Word: whine
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...some Bartlett's and James. If only PBS and C-SPAN deem your performance worthy of coverage, it is cooler not to whine about it. Instead, haul out the quote books and show off your erudition for this upscale audience. Here, for example, is a useful phrase from The Spoils of Poynton: "The fatal futility of Fact...
Next is the gee-I'm-so-cute-and-friendly approach, usually employed by girls and unctuous preppies. "Aw, c'mon, please, pretty please," they whine, eyelids batting somewhere down about the level of their drooling lips. But most annoying is the dissatisfied customer angle, to which there is no legally permissible reply. "Hey kid! I get more than that...
George Washington--a hero? Please, they whine. Washington was an eighteenth century Reagan, (who, by the way, lacks intellectual sophistication). Washington cut an impressive figure, sure. But Alex Hamilton really ran the show...
...OTHER SIDE of the tally, however, is Lydia Bruce's key performance as Bessie. Her Machiavellian machinations to keep her family in line seem to have no motivation other than sheer perfidy, and when she does try to explain herself all she does is whine. One problem right off the bat is the Jewish dialect which seems like an alien tongue to most of the actors, as they try to wrap their mouths around convoluted phrases like "So bad I never imagined you could be!" One small complaint, only for purists, is that there is not one single Yiddish word...
...fire and explosion of the fragile civilization the family has so painstakingly made; the storm that imperils them in their last refuge; the mad attack by Allie on a missionary settlement -- all of these are well staged but lacking in resonance. The problem is that the high- pitched whine of Allie's character finally vitiates not merely the viewer's sympathy for him, but sympathy for the movie he dominates, despite the care and courage that went into its making...