Word: veneered
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...perhaps the only guiding principle of the film, is that there is a large, well-heeled audience out there that loves pornography, is too fastidious to seek out the crass version in the Combat Zone, and will pay through the teeth to have it served up with a veneer of class. For this reason Emmanuelle isn't just a skin flick, but has been made into a film with towering pretensions to philosophical and artistic merit. These conceits make the film ridiculous where it might otherwise have been a little boring, but nice to look...
Fitzgerald has been severely criticized because of the elite he chose to depict--after all, of what general interest are people who consider an Atlantic crossing routine? The objection seems largely unjustified. Fitzgerald's characters have common denominators that make them exciting if we look beyond the thin veneer of wealth and poise. "Babylon Revisited" is an elegant, sophisticated treatment of an expatriate's loneliness in Paris. His wealth is integral to the plot, not obtrusive. The story is also structured meticulously, interweaving flashbacks to younger, more foolish days and ending in an indefinite way that reinforces the story...
...crumbles early in the second act, just after he has dealt Anna a setback in their battle of mutual degradation. Deeley's heavy emphasis on second meanings and his lumbering, wounded desperation rob his words, his weapons, of the strength they had held in the first act. The veneer of civility, too, skillfully maintained in Act I, becomes a travesty earlier than it should...
...veneer of tradition and reputation that "Harvard" has from the outside is either forgotten by the end of freshman year or reaches the stature of low farce. Harvard seems to be the Brownian motion of 25,000 very isolated, talented and not infrequently neurotic individuals...
...corrupt, old-time politician. Another is his campaign manager, a junior high school principal of self-acknowledged mediocrity. And then there is the big financer of the mayor's campaign, a strip-miner, protected by His Honor from the angry cries of eco-freaks. All three men sport a veneer of small town success. The fourth member of the group has left the town where he grew up, just as he has left ten other towns. He is a bum; "I'm in the travel business," he says. Slouched in a chair with a glass in his hand, he tosses...