Hey, this is MY individual mandate.

This is to all of us. And no, I don’t care what time it is. The umbrellas are not optional.

What is worst? academic edition

During my regularly-scheduled existential crisis about being an academic, I ask: which of these is worst?

• that I get paid for a 40-hr week when I work 70 hours
• that after all this time I still get nervous before lectures (why?)
• that I have to put my intellectual output up for constant evaluation from my peers — peers who often seem determined to find fault, no matter how petty or outright unfounded
• that when I read book reviews of my friends’ work, I get even more outraged by such intellectual pettiness than when I read it about my own
• that I cannot live where I want to live, because that’s not how academic employment works
• that no matter how spectacularly, horribly, unbelievably hard it is to be single as a female academic, it is even harder to be a single female academic on the dating market
• that if we’re lucky enough to have a helpful partner, academic employment often requires us to live apart from our partners (unless their partners have magical jobs that allow them to move and/or are willing to gamble on finding work once we arrive)
• that academics go through appalling butt-sniffing routines when they meet each other (where did you get your degree? who published your book? who was your grad school adviser? do you know Important Person In Your Field? what did you think of Other Important Person’s recent article?), the answers to which all get adjudged as if we rank on some kind of hierarchical scale of importance
• that of all the things I’ve written, only one of them actually sees royalties — and they’re for shit
• that I am responsible for training grad students when I experience such existential crises on a regular basis
• that I am more proud of pieces I’ve written for this blog than I’ve ever been of a piece of my academic writing
• that I actually feel bad about myself due to the fact that I have better concentration for writing long pieces about Practical Magic or watching a terrible film like Aasif Mandvi’s Today’s Special than for my academic writing
• that I feel bad about myself all the time because I don’t read enough in my field, write fast enough, or give brilliant enough conference papers
• that I am surrounded by peers who are experts in analyzing power and discrimination, yet who still manage to be clueless, cruel, and defensive when it comes to their own sexism, racism, homophobia, or classism
• or, WORST OF ALL? — that our political culture is now such that academics are under attack for being lazy, overpaid, out of touch, too esoteric, a drain on public resources, not dedicated enough to teaching, not dedicated enough to research, and on and on … such that I feel myself forced to defend what I do, why it is important, and why I should be paid for it

Public service announcement

University faculty: Under new leadership, the Board of Regents of the University has instituted an exciting new program of strategic dynamism under the banner, “Our University Is Rocket Surgery!” Consider yourselves warned that if the BoR decides to eliminate your department, you will lose your job even if you have tenure.

People of color: Be warned that under a new state law entitled What Are You, Anyway?, you must register your precise ethnic identity and place of birth with the new State Department of Birth Certificates and Nationality. Suspicious certificates are liable to be rejected by the new SDBCN. No, this is not ominous in the least.

Facebook users: Be warned that Facebook privacy settings have changed. Due to the religious freedom law just passed by Congress, Facebook now permits your employer to view and cast judgment on your history of “likes.” If you do not wish your employer to receive weekly updates of your “likes,” go to Settings → Privacy → “Likes” Privacy → Contact Us → Register New Membership → Create Password → Logout → Confirm New Membership → Contact Us → Help → and then just follow the logical steps from there.

Bank customers: Be warned that due to an unforeseen security breach, all your banking information including your credit card numbers have been hacked. Go to weloveourbanks.com to register a new username and password. Be warned that hackers can use your login data from one account to access other accounts, so we advise that you change each one to make it unique.

Computer users: Be warned that you should memorize your username and password data rather than keep them on a “cheat sheet” in your home, for burglars can use this information to access your accounts.

Women: In accordance with rising public outrage against low wages and female independence, we have re-instituted the concept of the “family wage” from the American 1830s. Men will be paid amounts deemed by employers to be necessary to sustain their families, while women will receive “pin money” wages that permit them to buy that yard of ribbon they’ve been hankering after, or perhaps an extra loaf or two. We believe this will strengthen the American family and improve the economy all in one blow. (Nota bene: we have also returned to the typical working hours of the 1830s, before they were reduced to the 10-hour day by those evil unions.)

Consumers of food: Be warned that the Federal Department of Agriculture has reluctantly issued a warning about a primary food preservative used on all fruits and vegetables, including those foods sold to food processing plants, by the name of ethylchloroethylisothiamethylzolinone. This substance is now suspected to be the cause of the current epidemics of obesity, high estrogen levels, cancer, autism, migraines, stupidity (birtherism, trutherism, the Tea Party phenomenon, watching Adam Sandler films), and many forms of current-day conservatism. Due to previous misconceptions about its safety, it has also been sprayed on organic foods and has entered the water supply. Please refrain from eating food and drinking water until the FDA announces it is safe to do so.

