(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.
Crotchety
Definition:
(a.) Given to crotchets; subject to whims; as, a crotchety man.
Example Sentences:
(1) The saving grace of the first sketch, and the best part of the entire night, was Larry David reprising his role as candidate Bernie Sanders, which is both a spot-on impersonation and a hilarious parody of his crotchety, far-left persona .
(2) He prefaced his 2006 autobiography, Doggin' Around – the title, too, of his 1994 film about a crotchety jazz pianist played by Elliott Gould – with an open, explanatory love letter, almost, to Duke Ellington.
(3) As the sun rose on Tuesday, Jones was expressing the crotchety confusion that many white men of a certain cellared vintage express in Australia now that other people, less important people, can occasionally get a word in.
(4) There were a number of big name omissions, including Hanks for both his talked-up roles this year in Captain Phillips and Saving Mr Banks , as well as Robert Redford as a lone yachtsman in All Is Lost , Emma Thompson as crotchety author PL Travers in Saving Mr Banks, and Joaquin Phoenix in Spike Jonze's oddball love story Her .
(5) Elderly patients are sometimes stereotyped as "crocks" and "gomers"--crotchety chronic complainers beyond help and hope.
(6) It had to end, of course, and it is fair to say that by August we were beginning to get into that crotchety frame of mind which starts to affect Greek taverna-owners and travel reps at the end of the season.
(7) The demands of the relentless publicity treadmill can lead to compromises on all fronts: the subject can be crotchety, the interviewer nervous and hurried, and nobody gets what they want.
(8) There was another surprise in the acting section, with Emma Thompson scooping the best actress gong for Saving Mr Banks , playing crotchety Mary Poppins author PL Travers; so far she has not been on many awards-season radars.
(9) Molly Ball (@mollyesque) Jim Lehrer seems kinda crotchety, but we really need Eastwood moderating this debate.