Word: harlequin
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Canadian producers are making other major inroads into the American TV market this season. Alliance has turned out four TV movies based on the popular Harlequin romances, which CBS scheduled opposite football on Sunday afternoons. In late November the network will air Million Dollar Babies, a two-part mini-series about the Dionne quintuplets co-produced by Toronto's Bernard Zukerman Productions and Montreal's Cinar Films. Unlike the few Canadian TV films that have run previously on the networks, this one was bought up front by CBS, and will air simultaneously in both countries. Even the projects headed...
...talk about statistical analysis and random populations, the book strays suspiciously from the standard scientific Protocol. Perhaps the cover, a lurid, close-up shot of a woman's navel surrounded by pink orchids, gives it away. Or the font used in the title lettering, highly reminiscent of a Harlequin romance novel. The interior of the book also betrays any serious scientific aims. Ogden's prose is casual, interrupted by sporadic fits of lyricism: "We allow the energy to reverberate in our consciousness and beyond." Now how exactly does that fit into a Venn diagram...
...Clara and Fritz eagerly await the accompanying presents. Their mysterious and magical godfather, Dr. Drosselmeyer (Laszlo Berdo) enters once all the guests have arrived with a number of surprises that delight the children on stage and off--a scarf turns into a bird, the clock magically obeys his hands, Harlequin and Columbine wind-up dolls (Pollyana Ribeiro and Gabriel Otevrel) dance beautifully and humorously, and most importantly, the godfather presents Clara with a much desired nutcracker. The inclusion of a new and wonderfully executed pas de deux between Clara (Brittany Braga) and Dr. Drosselmeyer, in which Clara tries...
...mephistophelean Rene Bazinet stands at the center of the spectacle. This wiry, pale emcee appears as five different characters throughout the evening, including a demonic schoolboy and a hunchbacked grim reaper and a mischievous harlequin. In a particularly bawdy acrobatic scene involving a gigantic feather bed and a swing set, he appears in striped tights, a harness top and a winged hat that makes him look more like an underworld gogo dancer than a traditional ringmaster. A master of vocal effects, Bazinet plays an imaginary game of catch with the spectators and effortlessly incorporates an audience member into a hilarious...
Josephine Hart wrote her best seller in a style that deserves to be called high Harlequin. Irons and Binoche get into this spirit with their scenes of sexual gymnastics, some of which stretch the laws of physics. But playwright David Hare (Plenty) is more interested in the contortions decent people put themselves through to follow their obsessions while maintaining decorum. Irons has wonderful command of that flummoxed look that seizes the spirit of powerful men who can't understand how they lost control of their life. And Binoche has the lure of mystery in her fine features; she is every...