Word: droll
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...cools his head in the sand while the world goes to the devil. This is not to imply that we world goes to the devil. This is not to imply that we would have them sing to us of Vietnam or MLF or race riots. They are too droll, melodious, and genteel to be militant -- or even engage -- and evenings with them will always have that reassuring quality of entropy frozen to a momentary standstill: gnice, if not really gnu or gnitty-gritty...
...thematic audacity and wry humor that is surprising in a Communist culture. A recurrent motif of the Prague cinemakers is the plight of the dogged individualist who bombards society with question marks, and usually receives "Oh" for an answer. Black Peter, Forman's first feature film, is a droll defense of an aimless Czech teenager, who drifts from senseless jobs to hopeless dance-hall encounters to empty lectures at home. In the devastating symbolism of Joseph Kilián, by 30-year-old Director Pavel Juráček, the protagonist borrows a cat from a pet shop...
...trombone glissandi that accompany his tipsy entrance are a tasteless crudity that should be returned to the vaudeville hall whence they came. Sir Andrew's lines project well from James Valentine's slim physique; and there is a good deal of Stan Laurel in this droll performance. But how could a director be so derelict as to let Toby's suggestion, "Now let's have a catch," elicit at once Andrew's comment, "By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast," with nary so much as one phrase of a catch sung between...
...accused Malraux of jeopardizing France's musical future, called the Landowski appointment "badly thought out, irresponsible and illogical." Malraux, he charged, should understand "that music is a matter sufficiently important not to have it put into the hands of feebleminded and incompetent men." He dismissed Landowski as "a droll and inconsistent man equipped with little imagination," adding acidly: "The poor chap has finally found something...
...obstacle to credibility in Dreyer's heroine is that her vaunted passion is so easily mistaken for stony inflexibility. As played by a glacial blonde, Nina Pens Rode, the lady appears mesmerized; a reference, for instance, to her "magic charm" becomes a droll unintentional joke. She describes herself, in somewhat fustian language, as drops of dew, a passing cloud or a mouth searching for another mouth, when in fact she behaves most of the time like a mouth searching for a listening ear. Words are Gertrud's weapons, and Dreyer wields them in characteristically slow and painstaking style...