Word: clever
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Pretty clever, but not really great. And that is precisely what the movie Men is--pretty clever, but not really great. The ingredients are all there: good acting, great filming, and an amusing script. But Men falls short somewhere...
...Pretty clever, but not really great. The best part of this movie, though, is not the lackluster humor or even the offbeat plot, but the relationship that develops between the two men. At first, Stefan refuses to rent his empty room to Julius, but after the latter pushes, he consents. Bit by bit, the two begin to become close friends, or at least as close friends as one can become with your wife's lover...
...looks," says one. "You have to ignore your doubts." He looks doubtful, but he spends $250 on a Tlingit basket that he can almost certainly resell for $400. Withington knocks himself out to move a large wooden cheese box for an outrageous $300, and with a final handclap -- one clever scamp applauding himself -- his performance and his 1,884th auction is over...
Finally Lowell threw his harpoon. He "said to Frost that I wanted to ask him how his reputation had become so exaggerated." Wilson does not report how Frost responded to that -- perhaps he just gasped -- but adds that the victim "looked like a clever old elephant." And after dinner, Mrs. Lowell "went upstairs to her room and burst into tears...
...journalese involves the language used to indicate a powerful or celebrated person who is about to selfdestruct or walk the plank. Anyone referred to as an "American institution," for example, is in trouble. In politics, two or more stories in the same week referring to a power person as clever or, worse, brilliant indicate that the end is near. Soon Mr. Brilliant will be labeled a "loose cannon" and transmute himself into an adviser, the Washington version of self-imposed exile. In business journalism, the phrase "one of the most respected managers in his field" informs knowing readers that envy...