(1) While the Spielberg of popular myth is Mr Nice Guy, Lean was known as an obsessive, cantankerous tyrant who didn't much like actors and was only truly happy locked away in the editing suite.
(2) He owed his late-flourishing film career to Branagh, appearing in a string of his movies: as Bardolph in Henry V (1989), Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing (1993), the old blind man in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), a cantankerous old thespian in A Midwinter's Tale (1995), Polonius in Hamlet (1996) and Sir Nathaniel in the musical Love's Labour's Lost (2000).
(3) Ken could be magnificently cantankerous, but he was generous to a fault and loved nothing more than to inspire young film-makers.
(4) Her mother the Duchess of Kent had wanted to call her Georgiana Charlotte Augusta Alexandrina Victoria, but was overruled by a cantankerous Prince Regent, the future George IV, who dictated during the ceremony that she be called Alexandrina Victoria instead in tribute to the Russian Tsar Alexander I.
(5) In my cosseted complacency, I had mistakenly believed that modern Scotland was a good place to practise the curious rituals of my cantankerous, old Catholic faith.
(6) And what a face it is: that gnarled, acne-pocked, gin-blossomed lunar landscape of ornery venom and intermittent soulfulness, out of which comes that cantankerous Texan bark.
(7) The ITV bosshas become more and more cantankerous in his dealings with the media over the past few months as the broadcaster has struggled in the advertising recession and then seen its search for a chief executive or chairman to replace him hit by a series of setbacks.
(8) I had spent my life wondering if I would ever find the elderly Jewish actor capable of "doing" the cantankerous, passionate, funny old characters of my early life.
(9) No sudden appearances from David Starkey, looming out of the historical gloaming like the ghost of a cantankerous 1930s dinner lady.
(10) He was called cantankerous, which he probably took as a badge of honour.
(11) Signature video The first Unnecessary Otter skit, introducing us to Hayes playing a sweet children's TV presenter with the aforementioned cantankerous Scottish sidekick.
(12) In 1948, the cantankerous but influential scholar FR Leavis crowned Austen mother of his great tradition of the English novel.
(13) Think of him as a cantankerous old kung-fu master whose tough love hides a deep-seated desire for his students to prosper.
(14) Like Charles Dickens, Twain achieved immense success with his first book, became his nation's most famous and best-loved author, and has remained a national treasure ever since – America's most archetypal writer, an instantly recognisable, white-haired, white-suited, folksy, cantankerous icon.
(15) In conversation, he exudes a mix of warmth and cantankerousness, idealism about humanity's potential and a weariness with the modern world – at least outside the eminently sensible shire in which he lives.
(16) Godard is the great, implacably cantankerous and difficult warrior from the new wave generation, one that still makes its mark at Cannes.
(17) The more cantankerous Senator Ted Cruz called it “Obamacare for the internet”.
(18) He’s cantankerous and eccentric but you don’t get to make a difference if you are a shrinking violet.
(19) Emerging from the gloom is Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss, excellent), a preoccupied, sensitive Sydney detective returning to her hometown to nurse her cantankerous mother, only to find herself drawn into an investigation into the abuse of a pregnant 12-year-old girl.
(20) What some saw as an eccentric masterpiece, others dismissed as an eccentric mess – a wilfully obscure meditation on the nature of globalisation from a cantankerous old genius who took a perverse delight in bamboozling his audience.
Cranky
Definition:
(a.) Full of spirit; crank.
(a.) Addicted to crotchets and whims; unreasonable in opinions; crotchety.
(a.) Unsteady; easy to upset; crank.
Example Sentences:
(1) What better symbol of the crankiness of the current protests against economic orthodoxy could David Cameron and Nick Clegg wish for?
(2) ‘You sound like my old, cranky uncle.’ Yes, I am your old, cranky uncle.
(3) Fellow Tory minister Ken Clarke warned the Greeks of "serious consequences" if they voted for "cranky extremists ".
(4) (If he were Malcolm Turnbull, a certain News Corp columnist might write a cranky blog post.)
(5) Dr al-Zayyat has said she could not carry out a full examination because the baby was "miserable and cranky".
(6) The banks have been very cranky about the levy since it leaked yesterday morning.
(7) The justice secretary did not define what he meant by "cranky extremists".
(8) From Kozlova Zaseka station, a cranky old bus takes you up to Tolstoy's house.
(9) She read a lot of science and economics texts - "the most eccentric passage of my life" - and the resulting polemic, about the dumping of nuclear waste, attracted some cranky reviews in the science press, although she says her findings were hardly startling.
(10) She examined Baby P at a child development clinic at St Ann's hospital, in north London , and although she noticed bruises to his body she decided not to carry out a full examination because the child was ''cranky and miserable''.
(11) Tony Abbott spent yesterday looking pretty cranky, particularly when people criticised his proposal to bring back knights and dames .
(12) As recent touring shows of Picasso estate leftovers have demonstrated, the cranky Spaniard was prolific right up until the end of his life, producing works of varying quality.
(13) Reluctant to defend profits made by banks using cheap QE funds, Krugman accused his rival of being a "cranky old man" and using "context and model-free numbers embedded in a rant".
(14) Clarke warned: "If they get a hopeless lot of cranky extremists elected at the next election then they will default on their debt and everybody says they will leave the euro – actually that's quite likely but it doesn't necessarily follow, but they'll default on their debt."
(15) "If they get a hopeless lot of rather cranky extremists elected at the next election then they will default on their debt."
(16) Dr Sabah al-Zayyat notes bruises to his body and face but does not perform a full examination because he is "miserable and cranky".
(17) Greece will face a disastrous future in which it will default on its debts and may be forced to leave the euro if it votes for "cranky extremists" in next month's general election, Ken Clarke has warned.
(18) He thanked journalists – whom he described as a “cranky, cantankerous lot” – for rallying around and pressing for his release.
(19) There probably isn't enough certain scientific evidence yet (how long did it take for Richard Doll to gain a following for his cranky smoking-causes-lung-cancer theories?)
(20) She was “cranky” over the suggestion that the Coalition was reducing payments to patients.