Word: banally
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...performers dig beneath this mannerism to suggest years of buried sorrow. Nancy Marchand, as the family's self-described cutup, has the gift of making banal observations sound witty. Anne Pitoniak, as the eldest and prissiest, combines dictatorial will with genuine dignity. Peggy Cass is the family entertainer, Elizabeth Franz its happiest housewife and Gisela Caldwell its edgy protofeminist, whose eventual crack-up seems to result from her discontent with women's lot. The most affecting performance comes from Bette Henritze, as a stroke victim whose singsong speech does not obscure a larger tragedy. When she admits...
...quoted from a sarcophagus, and the dead Mary, sprawled like a real corpse. He learned to run variations on the idea of decorum; to achieve effects of the utmost stateliness and play them off against the "merely" documentary. His enemies thought this showed a taste for the banal. Today it suggests how little, in art, can be more radical than a hunger for the real...
...plot of Fast Forward serves only as an adhesive for connecting numerous dance scenes, but it manages to be banal and predictable, though blessedly minimal. A group of eight intrepid high schools kids escapes from the confines of Sandusky, Ohio, where their talent as dancers is neither appreciated nor taken seriously. Dance being, of course, for bidden in Ohio, the kids is forced to rehearse in abandoned warehouses and to run away to New York without telling their parents. New York, that mecca of artistic opportunity, proves to be tougher than this bunch bargained for. Braving myriad evils, from muggers...
Dedicated to basic cooking for beginners, it proves that the simple need not be banal. Typical of his techniques is the use of flavorful herb and spice butters to accent carefully broiled fish and meat. Characteristically, he placed as much importance on a properly cooked and seasoned hamburger as on a delicate blanquette de veau. He practically invented the position of food consultant, advising restaurant owners on their menus and food manufacturers on their products. It was for this consulting role that he was occasionally criticized, especially when the products and menus he endorsed or created were lauded...
...recent dancing has been included: break-dancing, Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video, material from Saturday Night Fever and Flashdance. A wicked suspicion lingers, however, that this material was included in the hope that, in this context, the old would be vindicated and he new would seem banal--for banal it certainly seems...