Word: fatuous
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...enough being an older woman in our society without being damned by the faint praise of this entirely fatuous, Canadian-made, soft-core film. Based on a novel by Stephen Vizinczey, it traces the romantic career of a youth (Tom Berenger) from his teen-age sexual initiation (by Karen Black, who betrays a certain nervousness in this comedown role) through various tedious amatory escapades with a number of older women. Some of them, despite the title and the falteringly worldly tone of the picture, actually treat him quite badly. This seems only fair, since he is himself either callous...
Though such fatuous footnotes are graphically dramatized in the show, large events whiz by. Buzz words like Teapot Dome or League of Nations or World War I turn up in dialogue with little explanation of their significance. Political debates rarely figure in the action. The only ideology in Backstairs emanates from the series' writers. The show unthinkingly promotes such stereotypes as an all-knowing black matriarch (Olivia Cole) and a raucous Irish maid (Helena Carroll...
...hard-core satyrs, however, set out to make this their best, if indeed last, Toga Party. Faces became redder, speech more garbled, conversation more fatuous, and propositions more direct. But many secret Toga hopes harbored by those venturing to Leverett Saturday night were shattered by the mundane contemporary world...
Like most musicals, King of Hearts depends heavily on gimmickry and convention to cover a fairly mediocre book. The dialogue sometimes becomes frighteningly simplistic, even fatuous, and most of the "jokes" aren't too funny. But the songs, which range from standard to excellent--particularly "A Stain on the Name" and "Nothing, Only Love"--and the many dance numbers make the show. Field's choreography, although not original, is effective, helped along by several excellent dancers...
...Matthiessen make the trip? "To say I was interested in blue sheep or snow leopards, or even in remote lamaseries, was no answer," he writes. "To say I was making a pilgrimage seemed fatuous and vague, though in some sense, that was true as well . . . I only knew that I was drawn toward the snow mountains, in search of a secret that, like the yeti, might well be missed for the very fact of searching...