Word: pompously
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Like all Mamet plays, Speed the Plow is all talk and no action. Pompous airheads loaf around the stage, vomiting a constant stream of meaningless platitudes, feigned emotions and boasting bombast. With sinister skill, Mamet makes good intentions look laughable, self-analysis futile and reform impossible...
...Leete. Speaking coolly of more than a few unspeakable acts he has committed in order to maintain the integrity of the estate, the Earl declares his father "a nasty booby of a man who I hated ferociously," his mother "stupid," and his brother "decidedly dim." Broadbent's incomparably pompous English accent and straightfaced Monty-Pythonesque expression are perfect. But after the first few unemotional narrations and reenactments of his gruesome crimes, the Earl's understandably predictable stories, coupled with the unexciting cinematography, begin to verge on the tedious. Still, a few choice lines, expertly delivered by Broadbent, make the short...
...atmospheric influence of co-producer Brian Eno, who also lends a hand on synthesizers, is audible throughout. Bono's vocals are electronically warped, the Edge's guitars chomp and snarl or dissolve into wavering pools of reverb. In Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car, a self-mockingly pompous classical overture gives way to a jittery, high-octane beat, frayed guitar riffs and ominously echoing pings that sound like sonar from a distressed nuclear...
...this away. There is no reasonable way to justify risking your life in the mountains. You climb at the mountain's sufferance, and get back down if the mountain lets you. Why this is important is not clear, especially to those of us who do it. Once, in a pompous mood, I wrote, "We climb for the same reason that smoke rises and poodles bite doormen: it is our nature." This is baloney, but true baloney. The expert strung out below a featureless overhang knows it, and the ignorant weekenders who get in trouble are, for good or ill, plodding...
...rich Oklahoma, who opposes the energy tax and is the pivotal vote on the panel. Administration officials believe they may still pick off Boren, but Democrats on Capitol Hill are already talking darkly of retribution if he doesn't fall into line. One likely target: the Senator, regarded as pompous and self- important even by Senate standards, helped create the David L. Boren National Security Education program, which provides scholarships to graduates. "It's not a big thing," said one aide, "but it's a big thing to Boren...