Word: oafishness
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...from abroad and Japanizing them. A facile people, living in the present and the immediate future, a sharp trading race. The truth, almost surely, is an amalgamation of the two perceptions. That is only fitting. Japan is a masterpiece of contradictions, of East and West, of exquisite politesse and oafish rudeness, of a certain lacquered arrogance combined with a strange insecurity in the presence of things foreign...
...every unseen movie is a masterpiece, as Success amiably proves. Its oafish hero Harry (Bridges) cannot seem to get the attention of his pretty, dotty wife (Belinda Bauer). They have sex every Friday; in between she chats with her cats and practices ballet before her favorite companion, a full-length mirror. So Harry gives himself another life, in the guise of a swaggering gangster named Mack. Suddenly, love and the perfect swindle are his for the daring. This is a cynical fairy tale that must be told with buoyancy of spirit; Richert's gift is for earthbound madness...
...them as human Muppets. Dynel Andy and soft, squeezable Mr. Carlson tried to keep their charges in order. But Venus Flytrap and Johnny Fever, the disc jockeys, were too weird, and Les Nessman too straight, and Bailey too nice-a little like you, Mary-and Herb Tarlek too wonderfully oafish to realize he'd never make the big score. And the lovely Jennifer...
...rationalize the action of teen offenders for an audience of their peers. They Live by Night (1949), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), even Bonnie and Clyde (1967) were updated romantic tragedies-Romeo and Juliet in comic-book form. Moral judgments abounded: parents were drips, teachers pedantic fools, the police oafish brutes. It was you and me against the whole stinking world...
Steve Martin has a face straight out of a 1930s B movie: smooth, smiling, with regular features and a subtly oafish flair to thejawline. Jessica Harper is frail, frazzled, wide-eyed and sad-mouthed in the '30s tradition of soiled ingenues. Bernadette Peters looks like the offspring of a Kewpie Doll and a Munchkin. Christopher Walken's face is a gigolo's death mask: the character lines have been ironed out, leaving only the dry-ice eyes and the knowing pout. As icons, these four performers would seem perfect for the bittersweet revisionism of this musical drama...