Sentences with phrase «if screwball»

«Game Change» is patterned on redemptive Frank Capra and Preston Sturges archetypes (a dash of «Mrs. Palin Goes to Washington» and maybe quite a lot of «Hail, the Conquering Heroine» — minus the hero's moral torment over misrepresenting himself), even if the screwball energy is missing.

If screwball comedies are about sex (previously without the actual sex) and about gender politics and power dynamics between men and women, Mike Nichols» The Fortune falls into this solid, if not always successful, attempt at reviving those little discourses under the guise of manic comedy.

Not exact matches

This man should not be put in charge of a whelk stall, so my friends, at this dawn of a New Year for us all and the club we love, please say a prayer to whatever you believe in for that deity - or just fate, if you prefer — for something, ANYTHING, to remove this screwball manager from our club.

«If he was playing in the 1950s with that pitch, they'd call it a screwball,» says Red Sox pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, who used to coach Martinez on the Expos.

A one - joke movie if ever there was, but the joke happens to be a good one — a Tracy - and - Hepburn - style battle of the sexes in which Kate can fly and blast through walls — and director Ivan Reitman (who made Ghostbusters) feels at home with the mix of screwball and supernatural.

Among other opportunities, it gave Clooney the chance to take his first real stab at screwball comedy, a box he was eventually going to have to check if he wanted to validate the by - now - ubiquitous comparisons between him and Cary Grant.

If this mildly amusing screwball comedy about mistaken identity has a conservative slant of glorifying housewives it's due to the zeitgeist: It was made in 1945, at the end of WWII, when men were coming home and women sent back to the kitchen.

Released: May 20th Cast: Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader Director: Rebecca Miller (The Private Lives of Pippa Lee) Why it's great: If anyone can save the rom - com, it's Greta Gerwig, whose resting screen presence of «screwball comedienne from the 1930s» lights up Miller's tale of crisscrossed lovers and maddening relationship quirks.

Sometimes, it's just a simple overlap in theme, subject matter, or setting — the way, for example, that a screwball comedy like Mistress America can faintly resemble an earnest melodrama like Ten Thousand Saints, if only by virtue of both being about surrogate siblings.

The teaser trailer certainly makes the film look like an embarrassment of riches, with the entire cast seemingly having the time (and hairstyles) of their lives, and if anyone can walk the fine line between serious drama and screwball comedy, and deliver something that audiences and critics alike will love, it's Russell.

There's Something About Mary If you google «screwball comedies,» you'll usually come across this title.

Russell's penchant for barely controlled chaos just isn't funny in the context of diagnosed mental illness, and while Playbook's late shift into a conventional, crowd - pleasing rom - com works exceedingly well, it does so at the expense of all the previous manic episodes, making it seem as if men who suffer from bipolar disorder just need to find a screwball dame to nurse them to health via wacky dance routines.

There is a touch of fin de siècle screwball to these enjoyable if forgettable films.

Yet, if there's one small strike against Miracle it's that its screwball mania can become exhausting.

Some excellent performances from the leads (and some of the supporting cast as well: Lucille Ball, Ann Miller, Adolphe Menjou, and Eve Arden), flashes of brilliant screwball dialogue and Gregory La Cava's efficient if uninspired direction make for a solid film.

It's a comedy that might as well have been transported from Hollywood's Golden Age of high - concept, screwball comedies (if it had been in black - and - white and had a few edits for content, obviously).

It works as a screwball comedy if you're willing to embrace its strange but strong charm, as well as its ridiculous scheming later on in the movie.

If ever one needed proof that the Coen brothers» twisted screwball alchemy isn't easily replicated, Suburbicon provides it: Though directed by one of the filmmakers» regular collaborators, George Clooney, from a script Joel and Ethan wrote themselves, this»50s - set crime caper often plays like a cut - rate Fargo.

Leslie Nielsen has excelled in screwball comedies in the past, but what this film really needs is new blood if there were to be any chance at sustaining our interest.

It's as if the filmmakers were making a screwball 90s period piece, with characterizations and design choices alike coming dangerously close to crossing the line of farce.

If they play it as a screwball comedy, then it hits the aforementioned unholy mess levels, because it would allow Diane Keaton to mug even more than she already does, and the woman needs to be muzzled as it is.

Same with Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays the Prime Minister's Press Secretary as if she were told this was a screwball comedy.