Word: shrewdness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...jaunty and straightforward as its title, Moo allows Smiley to turn literary and stylistic cartwheels all around the gym. She writes course-catalog entries, student-fiction papers and newspaper articles (even in Spanish). She masters billionaire talk, bovine-cloning monologues and the shrewd counsel of black elder sisters. In its easy virtuosity and wicked glee, Moo is rather like one of those comic novels in which John Updike gives himself a holiday from more draining work. And if Moo finally has more of a target than a point, it never allows us to forget that, in a certain context...
...Paul, who should be the play's second focus, is acted only adequately by Kenneth Polite. The character's motivations are hard to decipher in any case, but Polite gives us little inisght into them; he is not particularly shrewd or winning or desperate at the times when he should be. In his brief turn as a street hustler in a flashback, Polite is unconvincing; rather than natural speech rhythms he produces a kind of forced grunt. He also seems uncomfortable with the overtly homosexual content of that and other scenes, further impairing the credibility of the character...
...Republicans have become more shrewd, so they keep emphasizing the middle class tax cuts in their Contract. However, by their own estimates, the combination of their tax cuts is $200 billion over the first five years, which they plan to pay for with spending cuts. Since they also want to work towards a balanced budget and deficit reduction, even further cuts are necessary ($1.2 trillion in spending cuts are necessary just to balance the budget by 2002, the target year in the Contract). Social Security, Medicare and the retirement, defense, and agriculture programs together with the interest on the debt...
Worn to perfection, the ads for this shrewd, agreeable, ultimately dishonest movie proclaim. But they lie. At 70, the actor doesn't look worn at all; he's trim and bouncy, the blue eyes undimmed by the passing years, the gray in his hair seeming, if anything, premature. He's playing a man of 60, and it is not a reach for him. It is, however, a problem for writer-director Robert Benton's movie. Benton can't help it, and Newman can't help it, but the actor is wrong for the part of Donald ("Sully") Sullivan...
...important meeting at the White House. So when her husband sat down with top aides in the Cabinet Room to discuss his embattled presidency, it was a given that the First Lady would have a seat at the table. But instead of offering the brand of crisp analysis and shrewd advice she is known and admired for, the First Lady was quiet, listening while others did most of the talking. Afterward, one participant couldn't remember whether Hillary had said anything at all. As a friend and colleague put it, she was still "coming to grips" with the Democratic washout...