Word: offhand
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...yelled for them to come back. They came in excited and out of breath.” Sosa’s only exhibition of sincere sorrow comes when Valentina’s head is shot off during one confrontation. It is surprisingly easy to sympathize with the narrator; his offhand treatment of death renders the murders meaningless, and his intimate loneliness—as a man who relies on snakes for warmth—is more pitiful than disturbing. By comparison, the version of the crimes given by the media and the police seems like a bumbling, confused mess...
...Though American universities have licensed fashionable clothes abroad, the agreement regarding the expensive clothing line is unusual in the United States, Walsh said. "I don't know offhand of something else in the college market that's been done similarly," he said...
...said he would use the ring for some other dead person. I left home, carrying my child, who had turned wooden, like the table.” As originally conceived, this device is supposed to amplify an effect by presenting it in an unusual or grotesque way. The offhand presentation of violence and brutality certainly constitutes a form of defamiliarization, but the effect, conversely, is to sap the book of any real emotional power. Such descriptions abound in the novel in a flat, monotonous way, and the purely grotesque, after intense repetition, has neither comic nor dramatic value. Thus even...
...translated literally to the stage - and that inspired directors like Julie Taymor (The Lion King) and Francesca Zambello (The Little Mermaid) to come up with unique, often inspired stage equivalents. Computer animation, however, adds a level of realistic detail - nuances of facial expression, a more subtle, offhand approach to comedy - that seems to demand a more literal approach...
...without the speed and dexterity of the digital palate, everything that was light and offhand in Shrek onscreen becomes heavy and in-your-face in Shrek onstage. Brian d'Arcy James, a competent Broadway-musical vet, looks the part in his lime green makeup as Shrek but misses most of the gentle-giant charisma of the character (voiced by Mike Myers) onscreen. His hilariously hyperactive donkey buddy is a big comedown when it's just a guy in a donkey suit - despite Daniel Breaker's good impersonation of Eddie Murphy's terrific performance. Sutton Foster, a Broadway superstar slumming here...