Word: pompousity
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Gilbert's Sir Joseph Porter is his great creation in Pinafore, the character everyone remembers. But the pompous First Lord of the Admiralty, tailed by his drone horde of matronly relatives, fussily insisting that officers and crew "refrain from language strong," should be a solid character nonetheless. He's the vehicle for Gilbert's satiric venom, and he should be just respectable enough for us to enjoy laughing at him. Jonathan A. Prince turns Porter into a lovable old Codger, who you'd help across the street or stage if you could stop cracking up for a moment. So much...
...observed about the man who was to become Pope John Paul II: "He reminds me of a north Texas high school gung-ho football coach in his late 40s who has been through hard times but takes it with a wonderful spirit." The Pope, says Michener, "isn't pompous at all, but quietly strong." Also humorous. "If this show goes well," John Paul II told Michener, "I'll expect a phone call from Hollywood...
...matchmaker, but she has something of a problem bride-to-be in Agafya (Cara Duff-MacCormick). Agafya is a mer chant's daughter and a bit of a ninny. The three suitors Fiokla lines up are chauvinist piglets. Ivan Pavlovich Poach'tegg (Jon Cranney) is a blustery, pompous bureaucrat. Poach'tegg (sometimes translated Omelet) is only after Agafya's property, a two-story brick house, the walls of which he thumps to test their soundness. Zhevakin (Randall Duk Kim) is a diminutive ex-naval officer who dreams of duplicating the girls of Sicily with their "rosebud...
...sources of Allen's humor but on his technique of turning that humor into finished comedy. Nor does the film ask why audiences identify so strongly with Allen--do they laugh out of recognition or from the sheer absurdity? If only Mantell had titled his work something less pompous it would be fine; as Woody Allen: Some Random Facts, no viewer would be misled into thinking he would get an explanation of Allen instead of a few scenes from his movies, a few filmed conversations with him, a few laughs. Of course we could use a few laughs these days...
...totally missed the connection between Roger Gicquel and Walter Cronkite in your uncritical portrait of the French TV anchorman [Sept. 25]. I never noticed any pompous morbidity or any Christ complex in Cronkite. The old man is a charmer because there are wisdom and warmth in his restraint. Besides, he has a quiet sense of humor that his younger imitator lacks. As a Frenchman I feel I deserve better than Roger Gicquel...