Word: banality
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...movie ostensibly tries to subvert. There's a scene where Saskia Post, as Hutchence's girlfriend Anna, drives around in a jealous snit because her boyfriend has kissed someone else. It's a scene that would fit better in a John Hughes teen flick. Dogs is at its most banal during the infuriatingly run-of-the-mill sex scenes between Hutchence and Post. Blue Lagoon had more spice in its sex life...
Unlike Fatherhood, which felt obliged to interrupt the jokes for a few passages of banal "advice" to parents, Time Flies makes no claim to great significance. That job, as in the earlier book, is left to a plodding introduction by Alvin Poussaint, a Harvard psychiatry professor who is a consultant on Cosby's TV show. And if the kvetching starts to grow wearisome, Cosby manages to end on a note of uplift: " 'Dee-fense!' I am crying to joints that need 3-in-One Oil, to intestines that are begging for custard, and to eyes that are proud of their...
...Says Hiroshi Kashiwagi, a professor of art at Tokyo University of Art and Design: "In the wake of World War II, we learned American culture through the designs of goods at PX's -- by way of lamps, shoes, clothing -- not through the English language." And often they learned the banal dialect of mass-market American design...
...make music in the subway system, hoping his melodies would coax some change out of commuters' pockets. But there were rules against such conduct. In time Carew-Reid, an Australian, got down on himself for trying to make a living in so frustrating a fashion. Then one night a banal but correct notion changed his life. "This is America!" was his thought. "They can't do this to me! It's against my constitutional rights!" The musician and the First Amendment double-teamed the court and won. These mornings you can catch him happily playing below-ground Bach at 59th...
...little microphone clipped to his waistcoat, he hated the way the cameramen sniggered at his height, and he hated talking in 20- second sound bites. But he was politician enough to recognize the importance of Good Morning, 13 Sovereign States. Two minutes to explain the Virginia Plan, a few banal questions, and the ordeal would be over. Madison remembered his instructions: no Locke, no Montesquieu, no Plutarch. Just simple declarative sentences, a confident smile and don't fiddle with your wig. "Jimmy, all you got to do is emote," his media consultant had told him. "Flash those baby blues...