Word: megalomania
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Last week, I told you the sad story of Garth Brooks' megalomania. But it's not just Garth who's desperate for acclaim. In fact, a good way to categorize celebrities might be those who want to be embraced by the world and those who just don't give a damn. Madonna, for instance, has a conniption every time she loses at an awards show (if you watched the Grammys closely last year, you might have seen her raging competitive fire). Even Steven Spielberg--who has everything, everything a man could possibly want in life--called his first Oscar...
...there was method to the megalomania. Milk knew that the root cause of the gay predicament was invisibility. Other gay leaders of the day--obedient folks who toiled quietly for a hostile Democratic Party--thought it more important to work with straight allies who could, it was thought, more effectively push for political rights. Milk suspected emotional trauma was gays' worst foe--particularly for those in the closet, who probably still constitute a majority of the gay world. That made the election of an openly gay person, not a straight ally, symbolically crucial. "You gotta give them hope," Milk always...
...most entertaining parts of The Postman, Costner's latest overblown, over-long epic adventure. In answer to your immediate questions: no, it's not a great film; yes, the premise is hokey; yes, it's too long; and yes, it's a blatant display of self-aggrandizement and megalomania on the part of actor-director-producer Costner. But is it as bad as everyone thought it would be? As was true of Waterworld...
...council flat. Sommer offers an adept portrayal of a man rich in feeling but poor in political skills, and Cumpsty does a marvelous job of radiating dangerous certitude. He embodies the paradox of the sort of spiritual fervor that, while ostensibly surrendering itself to a Larger Power, borders on megalomania: every cloud in the sky, every leaf on the tree, serves as a personal signal corroborating his uncompromising judgments...
Cross this grade-madness with a vigorous species of Ivy-League megalomania and you get an ugly hybrid: the B+ blues...