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Most scripted TV shows manage to pull off that feat a dozen times a year or more. Previously, “Trapped” rarely varied from its blunt camera style and obvious green-screen segments.īut in a way this is much hullabaloo about nothing: all the new chapters together fit into one hour of TV programming. There are new scenes in which the characters tell their stories in a newsmagazine setting, as if their private quarrels have become public scandal. Now he’s mostly a “Masterpiece Theater”-like omniscient sage in a trim suit. Kelly’s narrator isn’t the freewheeling ghost of before, breaking fourth walls and walking through scenes he’s describing. Now that “Trapped” chapters are on IFC, there are some indications that more money is in play. In the videos he plays several of the characters, too. Kelly sings - in character, for every character. It’s acted in a broadly comic style, with everyone lip-syncing to the words Mr. In general, the female characters are less fleshed out than their men. Kelly), who often brandishes a gun but is surprisingly empathetic - plenty of episodes involve him encouraging other characters to talk. The main characters include Rufus, a married pastor with a boyfriend on the side Twan, a fresh-out-of-jail hoodlum looking for a new start and Sylvester (played by Mr. The backdrop is essentially one longish, ominous, slow-moving loop, which gives a sense that although “Trapped in the Closet” climaxes every few minutes, as its cycles of mistrust and betrayal come to a head, it may never end.
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(Chapters vary in length from about two to eight minutes.)Įven though every line in it is sung, “Trapped” is more than a traditional musical. On Friday night “Trapped in the Closet” continues - formerly released on DVD, it is now being shown on IFC - slightly more fanciful than before, with an hour’s worth of new chapters, Nos. Kelly’s past recedes, which may be the point.
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The louder and stranger “Trapped in the Closet” becomes, the more Mr. His “ Trapped in the Closet” series of musical minifilms has come to eclipse his music, while together those things have struggled to eclipse his very public personal and legal struggles. Kelly has been building an alternate universe for himself.
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