Sentences with phrase «between slapstick»

The Zellner brothers combined alternate between slapstick comedy and poignant drama to send the genre into a new, more modern sunset.

But the Russos» deft switching between slapstick and melodrama, the surprising outcomes of key storylines, and the strength of the central performances go a long way towards overcoming nitpicks.

It veers, dizzily, between slapstick scatalogical comedy and poignant existential philosophy, doing so with the sort of invention generally credited to silent - film clowns.

But his seesawing between slapstick and horror comes across as opportunistic because ultimately he can not place the lives of these men in a credible moral context.

It's hard to get a handle on the tone of the piece, jarring as it does back and forth between slapstick and mordancy in a way too clumsy to be fruitful.

The idea of letting the likes of Farrell, Fey, and Hill loose within this colorful playground is undeniably appealing, but the picture rarely clicks as smoothly as it should, caught between the slapstick demands of the genre and the exceedingly clever tongues of the cast.

Not exact matches

Among the other controversies the tycoon has been involved in includes a slapstick legal battle that took place last year between the billionaire and a former confidant, the investment banker Jeffrey Blue.

It centers on a rivalry between its two main characters, Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse, and many recurring characters, based around slapstick comedy.

A frantic sequence set in the theatre, with Shrek and his wife Fiona dolled up in full King and Queen garb, also hits the right balance between pure slapstick and visual invention.

Critics Consensus: Playing Jack Frost as an evil cross between Liza Minnelli and Liberace, Martin Short is a welcome presence, but this tired series continues drawing from its bag of bland gags and dumb slapstick.

Most folks tend to find a hard line between comedy and slapstick.

Like this summer's other slapstick cause célèbre, «Pineapple Express,» it's a comedy with as high or higher a body count as the movies it purports to be parodying, and the problem isn't the violence per se but rather the fact that neither movie ever finds a satisfactory balance between tongue - in - cheek and guts - in - hand.

When Curly (Will Sasso) tells Larry (Sean Hayes) that the latter's smacks, kicks, and eye - pokes just aren't the same as Moe's (Chris Diamantopoulos), it may come across as some weird compromise between classic Stooges slapstick and feature - film semi-seriousness, but this is Farrelly territory, so you'd better believe it.

Like Palka's mom - dog, the movie is a mess, clicking back and forth between shadowy horror, suburban melodrama, and the kind of slapstick family comedy in which I half - expected Eddie Murphy to burst through the front door in a fat suit.

That leaves two potential demographics for the movie, with a wide age gap in between — older audiences who recall the original black - and - white Stooges shorts and features, and small children who will be receptive to the barrage of silly slapstick gags and pratfalls.

This doesn't mean «Lincoln» is entirely free of heavy - handed moments — an early encounter between Lincoln and some young soldiers verges on the corny and there's some near - slapstick stuff involving spivvy lobbyists.

Any hope that third - time luck would finally enliven the McCarthy / Falcone partnership is almost immediately lost with an establishing sitcom tone that lurches maniacally between cartoonish slapstick and grating sentimentality.

«Atlanta's» 10 episodes shift between seriousness and slapstick, examining issues like identity and appropriation with an immediacy and intelligence that made it unlike anything else on television.

There's still Slapstick - style films that come out, but those are far and few between nowadays.

While the story isn't particularly original, and the movie tends to drift over the top into broad slapstick, this comedy wins us over due to the camaraderie between the characters.

The main problem with director Franz Oz's film was that it was all over the place in tone — veering between dry wit, scatological slapstick and sticky sentimentality — with dull sections that dragged in between.

More slapstick than gumshoe, The Nice Guys is at its best when riffing broadly on the chaotic chemistry between its chalk - and - cheese male stars.

Gnomeo & Juliet desperately straddled that sloppy middle ground between loud, kid - friendly slapstick and winking at adults through instantly dated pop - culture gags and celebrity cameos, to perfectly average results.

In these moments, Blue Streak works both as a satire of action - movie conventions and as a slapstick meditation on the disparity in power between the police and the poor people they protect and serve.

