Grisly ***

grisly







Y

D



–adjective

1. causing a shudder 

or 

feeling of horror; horrible; gruesome: a grisly murder.  



2. formidable; grim: a grisly countenance.  





C



grisly, gristly, grizzled (adjs.), grizzly (adj., n.) 

 

Grisly means "horrible, gruesome": The scene of the shootout was grisly enough to satisfy the most bloodthirsty. 



Gristly can be a dialectal homophone of grisly, but it is based on the word gristle and simply means "containing or characterized by gristle," so that it is usually pronounced: My steak was very gristly. 



Grizzled and grizzly both mean "gray, graying, or partly gray," especially "gray-haired" and so by extension "old or at least more than mature," although grizzled is much more frequently used: The old man’s hair and beard were long and grizzly [grizzled]. 



And so a grizzly bear (or grizzly) is so named not because it is horrible but because its coat is grizzled or grayish. All these are Standard.





　

Given this attitude, it might seem strange that "Le Petit Soldat" is funny. But it is, for long stretches. And usually the laughs are grisly; we wince at the same time. Godard understands how funny the automobile is, for example. No other director gets so much humor out of the way we identify our cars with our egos (remember the opening scenes of "Weekend"?). 



He gives us a chase in which the hero, trying to kill the driver of another car, is constantly stymied by oncoming traffic. And the other car is one of those dumpy late-1950s compact Nashes, referred to by brand name. Somehow you get the feeling you've wandered into a Raymond Chandler novel.





flabbergast

aghast

They [stood] aghast at the sight of the plane crashing.  

rudder

shudder

does anyone remember when Brolin was still cavorting [around] in films like Hollow Man? I do *shudder*

Haneke seemed to suggest that recent cinema has cheapened such [slaking] of emotion into a near-pornographic fake: we are crazed and cheered by [shuddering] events that have no authentic claim upon our feelings.

Detest

Brash

bash







Y

D



–verb (used with object) 

1. to strike with a crushing 

or 

smashing blow. 



2. Chiefly British, Canadian. to hurl (猛力投擲) harsh verbal abuse at. 



–noun 

3. a crushing blow.

4. Informal. a thoroughly enjoyable, lively party. 



—Idioms

5. have a bash (at), British. to attempt; make an attempt.

6. on the bash, British. working as a prostitute. 





 　

And despite positive reviews, the film has remained unreleased. Even Durst’s critically bashed follow-up, the 2008 sports film The Longshots was released last Summer.





spar

to box with light blows.

and Sands finds himself [verbally] sparring with a priest

clout

blow esp. with hand, cuff. 

Howard uses clout to back [Obama]

Thanks to the box-office [clout] of stars [Taylor] and [Burton], not to mention the [titilation] factor of hearing all those naughty words on the big screen, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was a hit,

buffet

a blow, as with the hand or fist.

or brilliantly designed capitals of industry in which little people are manipulated and [buffeted] about by the string pullers.



brash

He's hyper-reactive, flickering between [brash], [bashful], playful, and awkward

Strut

Churl (續：爛人 爛臉 笨蛋 單字大集合)

churl

Y
D
–noun
1. a rude, boorish, or surly person.
2. a peasant; rustic.
3. a niggard; miser (吝嗇鬼): He was a churl in his affections. 
4. English History. a freeman of the lowest rank.


　But ''The Man Who Wasn't There'' is so assured and perceptive in its style, so loving, so intensely right, that if you can receive on that frequency, the film is like a voluptuous feast. Yes, it might easily have been shorter. But then it would not have been this film, or necessarily a better one. If the Coens have taken two hours to do what hardly anyone else could do at all, isn't it churlish to ask why they didn't take less time to do what everyone can do?


4. 工具
Schmuck

4.5 爛人
brogue
rogue
free-spirited art student and a [roguish] poet find their addiction to each other taking a back seat to their taste for heroin,
But he certainly is a [satisfying] person and a happy, comforting relief from the [devious], self-pitying [rogues] and [weaklings] we have seen in a lot of modern-day films.
Rampart is another of these misperceived criminal conspiracies. It's really the story of a [handful] of rogue, criminal cops who [ratted] out a wider number of untainted cops to save their own skins.
roguish
HE HAD BEEN LISTENING TO "CANDLE IN THE WIND" OVER AND OVER AND OVER. THERE WAS A LOOK OF A GRIN, LIKE A ROGUISH EYE IN HIS EYE WHEN HE WAS ABOUT TO HAVE SOME FUN.
After his roguish turn in This Boy's Life, Leonardo DiCaprio made his name as a serious young actor with his top-notch work as the retarded Arnie.
hooliganscoundrel
A dangerous habit. Never lost a penny in my life. I guess heaven takes care of fools and scoundrels.
skunk
rascal
Latter's characterization, restrained and chilling at first, unfortunately becomes too broad, almost that of a jolly [rascal], effect being to flaw the dramatic impact at times.
scalawag
scamp, rascal
Don't listen to that scalawag. I didn't expect to find him here, Louise.
ruffian
Here's a ruffian with a sword. He should be tied up like this.
They befriend [each other] after Sasha is threatened by some ruffians, spend the day together, and alter each other's [perceptions] of life.

