Blubber

blubber



Y

鯨脂

啜泣,哽咽



D



–noun 

1. Zoology. the fat layer between the skin and muscle of whales and other cetaceans (鯨類), from which oil is made.

2. excess body fat.

3. an act of weeping noisily and without restraint. 



–verb (used without object) 

4. to weep noisily and without restraint: Stop blubbering and tell me what's wrong. 

–verb (used with object) 

5. to say, esp. incoherently, while weeping: The child seemed to be blubbering something about a lost ring. 

6. to contort or disfigure (the features) with weeping. 



–adjective 

7. disfigured with blubbering; blubbery (哭泣的): She dried her blubber eyes. 

8. fatty; swollen; puffed out (usually used 

in 

combination): [thick], blubber lips; blubber-[faced].  





　

According to its publicity, bringing Robert Penn Warren's 1946 novel All the King's Men to the screen again has always been a "cherished dream" of executive producer James Carville—suggesting a lurking sense of payback frustration with the insubstantial legacy of the real populist Southerner Carville himself helped to elect president. But first, let's consider the project from the cheap seats, where it would appear to belong to Sean Penn. 



Let loose with what is remembered as a large, meaty, all-American role within a properly Pulitzered and still school- assigned mega-fiction (filmed already in 1949 and showered with forgotten Oscars), Penn goes for larger-than-life, wrapping his pinched frown around an unintelligible Louisiana drawl and swinging his arms like an autistic evangelist. (Maybe it's the hick-Eraserhead hair, encouraging us to place this cracker politician somewhere between Penn's special kid in I Am Sam and his obliviously narcissistic guitarist in Sweet and Lowdown.) 



unintelligible

–adjective 

not 

intelligible; not capable of being understood. 



drawl

–verb (used with object), verb (used without object) 

1. to say or speak in a slow manner, usually prolonging the vowels.



Character-wise, Penn is most effective at boiling pots with tight lids—he's an internal-combustion engine, and here the actor he [strains] to echo most is 1930s ham hock Paul Muni. A small man, Penn even tries to evoke the working-class blubber of the original version's star, Broderick Crawford (and the character's model, Huey Long), pushing out his belly and swaggering like he's got 100 more [pounds] to heave around than he actually has. It's a florid, vein-popping spectacle, trying too hard and, in the end, seeming to know little under the skin about dirt-poor Americans. 





schmaltz

lachrymosity

mawkish

maudlin

Nubile

　

plump 

The book, a fictional diary of a [plump] 30-something London office worker

... who is not [plump] and is from Texas, there was [gnashing] and [wailing]

buxom

is a philanderer whose adventures are forgiven by his [merry], [buxom] wife, Alma

portly

The circus's [portly] owner recalls a humiliating incident involving the company's clown

Meager