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Recent Examples of MephistophelesBut if Roy is Mephistopheles, Jon is a force of light.—Brent Lang, Variety, 10 Feb. 2025 Inspired by the demon Mephistopheles, Mephisto lords over a dimension in the underworld and is determined to acquire as many souls of the living as possible.—Nick Romano, EW.com, 26 Sep. 2024 Adrian started out as a theology student, but the stakes of Mann’s novel are not, at heart, theological—Adrian has a maddening case of syphilis, and that is the secular portal through which Mephistopheles makes his entry.—James Wood, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2024 The Kit Kat Club’s master of ceremonies is a kind of Mephistopheles, and also—if an actor really nails it—a sinister mirage of ambiguity.—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 21 Apr. 2024 In the Mephistopheles movement, Bernstein augments the infernal atmosphere by having the strings play sul ponticello—a ghastly slithering of the bow near the bridge.—Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2023
The Zeros are sworn to Evil and to its incarnate commander, Beelzebub (Fabrice Luchini), who barks his orders from a Versailles-like castle in the sky above the village.
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Richard Brody,
The New Yorker,
11 Mar. 2025
Fraser was bedeviled by Elizabeth Hurley’s Beelzebub in Bedazzled (2000), earned career-best reviews for the Vietnam drama The Quiet American (2002), and landed a role in the Best Picture-winning Crash (2004).
Mahnaz’s son is a Tasmanian devil spinning his ticking time bomb energy into entrepreneurial pursuits (running a gambling ring at school), bullying classmates and yelling at any adult that interferes with his forcefield.
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Sophie Monks Kaufman,
IndieWire,
22 May 2025
Assign a devil’s advocate to challenge views and ensure richer discussions.
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