peeve
Because Harvey Stephens was so young, Richard Donner found that the best way to direct him was to provoke genuine reactions before the camera. For example, when Damien is angry at being taken to church, Donner got his [peeved] facial expression by shouting to Stephens off camera "What are you looking at you little [bugger]? I'll [clobber] you."
peevish
A profoundly [inert] yet [peevish] protagonist whose act doesn't seem all that worth getting together.
grumpy
grumble
He is a troublemaker, under sentence of death by the expedition leader, Capt. Newport for [mutinous] grumblings.
curmudgeon
curmudgeonly
The Freeman Lowell character in this version was an older, more curmudgeonly man who simply doesn't want to return to earth and forced into retirement, so he steals the Valley Forge, "Shoots the rapids" through Saturn's Rings to make it look like his ship is destroyed, and heads off into deep space.
cantankerous
because of that he never comes [off] as a dirty old man, just a cantankerous old [fart], while Evan Rachel Wood is simply, irresistibly charming, so you can understand why a man [of] Boris' age would want to [nurture] her.
After receiving a sweepstakes letter in the mail, a cantankerous father (Bruce Dern) thinks he’s struck it rich, and wrangles his son (Will Forte) into taking a road trip to claim the fortune.
grouch
But Leopold, an insurance salesman, is an insufferable [grouch] and petty tyrant.
grouse
For all the critical grousing [about] Rodriguez selling out, it is an exciting movie on the most basic level.
querulous
She lives with her kids and her [querulous], distant father-in-law.
stroppy
Having said all of this… I don’t make the same [connections] between Condon and the [sulky], [stroppy] Twilight [mood] that I can trace [off] to Coppola and van Sant.

bumpkin
although it is inevitable that the fastidious Mahmut will grow increasingly irritated with the [gauche] bumpkin camped out in his spare room.
in which a [country] bumpkin moves in with his massively indifferent city cousin.
rustic
yokel
You knucklehead fool! You empty-headed yokel!
boor
They snickered and whispered and made [boors] of themselves.
Larry with [boorish] zeal leads the local protest against the return home of a convicted sex offender,
Possibility that his friend is being "whipped" into shape by a [mere] girl is something the [boorish], frat-jock-type Philip won't let pass without comment.
here the Russ agent is an apprehensive [boor] and the Chinese a whimsical,
What a boor! He's become unbearable. Basically he's a failure, and an envious one.

churl
He was a churl in his [affections].
isn't it [churlish] to ask why they didn't take less time to do what everyone can do?
But only a churl would deny the potency it [held] the first time round, in the last period American cinema felt like a world leader, with Tarantino's success given [ballast] by a purple patch for the Coen brothers and Robert Altman's glorious Indian summer.
ribald
vulgar or indecent in speech, language, coarsely mocking, abusive, or irreverent, scurrilous
During the locals' [ribald] song about Willow that [appalls] Howie in the Green Man pub, the bearded mythological figure depicted on the tavern's sign materializes as the most [bellicose] of the revelers.
gaffer
Keep your hands to yourself. I'm the gaffer now.

crass
the crass methods of [political] hucksters.
The sheer [crassness] of some of the scenarios --
This is one film that could [benefit], dramatically, from the gutsy decision to become [crasser] and more graphic
They have showed his disgust with his mother after his working-class father died and she [squandered] the bit of insurance a [crass] employer paid.
I mean, that's just crass, right? "Crass." It means greedy, exploitative, scummy.
gruff
low and harsh, hoarse
a gruff [voice]
rough, brusque, or surly
a gruff [manner]
Connolly uses a combination of sad eyes, inquisitive [grunts], and [gruff] signs of loyalty, not only to become probably the most sympathetic zombie in film history,
Eventually, the trio reach Colin's house, where Tolen works his [gruff] magic on Nancy, and [havoc] ensues.
That didn't happen in the end - Bale instead decided to run around punching people while doing a spot-on impression of gruff-[voiced] blue-haired 1980s Coronation Street character Phyllis Pearce.
The gruff Valentin adheres [to] Molina's flight of fancy and confronts an awakening sexual curiosity, while Molina, the apolitical drama queen, courts danger by agreeing to assist Valentin's rebellion.
gruffness
Cassevetes has always been good at capturing the gruffness of a given [locale], and his New York is as dirty and unfriendly as any caught on film.
gruffly
With writing credits on Undeclared, producing credits on The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, and a star-making turn as a perpetually stoned but gruffly likeable lead in the latter, Rogen proved that he was equally capable of carrying a film on both sides of the camera.