American citizens: In a contentious 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has overturned a key element of the Constitution. Under the terms of Supreme Court v. U.S., the Court has found for the plaintiff (i.e., itself) and has determined that the United States is not, indeed, a country “for, by, and of the people” and has therefore struck down the Constitution’s opening preamble, beginning with “We, the People.” The Court is now working to determine exactly who this country is for, anyway. A decision is anticipated by June 2013.

Recipe: garlicky summer tomato pasta with brie (and reflections)

Garlicky No-Cook Summer Tomato Pasta with Brie 
or, I Stand Here Chopping
(apologies/ compliments to Tillie Olsen)

Ingredients for about 4 healthy servings (halve the recipe if there are only 2 of you):

• 3-4 lbs beautiful red tomatoes (I prefer beefsteak over roma for this recipe)
• 1-3 cloves garlic, depending on your tolerance
• about 1/2 c packed fresh basil (you want lots; don’t skimp)
• 1 smallish wedge brie
• ca. 4 tablespoons olive oil, maybe more
• salt and pepper
• (optional) dash of balsamic vinegar
• (optional) dash of dried oregano
• 1 lb pasta (your choice; I like using something fork-able, like fusilli)

It is 10am on a beautiful morning, and this is the time to start chopping, because you want the mix to sit around all day to marinate.

I love this recipe, which I’ve been making for 20 years after I got it from Lorna, the wife of a close friend, when I was first learning to live like adults do.

Lorna was very unhappily married. She’s still unhappy.

Mince the garlic, placing it in a large bowl with the olive oil.

Don’t worry about the garlic being too strong. It will mellow during the course of the day as it marinates with the acidic tomatoes.

It occurs to me as I chop that I never do this: prepare dinner ingredients so early in the day. Doing something so unusual makes me feel like I’m dabbling in domesticity. Normally I’m deep in thought right now, writing or reading something, often sitting with a bowl of cold cereal next to my laptop as I try to write. 

I never fail to marvel that I’m lucky enough to dabble in domesticity, that my partner shares in the labor. 

Chop the basil and add to the bowl. You can easily use twice the amount listed — a full cup — it’ll only improve the flavor of the pasta sauce.

Basil is expensive where I live because it’s not thriving in people’s gardens (yet). So I was more sparing than I will be in August. 

I’m chopping right now in a kitchen I love. I’ll be in a different kitchen in August. I’ll be prepping for school in August. I can already sense that I’ll be more short-tempered in August.

Chop the wedge of brie into bite-size pieces — and don’t worry about this being 1) too much cheese or 2) clumped together due to its cheesy stickiness. The pieces will separate due to their contact with the oil and the tomato juices.

It doesn’t have to be great brie. I used Président brand, which is run of the mill — it was the only kind our little market had yesterday. On some level I believe that adage, “If you don’t want to eat (drink) it, don’t cook with it.” But hey, you get by.

You can make it with other soft cheeses, too. Mozzarella di bufala is good; I’ve heard of people using cream cheese. Still: you’ll have to trust me that brie is best.

In Lorna’s marriage to her charming but irresponsible husband, she didn’t have a choice about being domestic and keep up her career. He worked too, but it’s not like he was going to clean the house or feed the kids. He was more like one of the kids.

It’s hard to see them now, because they’re so often furious with each other. Or, rather, he behaves badly and she gets furious — and she’s no longer embarrassed to explode at him in public.

It’s worth pausing to consider how nice this exercise is: all day, every time you walk into the kitchen you’ll get blasted by the smells of garlic, basil, and tomato.

It’s easiest to chop the garlic, basil, and brie before you start on the tomatoes, which make a mess.

How juicy are your tomatoes? You’ll want to squeeze out the seeds and juicy innards of about ½ to ¾ of them before chopping — otherwise the pasta sauce will be too watery. Chop them into small, bite-sized pieces and add them to the bowl with the garlic.

I love the neatnik fussiness of chopping the garlic/ basil/ cheese before starting on the tomatoes. It’s like learning how to fold fitted sheets. 

The lovely friend who taught me how to fold fitted sheets all those years ago had another bit of wisdom. “Boyfriends aren’t supposed to make your life harder!” she said. “They’re supposed to make your life easier!” 

