Chewy

I haven't checked in with Manohla Dargis, the former LA Weekly writer who now occupies the bully pulpit at the NY Times, for awhile. Her writing is as individual as ever—so idiosyncratic at times, in fact, that I can't quite believe she's writing for the Times. I mean that in a good way...mostly. But I was brought up short by this, in her review of Nacho Libre:

You hear the quotation marks in the delivery and the thought that goes into every phrasing. That gives the lines chew — Mr. Black's arrhythmic use of the word "whatever" verges on the Brechtian — and it also works to the film's liberating vision of identity as a performance space, an existential wrestling ring, if you will, in which each of us, if only given the opportunity, can cavort freely in the mask and colored tights of our choosing.

"Chew"? "Brechtian"? "Identity as a performance space"? Maybe she should be reviewing theater.