Jejune

jejune







Y

[ji-joon]



D



–adjective 

1. without interest 

or 

significance; dull; insipid: a jejune novel.  



2. juvenile; immature; childish: jejune behavior. 

3. lacking knowledge or experience; uninformed: jejune attempts to design a house. 

4. deficient or lacking in nutritive value: a jejune diet. 





C



jejune (adj.)   

 

means "lacking interest," "empty," "insipid," as in She wrote jejune plays that [bored] audiences and critics alike; 



figuratively it also means "empty" in the sense of "not nutritionally good," as in She followed a series of jejune diets that undermined her health; 



and, possibly because of a confusion with French jeune ("young"), it has come also to mean "childish, immature," as in His humor was unfortunately jejune. 



Standard English now uses jejune in all these senses, but some commentators object to the "immature" sense. Best advice: stick with the two "empty, insipid" senses.





　

When Haneke [delivered] "Funny Games," it [stirred] fear and loathing in some viewers; the contempt, you might say, was mutual, and it seems odd for the director to revisit the scene of the crime—there is something jejune, even juvenile, about the snarl and arrogance of its conceit, even though he was already in his mid-fifties when he made the film. 



Only in 2000 did he embark on his strongest work—on "Code Unknown," "The Piano Teacher," "The Time of the Wolf," and "Caché," made within a five-year period, and possessed of a maturity and an implacable poise that leave "Funny Games" looking as inconsequential as its title suggests. 



So, of all his movies, why on earth remake that one? Why not transplant the wonderful "Code Unknown,"” with its jabbing questions about multicultural anxiety, to Los Angeles or New York? How about shifting "Caché," a tale of surveillance gone sour, to London, a city now infested with closed-circuit TV cameras? 



Both of those films are, if not outright masterpieces, at least in complete control of their tense and writhing themes, and I long for Haneke to cast his cold eye on the nervous impulses of the English-speaking nations. There is a shard of the punishing Teutonic fairy tale in everything he dreams up, and, if he puts the error of this latest film behind him, he could yet become the Grimm of the gated community, the chat room, and the gun club.





flaccid

placid

the [storm] passes and the [placid], [chilly] surface returns.

the opening shot of [calm], [placid] water disturbed by the family's arrival sets the tone of the picture in an instant.

Ronnie's presence disrupts the community's [placid] exterior and, at last, the repressed suburbanites are able to [breach] their self-imposed silence,

waft

The gentle [breeze] wafted the sound of music to our ears. 

The actress wafted [kisses] to her admirers in the audience.  

most readily [calls] to mind Polanski in his "The Tenant" mode, with [echoes] of Hitchcock, Lynch, Kafka and Dostoyevsky wafting [through] as well

Raucous



prurient

puerile

a puerile piece of [writing].  

bestiality 

pederasty

Nubile