Word: charming
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...what creates serial killers? While they tend to be cunning and intelligent sociopaths who use charm, guile, ruses and devices to gain the trust of victims, they are "failures at life," observes Birnes, "at every single level of their life." Experts blame the creation of serial killers on the breakdown of the family and physically and sexually abusive childhoods. Of the 36 serial killers he has studied, says Ressler, "most of them had single- parent homes, and those who didn't had dysfunctional families, cold and distant fathers, inadequate mothers. We are creating a poor environment for raising normal, adjusted...
...beauty of an object certainly helps to make others desire it, it is usually not enough in itself. Sharon Stone is beautiful; however, it was the combination of her looks, unabashed sexuality,intelligence, and total irreverence that made fans and Michael Douglas so susceptible to Catherine Trammel's wicked charm in "Basic Instinct...
...pressure for her to tell what she knew about Whitewater was rattling the very walls of the White House, she finally agreed to let select reporters through the door. It was her first news interview in weeks, and her first ever devoted to Whitewater, but this was no charm offensive: she met her guests from TIME not in the customary spots -- the solarium or the family quarters -- but in a combat zone, the Map Room where Franklin Roosevelt plotted troop movements throughout the Second World...
...affectionately satirized. His name is Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) and he's plucked out of the mailroom and made president of Hudsucker Industries when its founder (Charles Durning) commits spectacular suicide. You can imagine either Jimmy Stewart or Eddie Bracken in the part, but Robbins has a tricky modernist charm all his own. And you can just as easily imagine Edward Arnold as the evil genius of the board of directors, Sidney J. Mussburger, although Paul Newman brings a sprightly spite to the role...
What these shows generally lack, for all their charm, is conflict. Acting, an aphorism of the craft holds, is reacting -- responding spontaneously to what another actor says or does. In one-person shows, that essential tension is missing. Every confrontation feels contrived. No villain or even annoyance gets a fair say. If one-person shows can feel as candid as a session on the psychiatrist's couch, they can also be just as narcissistic...