Word: bravados
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Still, the proceedings-adapted from Peter Shaffer's opulent play-are well managed by Director Irving Lerner in a style that might be called Eisenstein modern, and devotees of the Hollywood spectacular will cherish the bravado of the two leading actors. Robert Shaw bellows and glowers in his ornate armor like a psyched-up Errol Flynn. Christopher Plummer, in cloak, loincloth, gold necklaces and flowing hair, looks like the lead singer of a particularly exotic rock group, and his attempts at a Peruvian dialect occasionally make him sound like one. His performance is unabashed camp, consisting about equally...
...only in generalized and public ways. Augie must ask Louie for love. Stephanie must ask Lance. Neither is allowed to merely speak the words. The Daytop group won't let them retreat and slide through the final Marathon encounter. They must scream and agonize until feeling comes through protective bravado...
...populated by the East Side affluents, by poor blacks and Puerto Ricans, by youngish singles. Elsewhere in the vast, often dreary reaches of the boroughs, middle-class and working-class families predominate. A transit stoppage or a heavy snowstorm that is a minor bother or even a chance for bravado and gallantry in Manhattan can bring near paralysis in some of the outlying sections...
...principle of disparity. His heroes are flies intent on building spiderwebs. In Take the Money and Run, he portrays Virgil Starkwell, a man who would get flustered crossing the street, and imbues him with the delusion that he can master the split-second timing, minute detail and cool bravado needed to become a successful bank robber. Result: a criminal so consistently inept that he fails even to make the Ten Most Wanted list...
What finally redeems Wells for the contemporary reader is the shadow of doubt beneath the bravado-the unspoken but ever-present question of young Wells, the born loser: "What if I'm wrong?" When he was only 25, Wells wrote: "Science is a match that man has just got alight . . . It is a curious sensation, now that the preliminary splutter is over and the flame burns up clear, to see his hands lit and just a glimpse of himself and the patch he stands on visible, and around him, in place of all that human comfort and beauty...