This kind of forced marriage between silly slapstick and graphic decapitations is evidenced in the comic kung - fu flick, Handsome Siblings.

Alas, Binder tries to tread the line between philosophy and farce, satire and slapstick, and with so many contrasting story devices, the imbalance of mood finally does the film in as a potentially intelligent piece of entertainment.

Down the road we meet more extended family and long lost friends, including a pair of low - life cousins, and an old crony played with cagey charm by Stacy Keach: the action is sandwiched between a blackly comic side trip to the family graveyard, and a slapstick «air compressor caper» at a neighboring farm.

The entanglement between these seven characters is recounted in flashback as Isabella is interviewed by a jaded Hollywood reporter (Illeana Douglas), so the film has a rather episodic structure as it traces each slapstick encounter between these people.

In this 1927 silent film, Fields» flair for visual and slapstick comedy is on display, but sorely missed is that unique voice which was so adept at conveying between - the - lines contempt, annoyance, sarcasm, and disgust.

On the negative, that would have also made the film lose its only redeemable element, which is Applegate's valiant effort to give an actual performance amid all the inanity of all the slapstick and the tedium of a forced romantic subplot between André and the gardener next door (Tara Reid).

Actually, this film never seems to be able to make up its mind what its genre is - sashaying back and forth between the documentary in which characters address the camera, slapstick, melodrama and stand - up.

The Mysteries of Laura — which fluctuates wildly between mostly serious police procedural and slapstick family comedy — has been picked up for a full season by NBC.

Working with a suitably drab desaturated Super-16 palette, first - time director Fabrice Du Welz draws heavily on the macabre domestic slapstick of Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the rural paranoia of Straw Dogs and Deliverance for this unsettling male - anxiety fantasy, striking the right balance between grim sadism and grotesque comedy.

A tense confrontation in a pub bathroom between Gary and a hoodie - clad youth explodes suddenly into surrealist slapstick, and The World's End turns on a dime from a soused comedy of manners into a science - fiction spectacle that ambitiously splits the difference between John Wyndham and John Carpenter.

What follows is an often macabre and sporadically funny attempt at conjuring a laugh from a ghastly slice of history, with a talented cast wasted on a thankless script by Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft (St. Trinians), and the poor direction of Landis who can't find the balance between grizzly murder and comedic slapstick.

Strawberry Fields is an impossible book to sum up - Lewycka plays with language and the miscommunication between cultures as she bounces her characters from slapstick to sitcom.

Billed as a «dexterity adventure», Manual Samuel makes everyday situations increasingly slapstick as simple tasks such as getting dressed become hilarious set pieces where forgetting to breathe can mean the difference between successfully getting your pants on.

Exactly how or why little LEGO Batman and the rest of the characters managed to learn the art of conversing in between LEGO Batman and LEGO Batman 2 shall forever remain a mystery, but there's no denying that this is a brave move on the developers behalf as much of the franchises appeal can be traced back to the simple fact that watching mute little plastic people miming their feelings and attempting to convey complex emotions through the art of slapstick is awesome.

Designed by Charles Cecil, of Broken Sword fame, Beneath A Steel Sky found a middle ground between the punishing puzzles of Sierra and the slapstick comedy of LucasArts.

Giving a wry twist to the overheated debate around bathroom access, the artist assails borders between genders, and between bodies and their accessories, with a kind of dignified slapstick.

Located somewhere between Duchamp and slapstick comedy, Daphne Fitzpatrick's photography, found objects, and mixed - media installations infuse the quotidian with uncanny meaning through repetition, shifts in scale, and eyebrow - raising juxtapositions.

Like a slapstick comedian, he strikes emotional notes of humor and pathos in equal measures, alternating between moments of antic joy and Sisyphean futility.

In an event for a live audience aptly scheduled for Valentine's Day, the couple from the video performed once more the hour - long cycle of slapstick violence around the table, completing Etchells» series of inter-related components which highlight the complex relationship between live action, documentation, prop and script; all equally valid as sites of event.