Word: scripting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ABSURD, fairy-tale premise of the story works in Kosinski's novel because the author, like the Grimms, writes caressing, witty words while he brazenly plunders his frail theme. Ashby's direction of Kosinski's script slips at times from wit to slapstick but generally maintains a simple, even tone reflective of his hero, the boob-tube boob...
Being There is not flawless, however. Jack Warden was cast terribly as the president and several of his scenes in bed with the first lady lack the precise timing and vigor that MacLaine and Sellers bring to their roles. Kosinski has also padded the script with the geneses of several subplots and characters that he leaves hanging forever, an annoying trait that does not occur in his novels, in which all loose ends are cleverly macramaed by the last page. Like Kosinski's novels, however, the film playfully and insightfully taunts our plodding culture at the same time it entertains...
...from Electric Horseman. Willy Nelson, the singer, has the best line in Electric Horseman. Sunning in a cafe near Caesar's Palace he plans to get "a bottle of tequilla and keno girl who can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch." Nelson wrote that himself and the slick script of this Hollywood romance rarely matches the rugged quality of his improvisation. Indeed the film suffers from the same slickness and image-mongering that it purports to criticize...
Fonda, however, continues her series of chillingly smug self-portraits in this installment of "The Jane Fonda Story." Even when the script calls for a loving gaze, she still has a look in her eyes that says "Ha ha, I'm making two million dollars a year so Tom and I can afford to be ostentatiously political." And while the camera tries to catch her pert derriere every time she bends over, Fonda looks older than ever before. Redford should have kept Rising Star and set Fonda free with the mustangs...