To that may be added the creation of a common legal code, the issuance of a common currency as a symbol of imperial rule, the building of roads linking the empire (or trans-European networks, as they are unsmilingly called in Brussels).
A man in a double-breasted grey suit stands proprietorially in front of a set of double-glazed patio doors, while his wife sits unsmilingly in wicker chair.
Actually, he displays no interest in anything much beyond getting the job done, as ruthlessly and unsmilingly as possible.
"I've been smiling since seven-thirty this morning," Caravelli reported, unsmilingly.
Sacha Baron Cohen, sidling on as part of a mass invasion by the cast of "Les Misérables," stuck unsmilingly to his task; when you think of the sans-culottes fun that he, or any of his comic avatars, could have with the Academy Awards, you want to weep at the waste.
Sopat stared at me unsmilingly between bites.
The trouble is, you've already seen him unsmilingly slip the ring on in a previous scene while he's en route on a plane.
As Mimi unsmilingly goes about running the house that John takes for granted, Julia shares her love of music with John, a love that takes on a pointed, complex erotic charge in a sequence that begins with mother and son listening to Screamin' Jay Hawkins yowling "I Put a Spell on You".
He spent the next four months battling political foes, news organizations and rivals inside the campaign itself with such ferocity that Mr. Schmidt -- an imposing block of a man -- buttressed his reputation as an intimidating enforcer, unsmilingly, calculating and permanently on the attack.
Ironically, all these are hard-pressed to compete with the real-life excesses of rock and tech that inspired these fictions; Ozzy Osbourne allegedly sat unsmilingly through Spinal Tap, assuming it was a straight documentary.
The vital elements of wit, of insolence, of light-footedness and light-headedness that make magic so compelling - and incidentally, also made Christopher Nolan's first two films so compelling - are all neglected in favour of a desperately humourless and unsmilingly acted contest, with borrowings from David Cronenberg.
