Word: contrivedness
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Most of it is beautiful to look at, rather like tapestry turned into slow-motion ballet; but beauty on film, when there is too much of it and too little else, can get pretty dull. Not even the talented, magnificent-looking cast can bring much of the film to life...
Stripped, however, of its editorial and production merits Mater Advocate stands perhaps a trifle embarrassedly exposed to the quibbler's truth about its literary worth. It is in the quality of featured creative writing that the publication's distinctive claim to excellence must lie. This time the copy looks good...
As fiction, House Divided is often contrived and melodramatic. As history, it is the war dimly seen through a haze of corruption, mismanagement, profiteering, draft-dodging, mint juleps and delusions of grandeur. Tedious as that is, readers can hardly fail to be impressed by the author's epic attempt...
For grownups with toothache, who cannot be helped by these preventive measures, there were a few crumbs of comfort. Best crumbs: an anesthetic for painless drilling (applied to the tooth without a hypodermic) called "topocaine", a new kind of gold crown for front teeth, so cunningly contrived (by the University...
El Toro, the bewildered victim, is nominally "owned" by a lewd fat man, Vince Vanneman, who fixes every one of his fights on a coast-to-coast tour that Eddie promotes into a triumphal march. Nick, the powerful and deadly racketeer who actually owns El Toro as he owns Eddie...