callow
Nubile
cad
And that he had behaved like an absolute monster cad. It was heaven.
What will you tell Peter and Katarina? Who cares? lt feels good to be a cad!
fop
The weather girl and the [fop]: Ludivine Sagnier and Benoît Magimel
given a memorable foppish [swagger] by Benoît Magimel,
As for Paul, he's such a vain, [preening], [foppish] creature that Gabrielle should see right through him -- which she does, in fact.

knave
Our Lady of Humanitarian Narcissism here [endures] another dreadful fate: losing her child to a mob of [knaves]
Can't have those knaves from Whitehall moving in.
miscreant
not the immoral miscreant and lawbreaker his detractors [color] him to be.

nudnik
a persistently dull, boring pestMcDormand is triumphantly dumbest as a ridiculously self-assured nudnik [obsessed] with financing a complete surgical makeover.
pestiferous
pesky
bothered by a pesky [fly] 
A series of incidents in which the presence of a pesky [mouse]
Watching the movie, it takes a little time to let go of all those pesky preexisting expectations, and adjust to what at first seems a [tad] lowbrow and simplistic.
vermin
You can't touch it. It's vermin.
I thought boys like you were really into vermin and death and shit.
They crawled all over, cracking the [body] vermin with its nippers!
varmint
varment
He'll die. Fuck a varmint! Salim, get out of here!


4.6 爛臉
sourpuss
sullen
dour
Surprising, too, is the almost [dour] tone of the film.
scowl
His wife [scowled] when he came home late again.
As lawman Artie Bonner, Diggs furrows his [brow] and [scowls] introspectively,
Fairuza Balk [scowls] through her turn as secretly pregnant Paula, who drives through [slapping] rain,
Meanwhile, downstairs at the ceremony, Jan's shipmate and Bess' grandfather [scowl] at one another,
Lyle's poker face masks a [neuro]-emotional mess of shorting [splitters] and [thrashing], rain-downed power lines. While Gordon-Levitt leans hard on an overcompensatory Timberlake scowl,
Brooding blond [hunk] Michael York plays the morally ambiguous protagonist with scowling [proficiency], but fellow [marquee] name Farrah Fawcett manages to cram more wretched acting and non sequiter facial expressions into a brief cameo than most actresses could fit into a leading role.
glower
No glowering [closeups] or characters skulking in a corner to give the game away.
Dad [glowers] but doesn't speak. Mom has her eyes [glued] to the TV, where a tape of an old Buffalo Bills game is playing.

grimace
Though Roth has the somewhat thankless task of simply [grimacing] and [grunting] his way through most of the film,
Milk humors White but [grimaces] in distaste when he’s not looking.
moue
a pouting grimace.
gathers itself into a moue of petit bourgeois [disapproval]
ornery
ugly and unpleasant in disposition or temper
inferior or common
He and Shelly navigate the [flat] Formica landscape of Hartley's dialogue with great ease, their blunt, no-[frills] performances forming the heart of an [ornery] but immensely satisfying film.


4.7 笨蛋
Lout








Churl

Repose

repose







Y

D



–noun 

1. the state of reposing or being at rest; rest; sleep.

2. peace; tranquillity; calm.

3. dignified calmness, as of manner; composure.

4. absence of movement, animation, etc.: When in repose, her face recalls the Mona Lisa.  



–verb (used without object) 

5. to lie or be at rest, as from work, activity, etc.

6. to lie dead: His body will repose in the chapel (小禮拜堂) for two days. 

7. to be peacefully calm and quiet: The sea reposed under the tropical sun. 

8. to lie or rest on something.

9. Archaic. to depend or rely on a person or thing. 



–verb (used with object) 

10. to lay to rest; rest; refresh by rest (often used reflexively). 



–verb (used with object)

1. to put (confidence, trust, etc.) in a person or thing. 



2. to put under the authority or at the disposal of a person.

3. Archaic. to deposit.





　

Wearing a waved salt-and-pepper toupee and spending much of his screen time smoking in repose while his v.o. does the narrative work, Thornton is quiet, watchful and thoughtful, even if his character finally reveals himself to be no brighter than he seemed at the outset. 



McDormand has precious little to do as the straying wife who doesn't mind having to do all the talking in the family, while Gandolfini has an outstanding scene of comic distress as he confesses his own indiscretions to Ed. 



Badalucco, Polito, Shalhoub and Adam Alexi-Malle, the latter in one nifty scene as a piano teacher with a grand sense of style, punch over their roles in a very welcome manner.



toupee

[too-pey]

–noun 

1. a man's wig. 





lollapalooza

loll

lollop

a lolloping golden [retriever] named Lucky. 

Languid

Recalcitrant

recalcitrant







Y

[ri-kal-si-truhnt]



D



–adjective 

1. resisting authority 

or 

control; not obedient or compliant; refractory. 



2. hard to deal with, manage, or operate. 



–noun 

3. a recalcitrant person.





