Word: witting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Canadian federalism who fought hard against the separatist yearnings of his fellow French Canadians in his native province of Quebec (see box). Swept to power on a wave of "Trudeaumania," he had once seemed the very model of a philosopher-statesman, blessed with an impressive intellect and an acerbic wit-not to mention a sensuous young wife. But last week Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 59, who had served three times as Canada's chief executive, was narrowly defeated in an election that he had suggested would decide whether his nation would remain one country or risk division into English...
...that novel, and the director's defects did not appear quite so plainly. In Portrait it becomes clear that Strick cannot even handle straightforward dramatic scenes energetically and forcefully. Nor is he very good with actors. Bosco Hogan, who looks the part of Stephen, cannot find the wit, rage and irony that are there to be mined, and no one else is permitted to explode emotionally either. The result is a film without drive, lilt or vision. Portrait is an academic reading of a classic, faithful in its way to the overall structure of the original, but entirely lacking...
Whatever the fad, the Top 40 is territory that has not often been treated to the sound of well-groomed bop and is usually alien to lyrics of such well-tuned wit as these: "He was sittin' behind us down at the Pantages/ And whatever it is that he's got up his sleeve/ I hope it isn't contagious/ What's her name?/ Is that her there?/ Christ, I think he's even combed his hair!" For this song about the amours of Chuck E., and for a fine new album full of similar...
...Antoine. Playing Truffaut's autobiographical self, Leaud has merged the three: Antoine, Truffaut and himself. The rest of the performances are equally superb. Claude Jade manages to endow the solemn Christine with a rare subtlety. Nicknamed Peggy Proper because of her almost British reserve, Jade allows this woman's wit and shy humor to shine out. Marie-France Pisier performs most of the heavy dramatics; she gives her Colette a certain desperation well-suited to a woman lawyer unable to get clients and reduced to turning tricks on the night train to Aix-En-Provence. Dorothee gives the vapid Sabine...
...success for France's mission civilisatrice. In telling the story of Alceste, a man torn between hatred of the world's deceit and flattery and his own love for a deceitful, flattering widow named Célimène, Molière pressed poetic comedy and satiric wit to the edge of tears. Le Misanthrope is his bittersweet masterpiece. In a comedy of manners, Alceste's notion of telling the truth himself on all occasions and correcting the chicanery of the age clearly marks him as a crackpot bound for grief. But as the play proceeds...