She's always observing characters and coming back saying, 'This is a character I want to do.'

His name is Yakimoto, one of seven sharply observed characters who people the alternative Hispanic universe of the actor John Leguizamo.

While the film is mostly mired in the domain of painted ladies in colorful saris, on occasion the action, if it can be called that, halts to observe characters in tedious acts of observation.

He observes suspicious characters coming and going, but he bases it all on emotion.

Like "Elephant," it simply observes characters in action instead of trying to understand them.

Several sharply observed minor characters give the movie an extra bite.

The album's songs don't just observe characters; they reach inside.

Like several Britten operas, "Miss Havisham's Fire" offers the curious and troubling experience of observing 19th-century characters expressing themselves in 20th-century music.

It lacks the emotional magic of "Angela's Ashes" and it lacks that earlier volume's intimately observed characters and tactile conjuring of time and place.

As standard-bearers for 1990's Britpop, Blur had been writing smart, neatly organized pop-rock songs observing peculiarly English characters.