　

Even in this perversely recalcitrant world, the Coens find their puppets an endless source of amusement. 



Dragging ponderously on a cigarette as he pretends to cut a customer's hair, Thornton gives an exceedingly dry performance. His surface catatonia conceals a busy inner life that's expressed in morose voice-over, complete with metaphysical musings on the fact that, even after death, hair "just keeps growing." 



As though the turgid stream of consciousness were insufficient, Thornton's non-reactive taciturnity is accentuated by juxtaposing him [with] the effusive McDormand and keeping him surrounded by a gaggle of garrulous gargoyles. 



In a typical Cain touch, Thornton fixates [on] a sensitive teenage girl (Scarlett Johansson)—drawn by her rendition of Beethoven's lugubrious "Moonlight Sonata" in the midst of a department store Christmas party. 





refractory 

a refractory [child]. 

bigotry

which has an endless bigotry-friendly pocket book to give to [Proposition 8] in California.

intransigence

British government's intransigence over recognizing convicted IRA members as [political] prisoners

persevere

Though frequently disillusioned in her efforts to [spread] good will — at one point she is nearly killed by a mental patient — Sister Luke [perseveres]. 

doggedly

dodgy

intractable

not docile

the intractable [pain] in his leg.  

budge

He stepped on the gas but the [car] didn't budge.  

She won't budge from her [opinions].

when a frustrated [cadre] of student environmentalists attempts to liberate... The [animals] won't budge.

Nubile

Trajectory

trajectory



Y

【物】軌道,彈道

【數】軌線,常角軌道



D



–noun 

1. the curve described 

by 

a projectile, rocket, or the like in its flight. 



2. Geometry. a curve or surface that cuts all the curves or surfaces of a given system at a constant angle.





　

Indeed, The Man Who Wasn't There includes a number of subtle references to Lang. 



Tony Shalhoub's blustery attorney Freddy Riedenschneider's name resembles that of a Lang character, and he repeatedly talks about "this German guy named Werner, or was it Fritz," while bathed in cinematographer Roger Deakins' gorgeous, high-contrast Langian light 



(this isn't the first reference to Lang in the Coen brothers' oeuvre; Blood Simple quotes an image from Lang's Ministry of Fear: bullets piercing a door, creating intense shafts of light in a darkened room). 



While the film follows a tragic trajectory, the Coens can't resist leavening it with oddball humor.





picket

Don't cross the picket [line]

to picket a [lawn] [captives]

a small group of protestors [picketed] the movie... those carrying picket [signs] decrying the movie as an attack on religious beliefs.

mete

demarcation

Unlike many child actors who’ve made the successful [transition] to grown-up roles, DiCaprio hasn’t evolved in predictable ways—there are no clear [lines] of demarcation.

aberration

aberrant 

that the Huey Longs were [a]berrations,

stature

the height of a human or animal body.

She was rather [small] in stature.

Thomas Jefferson was a man of [great] stature.

Vicinity

Smock (續：服飾 建築 單字大集合)

smock



Y

罩衫,工作服



D



–noun 

1. a loose, lightweight overgarment worn to protect the clothing while working. 



–verb (used with object) 

2. to clothe in a smock.

3. to draw (a fabric) by needlework into a honeycomb pattern with diamond-shaped recesses. 





　

Billy Bob Thornton's Ed Crane is a man so nondescript that neighbors are always forgetting his name and no one seems to recognize him when he's not wearing his barber's smock.





。輕巧時髦 

。假仙壓抑

。裝飾 

Tony



。罩衫

cassock

He is a broad-shouldered man with a gentle voice, a well-fitting [cassock] and a hatred so fierce that it is not destroyed until his body is turned into a blazing pillar of fire. 

chasuble

In the scenes in church when Fr. Flynn is wearing green [vestments], he wears the [stole] over his [chasuble]. 

frock

gown or dress worn by a girl or woman

loose outer garment worn by peasants and workers, smock

coarse outer garment with large sleeves, worn by monks

I think that will be alright. Dont get your frock muddied.

defrock

The reverened Shannon, defrocked.

Shannon, an alcoholic defrocked [minister], who scratches out a living as a south-of-the-border tour guide.

smock

Ed Crane is a man so [nondescript] that neighbors are always forgetting his name and no one seems to recognize him when he's not wearing his [barber's] smock.

tunic

This is a button from the tunic of a [wagon]-lit conductor. (古希臘、古羅馬) 長達膝蓋的短袖束腰外衣【主英】(警察、士兵的) 緊身短上衣 (天主教主教等穿的) 短祭袍

Arab women... stripped them of their tunics and their swords and lances. The soldiers lay naked in the sun... 2000 years ago.

toga

Yes, we could drape this across your shoulders like a toga. Would that help you overcome your schoolgirl shyness? (古羅馬人的) 寬外袍【美】公職,參議員職

caftan

Goes into court in his caftan and a bell. 有帶子的長袖衣服

poncho

Haven't you ever felt like wearing clothes to fit an occasion? What do you mean? I don't know. A [cape]? A poncho? 南美人的披風式外套,雨披



