conceit

It breaks the movie out of the conceit of it actually being a live show, and suddenly you shatter the fourth wall.

Rudolph finally came face-to-face with the real-life Harris in this week’s cold open, whose speaking-to-the-mirror conceit was similar to a recent Jennifer Coolidge sketch.

As a writer, he showed a distinct wit and emotional insight, and he grew into one of the band’s most prolific pens — the collaged pop-lyric conceit of “Better Than Words” was his idea.

Zemeckis maintains the frames-within-frames conceit as a transitional flourish in the film version of “Here,” but the plot itself is more about jumping around in time while maintaining the stationary camera.

The Lego conceit proves an ideal format for visually embodying these tunes, as bouncing abstract creations spring and jiggle to musical life.