Word: phrase
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...movie also distorts the chess education of this bantam Rocky. It has Josh learning almost equally from Pandolfini (Ben Kingsley) and a kindly street hustler (Laurence Fishburne). In fact, Pandolfini was the boy's main teacher. Kingsley does have a charismatic gravity and the carriage of -- Fred Waitzkin's phrase -- "a ruined aristocrat." In portraying a teacher whom Josh refers to as "a great friend, a wonderful man," Kingsley also has a touch of the bullying pedant in him, a dab of Wackford Squeers. "I was just never that mean," says Pandolfini, a famous soft touch. "I hope not, anyhow...
...read an "NBC memo" regarding the intellectual properties Dave may not use on CBS: the letters N, B or C ("legally they're ours"); the term Letterman ("because it originated with the singing group who appeared on NBC's Kraft Music Hall with Eddy Arnold in 1970"); and the phrase "pinhead network executives" ("Pinhead network executives are the exclusive property...
...stories and tore her jeans in all the right places. All the girls screamed and told her she looked really cool." Bernhard's precise ear for the nuances of the language of popular culture works here to almost poetic effect. There are few writers who could put a phrase like "causative day" into a characters' mouth without delivering her up for the reader's contempt. Bernhard retains a sense of empathy, ridiculing the words' inherent silliness while capturing their earnest enthusiasm...
...would kill Willy for the insurance money. And wrap this around the summer's favorite icon: the fatherless boy who teaches everyone else -- surrogate parents, adult friends and a nearby cetacean -- how to be human. The movie hits every emotional button with a firm fist. It makes the phrase feel-good sound like a command from the industry's P.C. Patrol...
...feel abused, we feel exploited," said John Natale, a small property owner. Natale said that he's heard the phrase, "If I only had a gun..." used seriously by rent control opponents, and he warned, "We're on the brink of someone getting hurt...