Flimsy

flimsy







Y

D



–adjective 

1. without material strength 

or 

solidity: a flimsy [fabric]; a flimsy [structure].  



2. weak; inadequate; not effective or convincing: a flimsy [excuse].

 

–noun 

3. a thin kind of paper, esp. for use in making several copies at a time of an article, telegraphic dispatch, or the like, as in newspaper work.

4. a copy of a report or dispatch on such paper. 



—Synonyms 

1. shoddy, weak, unstable, unsteady. 

2. unconvincing, lame, vague.

—Antonyms 

1. sturdy.





　

This is a charming conceit, designed as a paean [to] the ramshackle; sadly, every minute of Gondry’s film is irrefutable proof that charm is not enough. 



ramshackle

–adjective 

loosely made 

or 

held together; rickety; shaky: a ramshackle [house]. 



The rule seems to be that whenever he directs other people’s scripts—as he did with "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," written by Charlie Kaufman—he is able to negotiate a truce, or even a merger, between the logical and the fantastic, 



whereas when he writes his own material, as in "The Science of Sleep" and "Be Kind Rewind," anything that smacks [of] common sense is rejected as a gross inconvenience. To take the most basic of objections: how many video-only stores do you know? It would hardly have stretched the budget to set the action in the late nineteen-eighties, when video was rampant; 



in fact, the new movie has the flimsiness of a comedy from that era (remember the robot in "Short Circuit," touched off by a lightning strike?), and half of the films that Mike and Jerry seek to revitalize are of similar vintage. If you can think of nothing more hilarious than Jack Black strapping on used auto parts and pretending to be Robocop, then here is the movie you want.





filch

flinch 

Shelley never flinches [from] how horrible he is, 

she allows him to have [a] [humanizing] emotional fragility that Jeremy Sisto plays with great skill.

cringe (←) He always cringes before the [boss].

cower (↑) The [dog] cowered when its [master] beat it.

flinty 

flint, esp. in hardness. a flinty [heart].

granite

with granite-[hard] bullet play.

He was a despot with a [heart] of granite.

Tenuous