Word: bland
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...fact that Robert Towne, the man wrote Chinatown for God's sake, was apparently uninspired to do anything more with the screenplay than rip off Notorious and throw in a limp virus thriller. Then you can blame Tom Cruise, who, despite his rogue's haircut, is stuck in extra-bland mode as superagent Ethan Hunt (when the Cruise mask is ripped off in the opening sequence, I was praying Chow Yun-Fat and his charisma would be underneath). And how did a television show that always revolved around the 'team' concept become the Tom Cruise vanity show anyway...
...When was the last time "nice" was the dominant trend in pop culture? Maybe when I was a kid, in the '50s. Back then, the mainstream was bland, solemn, reassuring, and I was a part of it. I thought that "Father Knows Best" was a documentary - that its ethos of domestic civility was the overwhelming norm. But I was also exposed to, and invigorated by, lots of what would now be called "transgressive art" - popular works that exceeded or demolished the official standards of probity. I attended horror movies, read vivid comic books, gorged on a diet of rock...
...blocks glide under the Harbour Bridge to the container wharves, past tourists beaming over the gunwales of replica 18th century sailing vessels. The twin architectural highlights of Bridge and Opera House flank a modern CBD that seems to rebuild itself every few years, while an ocean of agreeable, if bland, suburbs unrolls along the highways that linked the rest of Australia to the nation's gateway port. All around, the beauty of the bush enfolds the city in its embrace...
What caused the loss of the Kursk remained unclear. Russian officials fell back on old Soviet habits of secrecy and confusion during the first days of the disaster. They made no announcement for two days, then issued a bland statement that there had been a "technical fault" and the boat was on the sea bottom. After the seriousness of the accident became clearer, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev declared that there was "incontrovertible evidence" that the sub had collided with another vessel. In past years Soviet and U.S. vessels have had near collisions while spying on each other, but the Pentagon...
...Hearing of Guinness's unrelenting modesty and bland wit, one is tempted to look for the actor's true self in some of the Ealing Studios comedies, perhaps "The Lavender Hill Mob" and its wan-on-the-outside hero, or the fabric wizard and social innocent of "The Man in the White Suit." But thinking that's Guinness up there onscreen is a mistake. He once said, "I try to get inside a character and project him - one of my own private rules of thumb is that I have not got a character until I have mastered exactly...