。頭套

babushka

Do they still possess [fugitive] feelings instilled by a long-forgotten babushka?

wimple

[Nuns] march past in step, their wimples [bobbing] up and down in unison.

their Adam’s apples [bobbing] up and down in excitement

cloak

but the material remains [cloaked] by the very propriety, stiff manners and emotional [starchiness] the picture delineates in such copious detail. 

wicket

You'll run a good wicket. Cheers

pane

Her brother runs his bicycle over a [pane] of glass, breaking it.

that an old man, lonely and frustrated, can only say so by breaking a [pane] of glass.

grate

hearth

Let's put his bloody boots right back in the hearth!

mantel 

mantle

[earth's] mantle

The mantle of [darkness] obscured the view. 

and the "popular kids" have Oscars on their [mantles]

Noomi Rapace is the "it" girl of late 2010, [inheriting] the mantle from Jennifer Lawrence, the "it" girl of early 2010 thanks to Winter's Bone.

But just when Louis is ready to [assume] the D'Ascoyne mantle, a bizarre irony strikes. 

Well, with all due respect, sir, the mantle has [passed]. Painful. Painful, sweetie.



burnoose

there must have been a shortage of [burnooses] in Europe while both pics were in production 阿拉伯人、摩爾人

shawl

A [woman] in a black shawl came out of the shop.

It's arresting and horrifying to watch Mr. Gosling's Danny put on a [prayer] shawl and chant sections from a religious service as he [gives] a Nazi salute

Roeg's [palate] is entirely in dark earth tones, except when he introduces bright red splashes--with a [shawl], a [scarf], a poster on a wall, a house front painted with startling brilliance. 

There's a Confederate pistol in her lap under her shawl, and she'll kill you quick as look at you.

If I take off my shawl, will you take off your hat?


burqa

I originally wanted to work the [burqa] into that one. 回教女性

Never take your freedoms for granted. Blue burqa'd woman flying through the streets of [Afghanistan]...


cowl

The other big question is: who will play Batman? Warner Bros. needs a new actor, as Christian Bale’s time in the cowl expired with the end of Christopher Nolan’s directorial run. (僧侶所穿的) 蒙頭斗篷






。衣料

。衣著

Sartorial 



。裝飾

。矯飾

Meretricious



。男性服飾

。鞋

。帽

。女性服飾

。髮型 

Argyle



。建築

。黏稠 

Mezzanmine

















Smock

Gossamer

gossamer







Y

D



–noun 

1. a fine, filmy cobweb (蜘蛛網) seen on grass or bushes or floating in the air in calm weather, esp. in autumn.

2. a thread or a web of this substance.

3. an extremely delicate variety of gauze, used esp. for veils.

4. any thin, light fabric.

5. something extremely light, flimsy, or delicate.

6. a thin, waterproof outer garment, esp. for women. 



–adjective 

7. Also, gossamery





　 　

Two little creatures are perched on my shoulders, one whispering into each ear. One carries a pitchfork. The other has gossamer wings.



pitchfork

乾草叉



Devil: But to what purpose other than pure style? And it's there a glitch between the movie's look and style, which are clearly 1930s Art Deco, and its claim to be set in the 1950s? 



Angel: Who really cares about stuff like that? Putting it in the 1950s allowed the Coens to have a lot of fun with the brainstorm of the Robbins character, who invents the hula hoop and makes untold billions for Hudsucker.



glitch

Slang.

–noun 

1. a defect 

or 

malfunction in a machine or plan. 



2. Computers. any error, malfunction, or problem. Compare bug 1 (def. 5).

3. a brief or sudden interruption or surge in voltage in an electric circuit. 



–verb (used with object) 

4. to cause a glitch in: an accident that glitched our plans.  





mesh

to be caught in the meshes of the [law]. 

The [two] versions of the story don't mesh. 

trawl

Kenzie goes [trawling] [for] the little girl through an underworld of 

we are back with Gaffer Hexam and his saintly daughter Lizzie, [trawling] the same river [for] the dumped and the drowned at the start of "Our Mutual Friend."

troll 

cf. droll trot

Vicinity

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

Pneumatic

pneumatic







Y

D



–adjective 

1. of or pertaining to air, gases, or wind. 



2. of or pertaining to pneumatics.

3. operated by air or by the pressure or exhaustion of air: a pneumatic drill.  

4. filled with or containing compressed air, as a tire.

5. equipped with pneumatic tires. 



6. Theology. of or pertaining to the spirit; spiritual.

7. Zoology. containing air or air cavities. 



–noun 

8. a pneumatic tire.

9. a vehicle having wheels with such tires.





