Word: deadpan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Dylan and company soldiered through more standards and new tunes, pausing only once to allow the leader to introduce his band. In fact, Dylan rarely even altered his facial expression, basically maintaining a deadpan scowl for the duration of the performance. Even his cues to the band were minimal, with only a stiff nod to the drummer signifying the end of a tune...
...Thomas Koschwitz, a roly-poly German host whose RTL Nightshow copied Dave's bits but not his success: it was canceled in 1995 because of low ratings. Schmidt, 40, a former actor who sports steel-rimmed glasses and designer suits, has done a better job of capturing Letterman's deadpan charisma, and The Harald Schmidt Show is now seen by 1 million Germans a night, a sizable 10% share of the viewing audience. His sometimes off-color jokes and frequent ethnic put-downs have earned Schmidt the nickname "Dirty Harry." For his advocates, however, the dirtiest insult is to call...
...alternately seductive and alienating: entrapped by circumstances, at once manipulator and manipulated, cruel and vulnerable, she makes us see her as both perpetrator and victim of her own deep-laid, cold-blooded plots. It was this problematic nature of Kate's character--or, as she phrases it with succinct deadpan cool, the "bitchy attributes"--that attracted the actress to the role, and perhaps helped her play it so well: "I didn't want to dilute her. One has to like the character one's playing...[and] take the point of view of that person...
Despite all its deadpan humor, Murakami's novel also probes more serious social and political themes without ever becoming too heavy-handed. Though the protagonist occasionally articulates his feelings through references to American pop-culture, the author never uses these moments to launch into a blatant social critique. They're simply for comic effect...
...There are two classes in this futureworld: civilians, who have sacrificed voting privileges for material ease, and warriors, who earn the right to rule by their willingness to die for the state. In short, we're looking at a happily fascist world. Maybe that's the movie's final, deadpan joke. Maybe it's saying that war inevitably makes fascists of us all. Or--best guess--maybe the filmmakers are so lost in their slambang visual effects that they don't give a hoot about the movie's scariest implications...