Word: soberly
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...Eurasian outsider fought for no greater cause than himself (the sole exception is 1972's Fist of Fury, in which he battled the cocksure Japanese). Jackie Chan made the action-comedy subgenre his own, reducing martial arts to a form of slapstick. Li, however, has most often played the sober upholder of national pride...
...makes it out to be. I know that director Luhrmann can be a much more self-conscious director - see his insanely pretentious Moulin Rouge! - than he is here. But this movie, appearing at the beginning of the season in which movies ranging from Milk to Revolutionary Road go all sober and morally instructive on us, puts us back in touch with our giddy side, with that old-fashioned, low-minded desire just to know what happens next. There is some elemental human desire - lately largely denied at the cinema - to see pretty people in handsome landscapes assuaging our need...
There is of course nothing wrong with the sober reverence paid to the victims of the Holocaust by the powers-that-be in the United States. The only problem is that that reverence is ultimately undermined by general inconsistency in response to other clear cases of genocide, all of which have wreaked unfathomable havoc upon communities not unlike our own. If American politicians are to continue to present this nation as the global defender of liberty and human rights, it must begin to do so in every case...
...calm response to Russia's missile gambit a success? Obama's aides present it as a sober counterpoint to McCain's tough talk during the campaign. "What was overlooked in [Medvedev's] speech was a part about working cooperatively on issues of common concern," says the aide. "So the transition [team] seized upon that issue up front." Such tactics, however, have not pleased some on the hawkish right who fear that Obama is appeasing the Russians. Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal editorial board called on Obama to say "publicly and explicitly [that he] will not be intimidated...
...when new unemployment figures and auto maker losses revealed the depth of the country's economic woes, Obama was appropriately sober and brief, focusing most of his opening statement on his determination to pass a stimulus package and get the economy moving again. "It is not going to be quick and it is not going to be easy for us to dig ourselves out of the hole that we are in, but America is a strong and resilient country," he said in his opening statement. But the president-elect did seem in great spirits, joking with a small group...