　

Three such scenes are an outrageous memory flashback in which Mussberger, literally hanging by a thread over the street far below, becomes sure he won't fall by recalling how his tailor double-stitched his pants; the movement of pneumatic mail capsules through tubes lacing Hudsucker h.q. and, best of all, an incredible episode detailing how the hula hoop became a national sensation.





anchorite

hermit

hermetic

made airtight by fusion or sealing.

within a hermetically [sealed] world where everyone shares the same values and expectations



seclude v. A suburban couple returning to their semi-seclud[ed] [house]

cf. recluse a. n.

deracinate

insulate

prevents or reduces the passage of heat, electricity or sound

to insulate an [electric] wire with a rubber sheath. 

to insulate a coat with [down].  

Avert 

Dingus

dingus







Y

D



–noun Informal.

a gadget, device, or object whose name is unknown or forgotten. 





　

The huge success of "the dingus" deals an unexpected setback to Mussberger's scheme, but for him, "business is war," and it isn't long before he hatches another plot to bring Norville down for good.





contraption

Past [detractors] had dismissed Coen efforts like Blood Simple and Miller's Crossing as exercises in pastiche, synthesizing found elements into a [new] contraption.

Schmuck

Contraption

contraption







Y

D



–noun Informal. 

a mechanical contrivance; gadget; device.  





　

The biggest, busiest film the Coen brothers had created at the time, The Hudsucker Proxy found the team working with their largest budget and most oversized canvas to date, and meeting with an indifference they couldn't have anticipated. 



Past detractors had dismissed Coen efforts like Blood Simple and Miller's Crossing as exercises in pastiche, synthesizing found elements into a new contraption.



detractor

誹謗者,貶低者





valise

with a [valise] containing enormous amounts of cash.

Schmuck

Martinet (續：食物 食 飲)

martinet



Y

D

–noun 

1. a strict disciplinarian, esp. a military one.

2. someone who stubbornly adheres to methods or rules. 



Origin:

1670–80; after General Jean Martinet (d. 1672), French inventor of a system of drill



　

The central struggle is between Mox and Coach Kilmer (Jon Voight, in another of a group of striking recent performances). Kilmer is a [close]-cropped martinet who [addresses] pep rallies with a vaguely Hitlerian salute, and has won two state titles and 22 district championships in 30 years. Now he wants the 23rd, at any cost.



One of Mox's friends is the enormous Billy Bob (Ron Lester), whose breakfast consists of pancakes chased down with syrup swigged straight from the bottle. Without revealing what happens to him, I will express my gratitude to Robbins and his writer, W. Peter Iliff, for not marching lockstep down the well-traveled road of inevitable developments.



swig

牛飲,豪飲,大口地喝





。飼料

。稀飯

。澱粉

。餅皮

Cloy



。食物

garbanzo

and not any adolescent, but the kind of teenage boy who goes to martial arts movies and fantasizes about guns and girls with great big [garbanzos].【植】鷹嘴豆

pimento

That's right. Now if you excuse me, you got some pimento loaf in there.【西】紅色柿子椒 

truffle

Can I get two of those truffles, and two ganaches? 【植】塊菌 (一種食用菌)

They're in everything: In truffles, in oysters...

saveloy

I got you saveloy. 乾臘腸

chitterlings

chitterling sausages, smoked fish. (豬等的) 小腸

botulism

This place is filthy. Hey, I clean it. This has botulism.【醫】臘腸桿菌中毒 (罐頭肉類食品中毒的一種)

hickory

I didn't want to bother you none. I brung you these here hickory nuts as part of my entailment. 山胡桃屬植物

smorgasbord

I used to work at a smorgasbord. Old people came, and they love to eat. They jammed their mouths, ate with their mouths open and it was too much. 北歐式的正餐前小菜,供應此種小菜的餐廳

beet

Beets. That's all there is. 甜菜,糖蘿蔔

He seemed totally prone to every possible kind of illness. Harold, dear, eat up your beets.


skewer

They have good skewers here. That's why I come often. 串,烤肉叉子

hollandaise

How much I took? What is it, hollandaise sauce? 蛋黃奶油酸辣醬

paprika

Is all that stuff true about Errol Flynn? How he used to put paprika on his dick... to make it, you know, like... more stimulating for the chick? 辣椒粉

bouillon

Darling, would you care for anything? lf... there's some... chicken bouillon left.【法】(牛肉等的) 清湯

You've heard of a hair of the dog? Beef bouillon floater there.

broth

Everything nice comes with you, Clara, hot broth, cool breeze from the river. (用肉、蔬菜等煮成的清淡的) 湯

dal

We'll drink to Thatcher and your beautiful launderette. Do they go together? Like dal and chapattis. 一種帶辣味的印度菜 (用蠶豆、豌豆或小扁豆製成)

kebab

Omar just runs you around everywhere, like a servant. I'll stay here with my friend... and fight it out. My family, Salim and all... will swallow you up like a little kebab.【印度】烤肉串



lentil

It's all right. Um, we know what we'd like. We'll take two tricolored salads... one grilled salmon on lentils with roasted potatoes and a Penne Alfredo. 兵豆,濱豆,扁豆

chowder

Would you like to try some chowder? 海鮮雜燴濃湯

piccalilli

Will, all this time, this summer, all I've done is put up 22 jars of piccalilli, and I put down a corn beef in a crock. 辣醃菜,辣泡菜



