Feisty & Spunky

feisty







Y

[fahy-stee]



D



–adjective 

1. full of animation, energy, or courage; spirited; spunky (有精神的); plucky (勇敢的): The champion is faced with a feisty [challenger].  

2. ill-tempered; pugnacious. 

3. troublesome; difficult: feisty legal [problems].  





　

For all its surface [spit] and [polish], Little Children is no different. It posits a town full of hypocrites busily persecuting their local child molester (a compellingly creepy Jackie Earle Haley, who plays an equally slimy bastard in All the King's Men) so as not to face up to their own subterranean secrets and desires. 



Behind the happy family facade are husbands and fathers who wear panties on their heads while jerking off to computer porn and fail to satisfy their desperate house[wives] in the sack. 



Though there's genuine affection for the movie's wise, spunky old dames, Little Children is downright vicious toward its stay-at-home moms, ciphers who sit all day in the park, tut-tutting [over] snack protocol or giggling like virgins when a handsome dad shows up. 



Chafing [against] this furtively unsavory group are Sarah (Kate Winslet) and Brad (Patrick Wilson), two unfulfilled young parents unhappily married to other people. After a blissful summer lounging at the public pool, they find themselves coupling sweatily in her laundry room [on] a regular basis—until Brad's scarily competent wife (Jennifer Connelly) smells a rat. 



ut-tut

(表示不耐煩、指責等) 嘖! 噓!

blissful 

樂而忘憂的,帶來福氣的





C



feisty (adj.) 

 

was once a dialectal word (mainly Midland and Southern) but seems to have passed through a period of growing Conversational and Informal use to a point where it is now Standard, although there is still some conservative objection to its use in the most Formal of Edited English. 



It means "spunky, quarrelsome, exuberant (exuberant green, 生氣勃勃), belligerent, aggressive," and it is faintly humorous but approving too: 



That young woman is feisty, 

1. full of [spirit] and 

2. ready to [challenge] anyone.  





　

Consider. Don Lope, 



a feisty middle-aged intellectual and atheist, 



sees his chance when the beautiful young Tristana (Catherine Deneuve) is orphaned. As the girl's guardian, he takes her into his household and (in what seems like no time at all) into his bed. 



While ravishing her, 



he excuses himself by rationalizing that she'd [fare] worse on the streets.





　

Brittany Murphy, 24, had been dancing animatedly around the edges of big fame for some time. 



A feisty offscreen personality and memorable screen stints 



in Don't Say a Word (2001), Cherry Falls (2000), Girl Interrupted (1999) and Clueless (1995), kept her in the Hollywood running until the lead roles started hitting 'round about the time of this cover. 



Movie Star status didn't really [take].