Word: aristocratic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...wasn't pretty. The challenger's advertising vilified the Vice President as a feckless aristocrat while touting himself as a man of the people. The Vice President's campaign was quick to retaliate, depicting his opponent as a reckless enemy of the Constitution. The riposte must have worked, because the Vice President edged out his rival in the voting...
...stage. It is worth the price of admission to watch him try to play the cello, or blow smoke rings from his cigar while dressed as an old lady (and later try to kiss someone with the cigar still in his mouth). He convinces both as a foolish young aristocrat and a coquettish old lady. He is the most justified reason that Charley's Aunt should be put on, and that anyone should see it, yet one more time...
WHAT Maurice lacks most pointedly are compelling characters. Neither Master Hall nor his two gorgeous loves, the aristocrat Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) and Clive's swarthy gameskeeper Alec Scutter (Rupert Graves) have much in the way of lively sparks. Clive tries to deny his own homosexuality and even marries. Maurice channels his emotional and sexual frustration into training under-privileged London boys. Whatever they do, however, they remain bland figures taking themselves very seriously...
True, some mercenary flights manage to offend. Judith Campbell Exner tastelessly trod on a national icon in My Story, the tale of her sexual adventures with President John F. Kennedy and Gangster Sam Giancana. Putative Aristocrat Sydney Biddle Barrows' best-selling book The Mayflower Madam -- and the forthcoming TV movie -- raises the grating spectacle of a woman thumbing her nose at the system that convicted her of promoting prostitution...
...equipment. He brought a killer's lightning instincts to Sherlock Holmes, a suave caress to crude Mike Hammer, the microchip age to Dick Tracy's gadgets. His films were comic strips with grown-up cynicism, Hitchcock thrillers without the artistic risks. He was an existential hired gun with an aristocrat's tastes -- just right for a time when class was a matter of brand names and insouciant gestures. "My dear girl," Bond tells a new conquest, "there are some things that just aren't done. Such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above a temperature of 38 degrees F. That...