Word: bravura
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Manet's sense of touch was extraordinary, but its bravura passages are in the details: how the generalized bagginess of a trouser leg, for instance, rendered in flat, thin paint and firmed up with swift daubs of darker tone in the folds, contrasts with the thick, creamy white directional brush strokes that model the curve of a spat. The ceaseless, intelligent play of flat and round, thick and thin, "slow" and "fast" passages of paint is what gives Manet's surface its probing liveliness. There is nothing "miraculous" about it, but it was not the result...
...worth it. Hearn's bravura performance is one of the marvels of recent theater seasons. An actor who has been in 115 plays but never quite achieved stardom, he has now strutted to the top. If it is exciting to see a young actor leap forward, it is even more so to see one in mid-career suddenly show the enormous range of his talents...
...sensitive actor with a stud's lean physique. Sylvester Stallone: instant superstar when he laced up his gloves and socked it to the champ for the full 15 in Rocky; consolidation of stardom in Rockys II and III, which he directed as well as wrote, mixing sentimental bravura with slam-bang action sequences. And who was Tony Manero anyway but Rocky Balboa with faster feet? You've seen one athletic, inarticulate, sweet-souled Italian American, you've seen 'em both. And so the deal was made: pair Travolta and Stallone for a sequel beyond all sequels...
...eyed outlaw of Once Upon a Time in the West, even the hilariously befuddled herpetologist "Hopsy" Pike of The Lady Eve-they all light up in one's memory as the spirit that animated them flashes in Fonda's eyes. Without raising his voice he gives a bravura performance as he moves from depressed withdrawal to momentary rages, from the struggle to express affection to the struggle not to express it, lest it be mistaken for weakness...
...with it. In this subterranean world of dumpsters and neon and bar-darkness, racketeers and ferret-faced, small-time hoods, he dares to be a total jerk. He's the problem child who won't stop playing, hyperactively needling the frayed nerves of the others, and exploding in careless bravura. He is wired. Johnny Boy digs the risk and the rock 'n' roll, so he half dances through the movie. He enjoys being out of control. He revels in it. We respond because he strikes such a far-out, flamboyant note that we know we could never be that...