Word: dulling
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...exotic twist; Castle is married to a black South African, a woman he met while spying there, who has a small boy (fathered by another man). But apart from the obligatory references to apartheid and Castle's off-the-job self-image as "an honorary black," they lead the dull and insistently predictable life of any suburban couple. At this point in his life (he is 64), Castle asks the bare minimum of life. And like most Greene heroes, he harbors the perpetual conviction that the less you expect from life the more you're likely to lose...
Gunther goes on to complain about what might be called reverse sexism. "What is about women is interesting, what is about men is dull...women playwrights and authors, even of dubious quality, are hoisted into the national spotlight. We are expected to listen to women not because they are brilliant musicians but because they are women...
...drawing-room. It was a clever idea to turn the Leverett House Old Library around on its axis, so to speak, converting the staircase that the audience descends into the theater into the staircase of Wyke's mansion. Beyond that, however, there is only a smallish fireplace, some dull furniture and a few half-hearted pokes at interesting knick-knacks. To convey Wyke's obsession with sophisticated games, Garry gives us a few propped-up commercial board games such as "Master Mind," and the so-called "ancient Chinese blocking game" is nothing more than a small, beat-up chess...
...seats? If you're going to hit an audience over the head, fine--John Frankenheimer can do it with wit and style; in a film like Black Sunday the camera never stops moving and leaves the audience breathless with excitement. But in Coma the camerawork is smooth and dull, and Jerry Goldsmith's quasi-Bartok music underscores only the gravity of the proceedings...
...dull stuff, except for Olivier. Why did he make The Betsy?, you ask. He no longer has the strength to act in the theater, so he has devoted himself to making money for his children and grandchildren (those paychecks from the National Theatre were piddling sums). Olivier's past accomplishments in drama are legendary. Many people say his true greatness was in the theater, but Olivier has rendered many memorable film performances: Hamlet, Henry, Richard, Othello, Astrov, Strindberg's Captain, and to a lesser, though often equally delightful extent, Heathcliff, Archie Rice in The Entertainer, Graham Weir in Term...