Word: witting
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...MOST SUCCESSFUL aspect of this production is Leib's nimble translation. It animates potentially deadly 18th-century dialogue with a vigorous, almost athletic wit that each character seems to have borrowed from the author. Beaumarchais' language springs from that same period of transition which in England created a Samuel Johnson--classically balanced sentences informed with a nascent romantic sense of power and purpose. Leib delivers all the author's aphorisms and anecdotes in contemporary, but not vulgarly "updated," English; and a quick comparison between his version of Figaro's monologue and those of other translators--even that of such...
...Nighthawks is so moronically written and directed, so entirely without wit or novelty, that there is plenty of time to wonder about its many missing explanations. Also missing is the leading lady -Lindsay Wagner, who is supposed to be Deke's beloved but has only two brief scenes. Also absent are the charm and style Billy Dee Williams might have brought to his role as Deke's partner...
...three times, chopped half a cord of wood, ridden a horse, shortened the Inaugural parade, received a ton of jelly beans, got eight pints of new blood and floated enough good humor to buoy, after a 17-year drought, the hopes of those people who compile books on presidential wit. But these things are not the stuff of Schlesingerian legend...
...that is by way of saying that in an increasingly inelegant world, Short is the very symbol of elegance, style and an easier way of life: penthouses, champagne and buckets of dry wit. Not too long ago, his appeal seemed largely confined to New York City. Now just about everybody seems to be enchanted by Bobby and his friends-Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Cy Coleman and Stephen Sondheim. By the end of April he will have appeared in Kansas City, Omaha, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. At the end of this week he will entertain the Reagans and their special guest, Prince...
...only does this movie have the gall to acclaim itself as a total rehash of an awful, misogynist film that was the epitome of cinema merde, but the trailer shows us every murder in the new version--in order--and then asks us to come see it anyway. To wit: A girl stands in front of a window. A large ice pick comes in from off screen, she screams, and--cut. The announcer booms, "THIRTEEN!" A man stands idly in front of a tree. Two hands gripping barbed wire encircle his neck, and--cut. "FOURTEEN...