Dunce & Dolt

 



↑ dunce cap









dunce



Y

D



–noun

a dull-witted, stupid, or ignorant person; dolt. (笨蛋,傻瓜)



—Synonyms 

dullard, numbskull, blockhead, ignoramus (無知,不學無術), simpleton, nincompoop (易受騙上當), ninny.





　

But rehashes of old movies, no matter how inspired, are almost by definition synthetic, and the fact is that nearly all the characters are constructs rather than human beings with whom the viewer can connect. 



With his gangly frame and appealing pie face, Robbins calls to mind Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart, but there's no authentic sweetness or strength underneath all his doltishness to make him seem like a good guy the audience can get behind.



liposuction

svelte

slinky

lanky

gangling tall & lanky

gangrene

gaunt

He is so [gaunt], his face so [hollow], he looks nothing like the actor we're familiar with.

a gaunt, windswept [landscape].

Meager









　

Which, in this case, it does. Burn After Reading [maps] a world of spies, cheats, and schemers, with everyone under some sort of surveillance and every dog chasing its [own] tail. 



The conspiracy here is one of dunces, or as Osborne exclaims upon surprising one intruder in his basement: "You're part of a league of morons!" Each of the five principals is a broadly played, dim-[witted] grotesque wearing his or her own distinctively stricken kabuki mask. 



Clooney plays dumb and Pitt plays dumber, but—pop-eyed and motor-mouthed, her every facial twitch seemingly prompted by an off-screen [cattle] prod—McDormand is triumphantly dumbest as a ridiculously self-assured nudnik obsessed with financing a complete surgical makeover. 



Swinton's scary shrew, revealed in one of the movie's funniest gags as the world's meanest pediatrician, is restrained by comparison, as is Malkovich's increasingly hysterical old-school spook, complete with polka-dot bow tie. To provide further comic distance, everything is reported back to an incredulous CIA chief (Juno's dad, J.K. Simmons), who orchestrates the necessary cover-up.



twitch

使抽動,使痙攣

nudnik

【美】【口】討厭的傢伙

Still, ethics more than aesthetics demand that a successful Coen film—namely The Big Lebowski—include at least one minimally sympathetic link on its chain of fools. Clooney's amiably rancid [charm] doesn't quite serve; 



hence, Burn After Reading is a comedy without consequences. "Jesus, what a clusterfuck!" Simmons exclaims, cueing the Coens' camera to beat a hasty retreat back into outer space. It's the last word, and the blurb that Burn After Reading deserves.



rancid 

–adjective 

1. having a rank, unpleasant, stale smell 

or 

taste, as through decomposition, esp. of fats or oils: rancid [butter].  



2. (of an odor or taste) rank, unpleasant, and stale: a rancid [smell]. 

3. offensive or nasty; disagreeable. 

blurb 

–noun

a brief advertisement 

or 

announcement, esp. a laudatory one: She wrote a good blurb for her friend's [novel]. 





erudite

dunce

symposium

A symposium in the "men are pigs" school of gender relations

polemic 

controversial argument

elevates "Descent" beyond case study and into the realm of [bomb]-throwing polemic.

moot

Criticisms of this as disgusting or depraved are [moot]

the critics' need to attack Cavani as historically [inaccurate] become moot

Crypto



imbecile lout goon

dunce

ignoramus

nebbish 

fatuous

in an unconscious, complacent manner

illusory 

Making the family fatuously Jewish allows Solondz to [mock] their sense of victimhood

Schmuck