Word: comically
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LARGER THAN LIFE (July 19). Bill Murray, who looks great as the villain in Kingpin, here goes on a cross-country trek with an elephant. Murray's a terrific comic actor, but really, road movies are the pits unless it's the late '60s, the elephant is a mule, and Jack Nicholson is along for the ride...
MATILDA (August 2), about a girl's revenge on her cruddy parents and evil schoolmistress, has the potential delectations of a Roald Dahl story and Danny DeVito's knowing comic direction. DeVito also plays Matilda's dad, expectorating lines like, "Why wudja wanna read, when ya got the television set sittin' right in frunnaya?" Or, we might add, when ya got a 'plex-full of icky kids' films...
...Angelo's heroic efforts, suspending the viewer in a permanent state of ghoulish expectation. Those not killed by the cholera are reduced to panic-stricken animals, ready to turn on anyone suspected of spreading the dread disease. Oddly enough, this aspect of human nature is portrayed in a purely comic manner, highlighted by a brief but very funny cameo appearance of Gerard Depardieu as the harried mayor of a cholerastricken town. However, this humor doesn't really lighten the rest of the movie, which is pretty plainly meant to be taken seriously...
...described as "late century cyberpunk frat." Over by the patio is a slate-gray pool table perched on construction girders, and out on the lawn is a sensory-deprivation chamber. The garage is less a garage than a World Wide Web command post. Hiding among the overstuffed sofas and comic- book art in the living room are a video-game power glove, the latest issue of Rolling Stone and a Yoda mask. The dining room is dominated by a psychedelic poster from an old Don Knotts movie. But the master bedroom, which Leary refers to as his "de-animation room...
SENOR WENCES, 100, MANHATTAN; Ventriloquist from TV's golden age His guttural "s'all right" and squeaky "s'okay" have somehow remained part of the American comic vocabulary even as Senor Wences has faded from sight. Last week the ventriloquist quietly celebrated his 100th birthday with family in Manhattan before taking off for his customary half-year in his native Spain. Senor Wences was a staple on TV for three decades, starting on the Ed Sullivan Show, where he conducted absurd conversations with his dummy Pedro, his puppet Cecelia the chicken, or the blond-wigged Johnny, a face he painted...