Word: witting
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...work is suffused with the man's traits: his extreme machismo, his predatory eye (the Andalusian mirada fuerte, or gaze of power, which, as Richardson rightly argues, was one of Picasso's fetishes), his belief in the magic power of images, his emotional cannibalism, his charisma and sardonic wit. Richardson shows how these developed in the young Picasso while debunking such legends as the notion that he drew like a child prodigy, a visual Mozart...
...unlikely, though, that they signal a return to Hollywood's golden age, when Garbo, Davis, Hepburn, Crawford, Dietrich could sell a film and give it class. That was a more genteel time, one that prized wit, heart and, on screen at least, a sexual equality of emotion and intelligence. Movies were about grownups; the toy-boy heroes stayed in comic books. Maybe audiences were more mature too. These days, Ghost and Pretty Woman are the big-hit exception, not the norm; moviegoers tend to measure heroism in terms of pectorals. Somewhere ! between Rambo and bimbo, between roles for children...
Best to savor The Grifters for its handsome design -- the picture looks as clean as a Hockney landscape -- and its juicy performances. Huston and Bening, sure shots for Oscar nominations, make for two splendid carnivores; they both have scintillating street wit and legs that go on for days. Cusack, as the would-be lion tamer, naturally gets devoured. And a swell sight it is too, a mother consuming her young, for the same reason a mama scorpion does: she's hungry. That's Jim Thompson's world, and now Hollywood is welcome...
...written that would not sound out of place in the mouth of God," George Bernard Shaw once wrote. But each age hears the Mozart it wants to hear, and today's audiences enjoy not only the exquisite serenity of this music but also its emotions, its subtlety and wit. Indeed, Peter Sellars' "modernized" stagings of the operas demonstrate a very contemporary sense of anxiety and unhappiness. Still, the music remains joyous and so eminently worth celebrating...
...then, does one suspect that Roberts has been more lucky than smart? Because there is an emptiness at the core of her charm. You will look in vain for, say, the weary beauty of Michelle Pfeiffer, the elfin intensity of Winona Ryder, the resilient wit of Jodie Foster, the cunning sensuality of Annette Bening. Most of all, Roberts lacks mystery. She does not seduce the viewer into wanting to know more about her characters or herself. She is not the engine of movie hits, only their ornament...