Word: dourness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When the Bush Administration's troops hit the energy trail this week, they wore a lot of green, touting environmentalism and efficiency as if they'd re-written their policy in the face of dour polling. They haven't, of course, but they have changed their presentation. Dick Cheney even switched his assessment for conservation from "a sign of personal virtue" to "a must...
...remember "Bandstand" before it was "American..." It started in 1952, when Walter Annenberg, whose Triangle Publications owned the WFIL radio and television stations, suggested an afternoon TV dance party. The hosting job went to a dour fellow named Bob Horn, who had been running the "Bandstand" show on WFIL radio. On Oct. 7, after a two-week summer tryout, "Bob Horn's Bandstand" had its TV premiere. Originating from the station's West Philadelphia studio, it featured kids from the three local high schools. The show was an immediate hit, expanding to an hour 45 min., and benefitting from promotions...
...that front - indeed, the ringing endorsements of his second term and complete absence of hostility from any quarter speaks to his almost implausible popularity across all geopolitical boundaries. Of course his immediate predecessors - Boutros-Gali, Javier Perez de Cuellar and Kurt Waldheim - all performed the diplomatic role with dour sobriety, Annan has reinvented the role in keeping with the founding principles of the United Nations...
...have aced her on the flat-out-crazy part, but few literary women of the 1920s were as miserable as Virginia Woolf, who ultimately drowned herself to get rid of the voices in her head. That doesn't bother NICOLE KIDMAN, who has donned loads of makeup and a dour countenance to play Woolf in an adaptation of Michael Cunningham's The Hours, due out at the end of the year. "I'm having a lot of fun," says Kidman. "The theme of The Hours is the way in which Woolf's writing Mrs. Dalloway affects other women in other...
...that this movie would have been a good one no matter what the state of its animators' art, because it has an amusing (and morally useful) tale to tell. Basically, we're talking that old standby, a quest story. The ogre (Mike Myers characterizes him vocally as a dour Scotsman) does a deal with the vertically challenged Farquaad (John Lithgow) to rescue Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from a faraway castle. If he succeeds, the princeling will marry the girl and remove the crowd of enchanted nuisances from Shrek's property...