The trailer shows the director recreating the 1971 period without
straining for effect. This is a highly inflammable subject, filled with grandiloquent drama and flamboyant fury.
Nobody agrees with everything Hitchens wrote, not even Hitchens (one of the anti-Christmas essays here is admitted in its successor to be "
straining for effect"), but even off-par, he reminds us how diminished our cultural sphere is by his passing.
Debutant director Abhishek Varman knows how to tell a story embedding individual scenes with a distinctive personality without
straining for effect. The narrative traverses a number of cities--Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai--searching out enchanting pockets of storytelling for the couple to grow into.
Cash's raw, sometimes haggard voice crackles with honest conviction, whether ribbing husband Johnny in the comic "Temptation" or confronting mortality on "Will You Miss Me?" The spare acoustic settings and plain-spoken lyrics convey powerful, often messy emotions without
straining for effect. And don't miss the fiery yet delicate title track, complete with her shimmering autoharp--a perfect summation of June Carter Cash's simple genius.
The Neptunes bring toughness to her wondrous tender vocals on Steal Away and she can do sweeping ballads, 2U, and sunburst pop, Flying Away, without losing her cool or
straining for effect. Fearless and wide-ranging, Blige's formidable reputation just got greater.
Kwan and his cameraman, Pun-leung Kwan, have come up with a trendy look, utilizing diffused light, harsh colors and the regrettably fashionable handheld look, thought by some to be more "real" but which instead adds to the artificiality and sense of
straining for effect.
In the past, even in the midst of such marvels as On Being Blue, an extended essay on the erotic arts, one could occasionally see him
straining for effect. He is now seventy-two, and at the top of his form: gone are the forced-sounding metaphors that sometimes marred his earlier prose, gone the sporadic, ill-managed, and sarcastic lapses into vernacular, the typographical games, the mere misanthropy and bursts of petulance.
This is lovely writing that is crisp and accessible, never talking down to the reader, never
straining for effect or image.
Willie's expressive guitar work dominates--quietly--never
straining for effect, and he injects a conversational quality into the music.
Meno and Sand are a striking couple on the ice, making even the most daring technical feats look relaxed rather than
straining for effects. Meno, twenty-five, is a petite redhead (even before she committed to pairs skating, she recalls, "People always told me I should do pairs because I'm small") with a mercurial presence.
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, though rife with adjectives and often
straining for effects and "art," is an action-packed narrative of Lawrence's campaigns in the desert with the Arabs.