The spectacular insight of that simple comment still rocks my world when I consider how many women assume that partnering with a man requires the opposite: that men make your life harder, like all those men in laundry detergent commercials. The men who clumsily get those stubborn stains on their shirts, leaving their wives to use secret domestic knowledges to maintain their family’s middle-class respectability via clean shirts.

If squeezing the tomatoes has led you to spray tomato juice all over your shirt, you can pause to curse, locate stain remover, and remember why aprons exist. I never wear an apron. Instead, this is my life: I stain — and treat — my own shirts.

A quick note: you can save all the squeezed-out innards and simmer it over low heat on the stove till it becomes a juicy paste. A nice lunch is a piece of bread spread with this paste and sliced avocado on top, sprinkled with a little lime juice, salt, and chili powder. 

Back to the dish at hand.

Add a little bit of salt and freshly ground pepper. Not too much salt  — you can adjust it later. If the tomatoes aren’t perfect, adding a dash or two of balsamic vinegar can help sweeten them and help them release their juicy goodness.

I sometimes add a dash of dried oregano too, but you don’t need it. I just like the surprise of a teensy bit of oregano.

All this thinking about relationships reminds me of those 19th-c. novels about courtship, novels that display the spectrum of marriage possibilities. Would we like Lizzie Bennet of Pride & Prejudice nearly so well if she weren’t so aware of the dangers of marriage — the possibility that an unwise choice might land her in the same position as her unhappy, mismatched parents or her poor friend Charlotte (Mrs. Collins: now there’s a nightmare)?

It also reminds me how absurd the ideal of modern marriage is. You’re supposed to attain perfect synchronicity of feeling, taste, and character with another person for 50 years? No wonder divorce rates are so high.

Stir the bowl to mix the ingredients. Don’t bother tasting it at this point — you’ll lose confidence; you won’t believe me that this will transform into something magical by dinnertime.

Here’s what you do: you cover this bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter. Keep the big spoon nearby (or even in the bowl), as you may want to stir during the day.

Yes, I said leave it on the counter. Not the fridge. You’re going to let it sit out all day long. You don’t need to worry about anything going bad. The acids of the tomato break down the cheese, and you need room temperature to achieve it.

Did Lorna believe Robert’s levity, love of fun, and Irish charm and blather would make her laugh for 50 years or so?

When did they get so set in their ways — she angry and frustrated by him, he insistent on being infuriating and frustrating?  

By about 4 or 5 in the afternoon you can give it a nice stir and see how far we’ve come, as the brie begins to dissolve and the flavors merge:

You will probably need to take a bite. Now’s the time to adjust the salt level and think about whether it needs another dash of balsamic vinegar.

You will probably need to keep yourself from eating it by the spoonful.

It’s not that I dislike the idea of arguing with my partner. As two alpha/ eldest/ smartypants-type children, we love arguing. We’ll do it in public, too; one time my mom commented by saying something like, “I’m glad to see other couples argue, too.” We looked at each other and said, that wasn’t an argument! That was just a squabble, and that’s a daily occurrence! Squabbles make us enjoy each other! We were a little disturbed to think our squabble looked otherwise.

We had cocktails with a couple in their 80s last week — two people so delightful and quick-witted that they seem like a model for the rest of us. They brought out cheese and crackers and proceeded to have the funniest, affectionate squabble over whether Ritz or Wheat Thins are best. I found myself hoping that when we’re in our 80s, we have squabbles over crackers.

By 7:30, the sauce is perfect:

Boil the pasta till it’s al dente, drain it, and spoon healthy amounts of the sauce on top of each bowlful. The hot pasta will further melt the remaining bits of cheese.

No need to fuss with toppings, although a little more basil would be pretty. No need to make anything else to accompany it — it’s a salad and main dish all in one.

Gobble.

Don’t make more than you can eat at night. Like risotto, it isn’t the same the next day.

Focus on the here & now: use these flavors to put aside all those thoughts about relationships and housework and failures and bad marriages. Bite in, and enjoy that moment of bliss when you say, oh, that’s good. 

Recipes — their formulas, their regularity, their predictability — aren’t much like life, are they? Learning to fold fitted sheets will not offer lessons on relationships. Just occasions to think. Those elusive satisfactions.

Self-portrait with movie camera

Making a mental note to stretch out those hamstrings today. After all, I’ve got lots of reading to do.

Science: it’s a girl thing!

Apparently I’m the very last person to become aware of this video, which was produced by the European Commission.

I don’t know what to say. Except the obvious: if I were commissioned to create a spoof video to encourage girls to enter STEM fields, this is exactly what I’d come up with.

