Word: clever
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Lion in Winter has some clever dialogue ("You're like a democratic drawbridge, going down for everyone"--"At my age, there isn't much traffic.") It occasionally has some clever shots (Henry II kicks aside dogs and chickens to formally greet the King of France.) It even has some clever acting. The problem is, the film has no purpose. A movie like this, a cultural spectacular, with respected stars, cleaning up Oscars as it no doubt will, ought to have some reason for being done. The Lion in Winter just brings to mind James Thurber's epigram: "The world...
...righteousness of the students who decided to sit in had probably been reenforced by the elusive wording of the CEP resolution, which lent itself to misinterpretation--not only by those who ware anyhow suspicious of any solution less simple than their own. The CEP text, I believe, was too clever by half in its wording; yet it could have been clarified and improved if the Faculty had been able to hold a normal meeting, just as we could have discussed the holding of open meetings if the sit-in had not prejudged the issue. In coming days, it would...
...well as I, knew almost nothing about how inorganic ions were arranged in three dimensions. We had to face the bleak situation that the world authority on the structural chemistry of ions was Linus Pauling himself. Thus if the crux of the problem was to deduce an unusually clever arrangement of inorganic ions and phosphate groups, we were clearly at a disadvantage. By midday it became imperative to locate a copy of Pauling's classic book, The Nature of The Chemical Bond...
...obviously pleased with himself when he apes Groucho Marx's loping stance or speaks with W. C. Fields' adenoidal sneer that it is difficult for anyone in the audience not to be pleased with him. It is the kind of cool, well-finessed stunting with which a clever boy might regale a proud mother. As such, it is always audience-conscious rather than play-and co-player-oriented, the last two again being the marks of a fine actor as opposed to a stage personality...
PHOTOGRAPHY also serves humor. In "Miss American Icon" he "throws" photographs of a cross, and a star-shaped cutout of a face into a funny hand-scrawled wastebasket. The caption for this clever mixture of media is "old symbols...