Word: chameleon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...thief pocketing his severed fingertips. The actors too come at their roles energetically, not condescendingly. Baldwin plays Junior with a goofy grin and the scheming intensity of a small mind spinning its wheels and getting nowhere. Ward finds Hoke's integrity down at his heels. And Leigh, a gifted chameleon who deserves stardom, can wring pathos just by reading a recipe for vinegar pie or walking up the path to a house she will never own. Handsomely made, wonderfully acted, Miami Blues is the kind of picture Hollywood ought to be making more of. If only...
...Costner: flinty, rural, resourceful. Baldwin, so far, has enjoyed playing a broad range of roles that engage audiences' interest but not always their sympathy. Decent husband, psycho killer, corporate meanie, hero spy. Like a superior salesman, Baldwin displays his wares without revealing himself. Several directors have called him a chameleon, but McTiernan stresses that "Alec goes further. He gets his freedom by keeping you guessing about who he is. It's a function of his intelligence. Give him a toehold, and he'll scamper up the mountain by himself...
...American agent? Hardly. An American-style politician? Definitely -- the kind the U.S. increasingly lacks. Snowing the West has been easy for Gorbachev. Like Woody Allen's chameleon character Zelig, Gorbachev has adopted many of the West's favorite buzz words: stability, reasonable sufficiency, mutual security, the unwinnability of nuclear war, interdependence, human values, a civil society, the fate of the earth, the endangered planet. He has also shown that he knows what these words mean and that he means them himself when he uses them...
Speaking of indigestion, the Harvard Dining Services (HDS) was playing the chameleon last week. After an especially unpalatable sequence of meals, a student mutiny hung in the air. But suddenly HDS scored a victory in the experimental cuisine department, and the masses were appeased...
...This chameleon style may be a shrewd defense mechanism, designed to mask the harsh reality that Bush is more constrained than any other President in modern memory. The borrow-and-spend policies that Ronald Reagan presided over have bequeathed to his chosen successor a downsized presidency devoid of the resources to address long neglected domestic problems. The Bush campaign strategists -- with the candidate's active complicity -- burdened the new President with an obdurate stance on taxes. And for all of Bush's conciliatory zeal, Congress remains an enemy camp; no elected Republican President in this century has come into office...