Word: sangfroid
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...drive and hypocrisy, speaking loftily of social issues and encouraging his staff to bilk the clients. Below him are ranks of predators, among them a man so dedicated to consumption that he is labeled "the Human Piranha"; a Briton so chilly to his colleagues that he is called "Sir Sangfroid"; an irritable trader who throws a phone at his clerk every time he passes; and a bond trader who thrives on global catastrophe. Minutes after the Chernobyl disaster, this fellow advises, "Buy potatoes." Lewis suddenly understands: "Of course. A cloud of fallout would threaten European food and water supplies . . . placing...
...town. And the Ruby Canyon, the throat-tightening Donner Pass. For additional company, there are bald eagles, elk, prairie dogs, deer springing up alongside the tracks at twilight as the car slides past, cameras flashing from the windows. Even a bored 15-year-old cannot maintain her sangfroid in the face of such a host, and wrenches the camera from her father's hands...
...their uncertainty. One could say that Smooth Talk is the sort of movie that everyone would like if he just let himself get into it. But it's also the sort of movie we want to resist--we'd rather not believe in Connie's naivete or Arnold's sangfroid, and we don't wish to remember that growing up was as difficult for us as it is for Connie. We only stop resisting when the surreal elements, like Arnold's maniacal unctuousness, take over. And when we submit, we're scared...
...Jones' career, is a fable about a bulldog who falls into mad maternal love over a winsome kitten. But even in Warner's usually violent cat-eat-bird, rabbit- humiliate-duck world, character is at the base of the comedy. Each nuance of eyebrow makes Bugs' almost inhuman sangfroid seem more endearing; each microsecond of exasperated deadpan underlines Daffy's status as Hollywood's least placable loser; every syllable of Sylvester's lisp or Pepe Le Pew's fetid French intensifies the viewer's ability to believe that these creatures are not only personalities but gifted movie stars. Bugs, even...