Word: hapless
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...state has made annulment the only way out of a marriage, and hardship stories are commonplace. For some, despite the fact that the church will often waive actual trial costs, the process remains too expensive because they must still pay for such important incidentals as medical examinations. One hapless Italian has been legally married to a hermaphrodite since 1936 because he cannot pay the fees -roughly $1,500-for the required medical examinations. Even with money, the process is by no means easy. Only an average 325 annulments are granted annually by Italian tribunals. Film Director Michelangelo Antonioni waited eight...
Self-Imprisoned. It is just here that existential thought seemingly departs from the mainstream. To Freud, man was the hapless prisoner of his past. The best that he could hope for in the present was a truce with those stern and deterministic taskmasters whom Freud called the Super Ego and the Id. The goal of life was "adjustment." Hence it followed that unhappiness, anxiety and guilt were usually pathological states -a measure of the struggle against those dynamic and contradictory forces...
...better part of a decade, U.S. military men have regularly been called upon to explain the pathetic performance of their hapless protégé, the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam. Now Pentagon press officers are no longer apologizing. Instead, they are speaking delightedly of a "new" ARVN, joking about its resemblance to the rugged Koreans or even Israelis, reassuring reporters that, no, Saigon was not about to annex Cambodia. Perhaps not, but Saigon's newly ferocious forces were exulting in their unaccustomed role of conquering heroes...
...then there is Caine, an extraordinarily good performer with an apparent weakness for taking any role that comes along. Despite his mighty skills both as a dramatic actor and comedian (AIfie, The Magus, Gambit), his talent is in danger of being blunted by too many appearances in too many hapless exercises like Too Late the Hero. Movies like this, after all, can be just as wearing on an actor as on an audience...
Presumably she should know better. A hapless and bloody rehash of Bonnie and Clyde, Bloody Mama features Shelley as the head of a small criminal band of psychopathic wastrels, four of whom are, incidentally, her sons. There are heavy-breathing suggestions that the family that preys together plays together. Mama rewards her sons after a hard day of busting heads or robbing banks by letting one of them bunk with her for the night. The fact that everyone gets his just deserts in an insipid shoot-'em-up in the final reel will come as no surprise. Producer-Director...