女神殿

 

↑ 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


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