Word: mordant
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...some the new context of exile provided a degree of artistic stimulus. In London, Kokoschka got to know--largely through his Marxist friend the refugee German art historian Francis Klingender--the tradition of English caricature, the mordant images of Hogarth and Gillray; they are reflected in such paintings as Anschluss--Alice in Wonderland, 1942, with its trio of figures, the appeaser Neville Chamberlain, a German soldier and an Austrian Catholic bishop, imitating the Chinese monkeys that see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. And the ever alert Salvador Dali managed to include a number of proto...
...still tops polls asking us to identify our favorite movie stars some 18 years after his death must tell us something about the soul of post-modern America. And perhaps it does, says TIME's Richard Schickel. "But by the end of his confused and digressive meditation this usually mordant cultural historian looks rather like a second heavy in a Wayne western--rubbing his jaw and spitting dust as the Duke?s shade strides off toward the horizon, as impervious to academic analysis as he was to a bad man?s six-shooter." Wills thinks Wayne remains a psychic presence...
...other two novellas in Arkansas, The Wooden Anniversary and Saturn Street, are perfectly fine, filled with interesting characters and mordant wit. But The Term Paper Artist is spectacularly effective fiction, an oblique and very funny commentary on Leavitt's real-life travails. Having been accused of plagiarism, he spins out a story in which he happily abets plagiarists...
There is an element of mordant irony about the liberal transgenderism resolution in that it may be the secret weapon to achieving the fairness and quality which Harvard conservatives seek. (By "fairness" and "equality," I mean equal opportunity in the unadulterated sense of the term--no special preferences for anyone, for any reason.) The first time a Radcliffe organization receives a scholarship application from someone who is a biological male but who considers himself to be a female, the conservative fight for equality will have been won. Radcliffe will finally be called upon to reconsider its exclusively female career, scholarship...
...solemnity, EZ Streets somehow manages to avoid melodrama. Indeed, Haggis brings a mordant wit to his new show. He has conceived head gangster Jimmy Murtha (Joe Pantoliano) as the kind of guy who mercilessly blows people up, then goes to confession and can't quite deliver the goods. "I know what you do. God knows what you do," the priest chastises. "You're trying to tell me that the only sin you have to confess is that you took the Lord's name in vain?" Murtha's response: "I'm giving you what I can." Then he negotiates his penance...