Word: trite
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...into every anthology a little of the obtuse and trite will creep. "Life Must Surpass Itself" by Rene Dubos was a piece I never made it through; one can stand only so many phrases such as "the responsibilities of the future" and "the spirit of human brotherhood." "The Revolution of the Women" delves into the problem of freedom as "a burden and a responsibility...
...irrelevant minutiae (a shrill soprano on the sound track, doors endlessly opening and closing, limbo shots of notes being written, reams of small talk, and provocative clues to heaven-knows-what) instead of reality's elusive core. "When you get right down to it, it's a trite story," remarks Actress Seyrig to her long-lost vis-à-vis. A master without a theme, Resnais has claimed that his films are made to be felt, not understood. But Muriel, with characters who are basically tiresome folk, is more apt to pique curiosity than to stir the senses...
...from the New York Times," groused Gould in his column. "Mr. Markel's program had interesting intentions but, unfortunately, they were not realized in the slightest. The New York Times has everything to learn about doing news on television. The debut of the Times . . . was superficial and often trite . . . dull . . . disconnected . . . overdone . . . awkward...
From Jean Renoir we expected more. In his 1938 masterpiece, The Grand Illusion, Renoir established the pattern for future prison escape movies. The Elusive Corporal, set in a World War II camp, certainly should not be the trite and unamusing bundle of cliches that it turned out to be. The intervening twenty-five years seem to have detracted from the man's skill at story-telling instead of sharpening it, a sad inversion of the usual relationship between time and talent...
...infrequent moments of excellence in this tragic-comic musical, based on the life of actress Laurette Taylor, are directly attributable to the irrepressible spirit of Mary Martin, which occasionally manages to break through the bog of mediocre music, a trite score, miserably drab sets, and a despondent story...