Words similar to contrived

Example sentences for: contrived

How can you use “contrived” in a sentence? Here are some example sentences to help you improve your vocabulary:

Prior to my firing the cannonball, I contrived to tie one end of a red rope around the axle of the paddle wheel and a modest size bucket to the other end of the rope.
The critics are unmoved: "just another lurid, contrived, xenophobic tale about Americans trapped in hideous foreign prisons" (Kevin Thomas, the Los Angeles Times ). A few call Danes' performance better than the rest of the film but concede that even her nice turn can't save the film.
2) The movie may stop Clinton from attacking Iraq, since that move would seem contrived.
Would this seem impersonal and contrived?
But this in turn raises another issue: Does Ofili want us to ask whether he is any good, or does he not short-circuit the evaluative process by making art contrived to raise hell with Catholics and excite a frisson of old-time anticlericalism in the rest of us?