Word: nihilist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Houellebecq has a gift for sleepy invective; he has contempt for both freedom and authority. But he's like a bad date--brimming with rank charm but few useful judgments. The great nihilist doesn't even know what a closet Victorian he is. Michel sentimentalizes commercial sex, imagining a Western encounter with the Third World that will be calculating and unglamorous but, all in all, gentle. You might say "gently empty." The empty part is a good bet. Somebody remind the author that the gentleness is not to be counted on. --By Richard Lacayo
...countries as the rubberized Hollywood star. Takeshi pages pock the Worldwide Web, in Spanish, French, English, Dutch, German, Italian, Polish. His international admirers, seeing him churn out nine films in 11 years as actor-auteur?and perhaps catching him as an actor in art films (Nagisa Oshima's Gohatto), nihilist teen epics (Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale) and a Hollywood thriller (the Keanu Reeves Johnny Mnemonic)?may not know that films are a kind of hobby for Kitano. How could he have time to do anything else? But of course he does: he's on TV nearly seven hours...