Word: kitsched
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...process, its power as a trend-setter is always overestimated. The 1985 Biennial was laden with East Village, post-graffiti kitsch by Kenny Scharf and others -- gaudy ephemerids who, instead of going on to further heights of success as a result of their inclusion, have shriveled in the hot wind of fashion that blew them into the Whitney in the first place. Undoubtedly, 1985 marked the nadir of the Biennial's reputation; it was the worst in memory...
...emotionally. After opening moments of real wonder, the dramatic tension depends increasingly on what tricks the set can do next: opening the floor to send up a concealed bedroom or judging stand; filling the midnight sky with stars that sketch a celestial madonna in a surge of unexamined theological kitsch. Against this whizbangery, the actors make scant impression, although Robert Torti is an oily villain and Greg Mowry a winsome underdog. Andrew Lloyd Webber's pastiche of American pop offers histrionic passages but no memorable tunes. Worse, the races -- the core of the plot -- look contrived. When one "engine" passes...
Among postwar American entertainers, none provoked that question more often than a kitsch pianist with a scullery maid's idea of a regal wardrobe, who for more than 40 years attracted stalwart Middle Americans to romps that he himself once characterized as "just that far away from drag." As a musician, Liberace was a panderer: he edited classics down to four to six minutes because, he said, his audience would not sit still for anything longer. He sang and tap-danced competently, no more. From the early 1950s, when his syndicated TV show appeared ten times a week...
...Posterity is gearing up for the 200th anniversary celebration of the historic document the Founding Fathers produced. Like last year's extravaganza for the Statue of Liberty, the Constitution's bicentennial will offer a jarring contrast between high purpose and pure kitsch. True, the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, headed by former Chief Justice Warren Burger, has rejected some of the more outrageous proposals. As a result, there will be no bicentennial brownie or constitutional hot dog. The commission has nevertheless designed a circular logo -- enclosing an American flag, an eagle and a scroll with the words...
...Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), in which the cast took a back seat to a splendid special-effects light show that made an eloquent case for the fusion of art and technology, man and machine. Trekkies, of course, consider it anathema -- too much hardware, not enough kitsch...