Word: comically
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...economics makes economics interesting or porn boring, it's the former.) He follows the money down some dark alleys: into peep shows and prisons, subterranean high-tech hydroponic pot farms and camouflaged, garbage-strewn encampments of illegal Mexican farmworkers. He introduces us to Reuben Sturman, a humble Cleveland comic-book salesman who became the founding father of America's $10 billion porn industry and who deserves a whole book of his own. We meet Mark Young, a good-natured loser who got a life sentence--without parole--for his peripheral role in one marijuana deal. Schlosser has a gift...
...brainless metal band, Wind centers around a disaster-prone tribute concert in memory of a late, legendary folk music producer. The premise is just the sort of odd episode that Guest has mined so skillfully in the past, but this time around he maintains little of the comic consistency that he has previously captured, settling instead for ham-handed punch-lines and tonally confused subplots. Guest’s distinctive mockumentary technique is not yet stale, but this latest creation arrives disappointingly undercooked. A Mighty Wind screens...
...biggest drawback of the first installment of the X-Men franchise was its obligation to introduce the comic book series’ numerous characters and their personal histories. A good deal of action and plot development was sacrificed so that mutant after mutant could be paraded across the screen, accompanied by brief biographies and demonstrations of their superpowers. While crucial for filmgoers who had never before explored the X-Men universe, the novelty of seeing each ability on the big screen eventually wore off, and the audience was left with too much hype and not enough...
...dialogue, in true comic book fashion, leans towards the unnecessarily dramatic. After the president views surveillance photographs of the X-Men’s jet Blackbird, he asks Stryker what it’s used for. Stryker, with an expression of utter gravity, replies, “I don’t know. But it comes out of the basketball court.” Adding a tongue-in-cheek quality to such lines would probably have worked much better than playing them straight. But Singer otherwise handles the material admirably, juggling a crowded script and executing the most complex special...
...Mather House Master Sandra Naddaff, Benjamin Nadaff-Hafrey, is the foil to the girls’ feistiness with his calm intellectualism. Naddaff-Hafrey, the youngest member of the cast, a sixth grader and Mather House resident, always seems to be above the fray, delivering his comic lines directly to the audience. Nadaff-Hafrey also wins the dance competition among the group for his tango with Linus’ security blanket...