Sentence:  Back in 2010 those comparisons seemed absurd: how could the writer-director of classy-but-overthought superhero movies, as well as middling oddities such as The Prestige, be seriously thought of in the same bracket as the <WSD>lambent</WSD> mind behind Dr Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon? 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Glowing or luminous, but lacking heat.