Word: earnest
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...central figure of Washington Square is Catherine Sloper, a plain but earnest young heiress whose need for love is trampled by her family's cruel neglect and her fiance's own weak will...
...sordid particulars and easy explanations are ever the enemy of tragedy. In this case they transform it--despite a lot of earnest acting of the kind that always seems to have its eye on a year-end prize--into nothing more than a revenge plot. They also rob it of grandeur and universality and deprive us of the pleasure of deriving our own meanings from its characters and events. We know what we think of child molesters, and we are aware of the dread consequences of their acts. On this matter we require no instruction. But a cracked...
DIED. BURGESS MEREDITH, 89, chameleon-like actor who performed the highbrow and lowbrow with equal enthusiasm and success; in Malibu, Calif. His Mio in Winterset (1936) simmered with earnest indignation; his Penguin in TV's Batman was gloriously over the top. He played the gentle George in Of Mice and Men, the careworn coach in Rocky and even did a gravelly voice-over for Skippy peanut butter. Meredith defended his quirky choices, saying, "I'm a man moved by the rhythms of his time, so I'll just take amusement at being a paradox...
...theater disciplines to film. "He's like Meryl Streep because they both come at a movie script as if it's a play," says L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson. "They make the most out of their lines, while a lot of actors immediately try to change things." Spacey's earnest directorial debut this year, the box-office dud Albino Alligator, even seems like a filmed play since it takes place mostly in one room...
Despite Carey's earnest disavowals, inquiring fans will find plenty of sport sifting for clues in Butterfly, which debuts next week. The album practically invites speculation with lines such as these from the song Breakdown: "What do you do/ When somebody you're devoted to/ Suddenly stops loving you?"; and these from Babydoll: "Do you care for me/ Beyond idolization?/ Tell me how you feel...