Word: mordantly
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...your average gumshoe. For one thing, he's in his mid-70s, and feeling the weight of his years. But he does have a few advantages. He's able to commune with the spirits of the cadavers that pass through his morgue - "customers," as he calls them with characteristically mordant humor. And Dr. Siri is a cynic, naturally distrustful of the political cant mouthed by his communist-party superiors...
...plays also reinforced the argument that Beckett was, in large part, a comic writer: unquestionably deadpan but characterized by (his phrase, from Happy Days) "laughing wild amidst severest woe." Godot is really a spectacle of mordant vaudeville; the role of Estragon in the first Broadway production was taken by that comic Cowardly Lion, Bert Lahr; and in a 1988 Lincoln Center revival, directed by Mike Nichols, the stars were Steve Martin and Robin Williams. The set up to the play's gag: they wait for Godot. The punch line: he doesn't show up! Maybe this is concept comedy...
...President, who makes him a trusted adviser. Benchley's story embraces the debate over invading Honduras (Ronald Reagan's earlier incursion into Nicaragua having failed) and a yachtload of American homosexuals who threaten to blow up a Soviet supertanker in Cuba. But all that is mere backdrop for a mordant overview of Washington props and icons: a Cabinet Room table has buttons underneath marked ''Coke, Tab, Fresca, Pepsi, Coffee, Tea.'' When told that he is heading for the wrong aircraft, the President roars, ''Son, they're all my helicopters.'' At the end, ''Q'' Clearance dangles an intriguing question: Where...
...months before Ledger's sudden death in January, Warner Bros. sensed that Nolan was filming something that might transcend mere fanboy fodder. With Batman Begins, in 2005, the director successfully rebooted the troubled franchise, but this time around his decision to go darker - and The Dark Knight is as mordant a superhero movie as there has ever been - dovetailed with the popular mood. "We saw the dailies coming in and we knew we had an incredible movie," says Fellman. Though Christian Bale's Batman is The Dark Knight's star, it was Ledger's knife-wielding anarchist around whom...
...Actually, they're just diversions from the epochal face-off of Bruce and the Joker. For a good part of the film, when the two embrace in a free fall of souls - one doomed, the other imperiled - you may think you're in the grip of a mordant masterpiece. That feeling will pass, as the film spends too many of its final moments setting up the series' third installment. The chill will linger, though. The Dark Knight is bound to haunt you long after you've told yourself, Aah, it's only a comic-book movie...