In another far-off time - 2004, say - it might have been reliably counted on to damn at least some of these theatrical shenanigans with a little faint praise.
While that might sound like damning a product with faint praise, it is actually a compliment for an alternative vehicle.
It prompts adjectives – sensible, thoughtful, competent – about which a "but" hovers: faint praise in anticipation of a put-down.
But acknowledging perfection in a work of art -- especially, perhaps, in a movie -- can sometimes be a form of faint praise, even of condescension.
At my level of the game, being called a visionary was faint praise.
Mr. Jobs referred to the company's departing board members -- and by inference Mr. Markkula -- as "decent people". In Mr. Jobs's worldview, where people are either brilliant or bozos, such a statement is faint praise.
The Weir's traditional recipe (they also give a quicker version that they damn with faint praise as "a very acceptable dessert to follow a curry at home") simmers whole milk until reduced in volume by two-thirds.
Like her brother Rufus, whose taste in furniture she sings about with proud envy, she's a talented drizzler of faint praise.
Whoever takes the title, we have known ever since the English game was banished from the climactic stages of the Champions League that they will have to brace themselves for a substantial measure of faint praise.
There's a term, damning with faint praise.
The 66-year-old Olympian, who is a staunch Republican, offered faint praise for Cruz, whom she described as "very nice," although she made it clear she has yet to endorse him.