。食

sustenance

Within hours of [providing] Rose with sustenance, her victims fall prey to an incurable, highly contagious disease that turns them into raving lunatics who foam [at] the mouth and attack others indiscriminately.

regimen

Actually, Evelyn does make a few helpful [sartorial] suggestions, encourage a weight-loss regimen,【醫】攝生,食物療法【罕】統治,政體【文】支配 (關係)

gulp

That is a solid gain after "Anne," with Genevieve Bujold's [gulping] and Richard Burton's [hemming] and [hawing].

the mnemonic talents of Eliza and the gulping spiritual [thirst] experienced by the rest of the family.

He is in the last stages of cocaine addiction, [gulping] booze to level [off] the drug high.

devour

As Evelyn's agenda folds into LaBute's, The Shape of Things suggests a more personal issue—a [self]-devouring contempt for theater itself. 

goble

You look great. I could gobble you right up.

He blows his whistle and you sit, you stand, you grab, gobble...

Good old Una. Gobbling like a turkey hen.

guzzle

Although Jeff says upfront he's "very aware of the legal boundaries," he doesn't prevent his guest from [guzzling] alcohol.

Sure, it builds up a [lurid] impression of its [booze]-guzzling hero as a man who is [howling] with lusty lamentation,

chomp

Mark Millar (Wanted, Kick Ass) is such a hot [property] these days that the mere mention of a new project from him has Hollywood-types chomping at the bit.



victual

vittle

victuals, food supplies, provisions

Each of these young ladies here has packed two boxed suppers, and the high bidder wins not only the delicious vittles, but also the privilege of eatin' 'em, with the fair young maiden who prepared 'em with her own lily-white hands.





。飲

swig

whose breakfast consists of pancakes chased down with syrup swigged straight from the bottle. 

swill

a screwdriver-[swilling], [scalpel]-wielding gender-avenger who's all of 14 years old.

Withnail is a [ferocious] drunk, but he was played by the [teetotaler] Richard E. Grant. Grant "filled a tumbler with vodka and topped it off with a bit of Pepsi", then [swilled] the whole thing down.

imbibe

He imbibed great quantities of iced [tea]. 

Plenty of audience members are sure to shut down before they can [imbibe] a single footnote of the story's subtext.



















Martinet

Blurt

blurt







Y

D



–verb (used with object) 

1. to utter suddenly 

or 

inadvertently; divulge impulsively or unadvisedly (usually fol. by out): He blurted [out] the hiding place of the spy.  



–noun 

2. an abrupt utterance.





　

The characters observe no boundaries, and neither does the movie—Baumbach hasn’t worked out the struggle between speaking and withholding, as Bergman did. People simply blurt [out] scathing remarks, so there’s little power in the revelations and betrayals. 





　

The miracle in the plot is that the people of Lars' community arrive at an unspoken agreement to treat Bianca with the same courtesy that Lars does. This is partly because they have long and sadly watched Lars closing into himself and are moved by his attempt to break free. 



The film, directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Nancy Oliver ("Six Feet Under"), wisely never goes for even one moment that could be interpreted as smutty or mocking. 



There are, to be sure, some moments of humor; you can't take a love doll everywhere without inspiring double-takes. And Gus sometimes blurts [out] the real-world truths we are also thinking.





blabbermouth 

babble 

to utter sounds or words imperfectly, indistinctly, or without meaning.

The movie isn't sure of what it wants to say about society / humanity / medicine / science / politics but it [babbles] on relentlessly about them anyway. 

Behind a veil of psychoanalytic [babble] lies a simple tale of murder in Alfred Hitchcock's popular thriller Spellbound.

jabber 

to talk or utter rapidly, indistinctly, incoherently

schmooze

mutter

to utter words indistinctly or in a low tone

three sit uncomfortably at the kitchen table while Daisy's mother [babbles], 

"I haven't heard from her, she hasn't called. I don't know why she hasn't called." Daisy's father anchors the composition, a [muttering] codger in the corner.



babble

ballyhoo 

blurb

She wrote a good blurb for her friend's [novel]. 

bombastic

bombast

grandiose

brandish v. n.

Garrulous

Pithy

pithy 







Y

D



–adjective

1. brief, forceful, and meaningful in expression; full of vigor, substance, or meaning; terse; forcible: a pithy observation. 

