They are churning out bitingly funny cartoons and columns of scathing gossip aimed at senior officials as well as United Nations and other foreign aid agencies here.

That sounds far grimmer or at least more relentlessly grim than this shrewd, agile, often bitingly funny film plays.

Near the end of Franzen's haunting and bitingly funny reading, Patty's father abandons her when she most needs him, offering the platitude: "Life's not always fair, Pattycakes."

Even so, Miss Southgate, a woman of fierce intelligence, bitingly funny wit and high-spirited sense of fun, made her mark on literary Paris simply by being her ineffable self.

YesAsia said, "Hong's characteristic episodic narrative and elliptical reflection provide the brooding framework for a bitingly funny send-up of filmmakers, festivals, and the people and places in between."

First printed in Ramparts, the quintessential radical magazine of the 60's, Mr. Cleaver's prison essays are angry, sometimes bitingly funny, often obsessed with sexuality.

In its review, The Independent said, "Buckley's bitingly funny portrait of East Anglian society make up for the laddish commentary."

In any case, Berlin's difficult upbringing has given its inhabitants an unusual view of the world and a bitingly funny ability to express it.

In the romantic songs, one's mind easily wanders to the bitingly funny Lloyd Webber parody in "Spamalot," which droned on and on until the stars looked tired of their own voices.

Kirkus Reviews calls the book "a winner", saying that it is "bitingly funny and unexpectedly heartwarming".