathleen Quinlan, whose acting stands out among the cast's mediocre performances, almost saves Wilder's skit with a sensitive portrayal of the woman who seems willing to reform the deviant. Again the script intervenes. Quinlan is married and loves her husband. Surprisel She was really just out for her own physical satisfaction...
...razor-sharp ridicule of American pop culture, and ingenious manipulation of every tiny comic detail of insipid domestic life. Unfortunately, Shrinking Woman--in its last half hour--reneges on its tacit deal with the audience, degenerating from incisive social satire to the silly comedy-adventure shenanigans of a Gene Wilder--Richard Pryor movie. Director Joel Schumacher and scriptwriter Jane Wagner let the film slowly slide into the quicksand of banality, and they rely on the immeasurable talents of their star to keep Shrinking Woman's head above the slime...
Perhaps Pryor does too much watching: Wilder gets to do all the arabesques while his partner waits for him to fall to earth. Viewers too must stand around as Stir Crazy makes wrong turns, slogs across Saharas of unnecessary plotting, and unravels at its denouement. But that may simply make the triumph of Wilder and Pryor all the more savory. Recipe for a popular movie: take a series of stock situations, two gifted farceurs, and stir. Crazy...
DIED. Alec Wilder, 73, idiosyncratic composer who was equally adept at wistful popular songs (It's So Peaceful in the Country, I'll Be Around, While We're Young) and unfashionably melodic orchestral and chamber works, and whose 1972 book, American Popular Song, showed him to be a gifted writer as well; of lung cancer; in Gainesville...