2. of, like, 

or 

abounding in pith. (骨髓)





　

That the play must please is the most [obvious] truism in show business. But what about those aggressive modern works designed to affront the audience? The surrealist chestnut, Un Chien Andalou, was probably the first movie so conceived; 



it remains one of the successful because its 16 minutes of baffling insult are pithy, inventive, and comic. Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke's Funny Games—a scene for scene, if not word for word, remake of the director's 1997 German-language film, also called Funny Games—is none of these.



　

When a socially awkward small-town bachelor introduces an anatomically correct silicone doll as his girlfriend, the local community ultimately responds with surprising compassion in "Lars and the Real Girl." 



Helmer Craig Gillespie's sweetly off-kilter film plays like a Coen brothers riff on Garrison Keillor's "Lake Woebegone" tales, defying its lurid premise with a gentle comic drama grounded in reality. 



Although well-acted by a name cast, the offbeat subject matter and idiosyncratic tone make it arthouse material. Skedded for a limited release Stateside, it should have a longer life in ancillary, and could serve as a niche item for offshore distribs.



Tenderly depicting his characters' human foibles with low-key visual humor, Gillespie never condescends or goes for an easy joke. Oliver's pithy dialogue also avoids obvious yucks.





detriment 

falling off from an [original] condition 

Overeating is a detriment to [health]. 

So [at] what point do the efforts of a costumed [vigilante] [cease to] have an impact on the society he vows to protect - 

and when does his mere presence present a [detriment] to them when it's all said and done?

succinct   

[originally] composed and is expressed in as few words as possible

concise

unnecessary verbiage have been [eliminated]

terse

brevity with polish or brusqueness

a terse, almost [aphoristic], style.

a terse reply that was almost [rude]. 

Fray

Plod

plod







Y

D



–verb (used without object) 

1. to walk heavily 

or 

move laboriously; trudge: to plod under the weight of a burden.  



2. to proceed in a tediously slow manner: The play just plodded along in the second act. 

3. to work with constant and monotonous perseverance; drudge. 



–verb (used with object) 

4. to walk heavily over or along. 



–noun 

5. the act or a course of plodding.

6. a sound of a heavy tread.





　

Austere, underlit, uncompromisingly lackadaisical at three hours, and anachronistic in a half dozen ways, Regular Lovers is the first New York theatrical opening for the veteran French avant-gardist Philippe Garrel. Avant-garde, of course, is a relative term: When Garrel and Michel Auder, another Warhol-smitten French filmmaker, showed their "underground movies" here in 1970, Jonas Mekas called them "very sad cries from the past, one almost pities them." 



anachronistic

時代錯誤的



Regular Lovers celebrates the events of May '68 with a long (long) street-fighting nocturne and an even lengthier sequence of police pursuit. It's exhilarating and futile. "Can we make the revolution for the working class despite the working class?" one comrade wonders. 



The answer may be a foregone conclusion but Regular Lovers plods on dutifully, exhibiting the same glum perseverance as Garrel's career. Although the distinguished William Lubtchansky shot the film, its frissons are rarely visual. More surprising than any of Garrel's set-ups is the abrupt introduction, amid more random piano doodles, of the opening chords from "I Am the Walrus." 



nocturne

–noun Music. 

1. a piece appropriate to the night or evening. 

2. an instrumental composition 

of 

a dreamy or pensive character. 

glum

–adjective

sullenly 

or 

silently gloomy; dejected.





harness

trot

horse, go at a gait between walk and run

stagger

swagger

strut

show off, to strut one's stuff

and his world-weary [strut] is at least as eloquent.

balk

He balked [at] making the speech.  

The [horse] balked when I tried to lead it across the bridge

plod

slow, heavy, laborious

The mailman plods his [weary] way.

trudge

Origin: tread and drudge 

spiritless but steady and doggedly persistent

As he [trudges] across the wilderness, Block is visited by Death (Bengt Ekerot), [garbed] in the traditional black robe. 

Strut

Dereliction

dereliction







Y

玩忽職守



D



–noun 

1. deliberate 

or 

conscious neglect; negligence; delinquency: dereliction of duty.  



2. the act of abandoning something.

3. the state of being abandoned.

4. Law. a leaving dry of land by recession of the water line. 





C



derelict (adj., n.), dereliction (n.)   

 

DER-uh-likt and DER-uh-LIK-shuhn are the Standard pronunciations, and the third syllable is always spelled -lict, not -lect. 





 　

From the very first page of the screenplay, the suitability of Gilliam as a director leapt out at me. There’s definitely something familiar about the aesthetic described, blending cheap electronics, hand-adjusted tech, church architecture, dereliction and an overall sense of entropy. Have no doubt that this is going to look like a Gilliam film.



entropy

【物】熵 (熱力學函數)





intrepid

He was [intrepid] in his business, but in his personal affairs, absolutely [audacious]

tepid

fetid

this [fetid] mood piece [embraces] split-psyche trauma (Fight Club)

that Trevor's [cackling], Lynchian arc-[welder] friend (John Sharian) is imaginary, and much of what [transpires] has a [tepid] hallucinatory [aura].

Detest