The gravest, most enduring damage has been done to American self-identity and the country's capacity for somber, discriminating action -- as opposed to disjointed, aimless flailing.
There have been somber shorts ("Cannonball"), action-only compilations with the subprime-mortgage crisis as a backdrop ("A Badlands Adventure") and countless self-produced YouTube videos.
Mr. Bove, a sheep farmer who has proved media savvy since his action made him a celebrity, looked somber as he left the courthouse.
While the mood was mostly somber, there were suggestions of the tough military action to come as all 2,000 participants sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," at once mournful and a call to action.
He spoke forcefully, purposefully and in somber tones of an America unafraid to take unilateral action, if necessary, against an Iraqi leader he portrayed as the personification of evil.
Liam Neeson leads the fight for survival, and Mr. Carnahan conducts a clinic in muscular action-movie technique that is also a somber, moving meditation on life, death and the line between the human and the wild.
Despite the zingy one liners and the gore, the writing in Centurion also has a slightly intellectual bent, and a surprisingly somber tone, that sets it apart from cinematically toothless historical action films like Troy.
The better question might be "What on earth were they thinking?" In refurbishing a pop culture chestnut of radio and early television for our culturally sensitive digital-blockbuster age, Gore Verbinski has put together a long, hectic hodgepodge, with some witty action sequences and a tone that swerves from cartoonish whimsy to somber violence.
While McMurtry doesn't stint on frantic action, violence or seemingly round-the-clock gropings, "Folly and Glory" marks a somber and satisfying end to a long, rambunctious trip.
HARTFORD — Choking up as he reflected on the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, in a somber State of the State address beginning the legislative session at the State Capitol here, promised to take actions aimed at preventing a similar tragedy from happening again.
