Word: flat
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...lack nuance or support in the details of the film. Furthermore, The Center of the World falls short of its potential as a drama. The film is only 86 minutes in length, and yet at times it even seems too long. The problem is that the narrative development is flat and ineffective—Wang seems unable to manipulate action and tension into a pattern that’s satisfying to audiences. Also lacking is effective imagery. The film is shot, interestingly enough, on digital video, which effectively augments the sense of voyeurism, of watching from a computer screen...
...sometimes even seems to be ringing for no reason. Also, there are moments in the play, such as when Ruth and Jack are having a major blow-out, in which the actors remain far apart. This occasionally diminishes the power behind the emotion, leaving the acting a little flat...
Furthermore, the coastal plain is far from a pristine wilderness untouched by human hands, unlike the other 17.5 million acres already protected. It is a flat, treeless, almost featureless plain in northeastern Alaska home to a military radar site and the Inupiat Eskimo community of Kaktovik, a village of 260 complete with houses, stores, a school, power lines and many other modern-day facilities. The town even has its own oil well...
...pause at this list. One interesting effect of such a review is the exaggerated importance of detail and pattern. The taxes surveyed, contested or not, concern either property already acquired (land, assets, beards) or some kind of procedural fee (marriage, burial, customs duties and a flat fee for foreigners to participate in the local economy—however problematic, by our standards, this determination of foreignness may have been). The detail which stands out, making the list seem more like a Borgesian encyclopedia than a record of tax law, is that of souls...
Benazir Bhutto's London flat is comfortable but hardly ostentatious. The most noteworthy decorative touches are several bouquets of slightly wilted flowers sent by supporters after the Pakistani Supreme Court decided last week to set aside her 1999 corruption conviction. The former prime minister's elation hasn't faded. "I'm absolutely thrilled," she says. "Now I am free of any stain." When reminded that the verdict is not a wholesale exoneration, but rather an order to set aside her conviction for taking kickbacks from a Swiss firm and proceed with a retrial and that charges remain pending against...