Word: banality
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Maniac Mansion has the old SCTV spirit, mixing the outrageous and the banal with nary a hint that anybody knows the difference. In one episode, Uncle Harry, who is still buzzing around the house, falls for a female fly, then has to console his jealous (and still life-size) wife. "We've got 20 years -- that's a history," he tells her. "That's something I could never have with a fly. Because they only live for -- what? -- two weeks max." Flaherty, meanwhile, is disarmingly oblivious to the havoc he is creating. When he concocts a serum that turns...
...Bergman's scripts, The Freshman is about a man trapped in circumstances beyond his control, a role filled here by Broderick's character. By right, the film's focus should be on Broderick, but Brando usurps that focus. The action sequences involving Broderick as a result appear banal and contrived in comparison to watching the sheer genius of Brando's acting unfold onscreen...
...four years, many of us who graduates today took that banal, complacent recommendation from singer Bobby McFerrin to heart. On campus, we abstracted ourselves from the contradictions of daily life, trying to stay happy...
...recent letter to The Crimson, a noted Sociology professor commented on the conflict: "You would think that Harvard professors would have something better to do than engage in this trivial interdepartmental bickering. We cultural relativists in the social sciences are much too mature for such banal jealousies. We recognize that all academic disciplines have their proper place in this institution...
...ethos that gelded so many talents in the '80s. The show starts with early collages involving paper bags and window blinds, pale elegant things haunted by Jasper Johns. It proceeds through a prolix series of paintings from the '60s that depict the corner of an imaginary "ideal" and utterly banal room with no furniture in it, done in very close-valued colors that turn the image into a benign parody of Ad Reinhardt's black paintings. Odd little signs -- a blurt of pigment here, a "Have a Nice Day" face there -- float in front of the room...