(Stevens) 'A DECENT FACTORY' (No rating, 79 minutes, in English, Finnish and Chinese) A cursory, irritatingly facile look at the human cost of globalization, this documentary film was shot and directed by a Frenchman, Thomas Balmès, who tagged along with representatives of the Finnish cellphone giant Nokia on a trip to one of the company's suppliers in China.
Chase's bravura skills, which can look facile in oil paint, are less ingratiating in dry mediums like charcoal and conté crayon.
Daniel Ulbricht has so many gifts that are right for Puck — speed, elevation, timing, merriness — that it's irritating to find he turns cuteness into cliché and allows his dances to look facile rather than magical.
Yet subject matter aside, these works are also too normal: an extremely familiar blend of performance art, photography and painting that quickly begins to look facile, repetitive and a little hollow.
The chorus employs the sort of Sondheim-esque wordplay that looks facile when written but sounds perfectly clever when sung: "Mama's hooked on Mary Kay, brother's hooked on Mary Jane, and Daddy's hooked on Mary two doors down.
And it don't matter if you don't believe come Sunday morning, you best be there in the front row like you're supposed to". The chorus employs the sort of Sondheim-esque wordplay that looks facile when written but sounds perfectly clever when sung: "Mama's hooked on Mary Kay, brother's hooked on Mary Jane, and Daddy's hooked on Mary two doors down.
But the dances themselves look like facile, shallow entertainments.
Almost all of the works were pleasant, skillful, high-keyed scenes full of flickering light, which, while occasionally brilliant, look especially facile when brought together by the dozens, as they are in this exhibition.
The show is full of Hassam's cheerful, nostalgic views of Americana; skillful, high-keyed scenes full of flickering light, which, while occasionally brilliant, look especially facile brought together by the dozens, as they are here.
And there you are with your facile forehead saying, "You look great... .. (dot, dot, dot), thanks.
Indeed, the arguments of many liberal interventionists, foreign policy "realists" and anti-imperialists have all looked equally facile when confronted by the new realities at work.
