Word: banally
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...cineplex near you, Nov. 1, 2002 will be a day...not long remembered. But anyone relentlessly searching the typically banal fall Hollywood marquee for diverting entertainment this weekend won’t be too disappointed. Though the two premiering films are a sequel and a TV-series spin-off, good laughs and good times will likely ensue, especially for those who have seen Sweet Home Alabama and My Big Fat Greek Wedding just too many times...
...victims were carrying out the banal tasks of everyday life, their last unremarkable moments juxtaposed with the killer's lightning brutality. Officials speculated thatthis could be a terrorist attack but searched in vain for any overt political message. The victims, if they were lined up side by side, would roughly resemble a random sampling of the Washington metropolitan area. They were white, black, Hispanic, Indian, male, female. There was a government analyst, a landscaper, a housekeeper, a nanny...
Critics might want to start downloading because with Punch-Drunk Love (see review), the cultural significance of Sandler's work has become a serious proposition. In his new movie, Sandler plays a plunger salesman who dreams of escaping his banal existence via frequent-flyer miles. As far as romantic comedies go, it's very strange, which is what you would expect from director Paul Thomas Anderson of Magnolia and Boogie Nights. What you don't expect is an art film starring Sandler, whose lowbrow comedies have earned nearly $400 million since 1998 and have made him an idol of teenage...
...feel for the peculiarly male, geeky world of collectordom. But while she finds myriad arresting ways to say celebrity is a modern religion--"All fandom is a form of tunnel vision: warm and dark and infinite in one direction"--that doesn't make the idea less banal, nor does it obviate the need for emotional investment. At a climactic moment, facing his father's impending yahrzeit (the anniversary of his death), Alex still protests, "I don't feel anything." He could be speaking for us. The Autograph Man is ultimately an acrobatic but unmoving disquisition on an old question: What...
...have just been stalling tactics," he says. "For Iraq to do that again now, now that it hears the drums of war beating, is nonsense." Undiplomatic language, perhaps, from a 60-year-old who has spent his career operating in the confines of foreign policy, where even the most banal utterances are carefully parsed. But where Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are concerned, Butler minces no words. "A complete lie" is how he describes Iraq's promises to comply with inspection: "From the beginning their declarations of what weapons they held were false." Though he and his team were...