So congratulations, European Commission, on creating the cleverest spoof ever! Sure makes the efforts of Jen and her compatriots to dismantle the “girls just aren’t good with science and math” myth look crazy serious, which is very unfeminine.

Also, I’d like to know exactly what that creepy blue makeup powder is supposed to be. Is that supposed to represent an achievement in scientific research by girls?

Let’s blame feminism, version 984,026: The Atlantic magazine

Scene: the editorial meeting of The Atlantic magazine.

Editor 1: You’ll never guess who’s proposed a piece about the struggles faced by women in prestigious, high-power jobs! Anne-Marie Slaughter, the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department!

Editor 2: Oh, I seem to remember hearing that she’d left that position to return home to her growing boys.

Editor 1: Well, to be precise, that decision didn’t really mean giving up her career. Rather, she left the US government job to return to her high-power tenured professorship at Princeton, where her husband also works and where the boys are.

Editor 2: Hang on: she’s complaining that she had such great employment options that she got to choose between them? How are we going to sell that?

Editor 1: Well, the idea is that she discuss why the workplace and working conditions make it highly stressful even for high-power women like Slaughter to strike a good work/life balance.

Editor 2: Sounds boring and dangerously like a feminist diatribe. I vote to turn it down. No one wants to read about struggles faced by working mothers. [Yawns in an exaggerated way. The rest of the room offers an obligatory laugh.]

Editor 1: Her perspective is actually more interesting than that. She’s going to argue that coming to this decision to leave the State Department job conflicted with her feminist beliefs — that her feminism had led her to believe that women could “have it all.”

Editor 2: Okay, I’m listening.

Editor 1: I think there’s a way to [pauses dramatically] — suggest that feminism is part of the problem!

[Entire room bursts into applause. Except for:]

Editorial intern: Excuse me — my name is Maribel, and I just started this week, and I know Editor 2 told me I wasn’t supposed to talk in this meeting, but I have a question: is this article going to argue that feminism promised that women would never feel stressed out or over-worked, no matter how much they’re juggling?

Assistant editor 1: Shhh!

Editor 1: No, really, Assistant Editor 1, it’s fine. Maribel, thank you for your comment. Our job is not to “argue” anything. Our job is to stir up controversy with provocative questions and misleading magazine covers in order to sell copies and win a lot of hits via Facebook posts.

Editor 2: Okay, but make sure Slaughter’s down with this. We need enough references to feminism throughout the piece that it seems plausible that feminism is at least partly to blame. Ask her to use misleading rhetorical questions as section-break titles — we all know how many hits we get from a few misleading rhetorical questions!

Editor 1: How about an interview video to accompany the piece? Hanna Rosin will do it — you know how she loves to poke at feminism.

Editor 2: Great! You can title it something like, “Has Feminism Ruined the Workplace for Women?”

Assistant editor 2: Umm, excuse me, but maybe that’s a little bit strong.

Editor 1: Well, okay. How about, “Have Feminists Sold Young Women a Fiction?”

Editor 2: Yes! exactly!

Editorial intern: Excuse me — once again, my name is Maribel, and I know you’re not paying me for this job, but I actually don’t understand. My mom works 80 hours a week at two jobs to pay the rent so I can get this experience in the publishing world; I never heard once in my life that feminism promised me that I could “have it all” with no hard choices to make. I thought feminism was still working on things like the glass ceiling and the gender pay gap and prosecuting rape charges.

[No one says anything for a beat. Assistant editor 1 looks panicked, as if she’ll get fired for this misbehavior by an intern.]

Editor 1: You’re right, Maribel. We need Slaughter to offer a disclaimer early on. Something about how she knows about her own privileges. Something like, “Millions of other working women face much more difficult life circumstances. Some are single mothers; many struggle to find any job; others support husbands who cannot find jobs. Many cope with a work life in which good day care is either unavailable or very expensive; school schedules do not match work schedules; and schools themselves are failing to educate their children. Many of these women are worrying not about having it all, but rather about holding on to what they do have.”

Editor 2: That’ll make her sound smart and well-informed, and even sensitive. Then she can drop all interest in those millions of women and get back to suggesting subtly that feminism is to blame.

Editor 1: I’ll sit on Slaughter to ensure that the first couple of screens of text keep the subject of feminism on people’s minds.

Editor 2: It doesn’t matter how much Slaughter fights against “The Man” [uses exaggerated scare quotes with hands, producing more obligatory giggles from the room] in the final pages of the piece — in fact, it’s even better if she does that, because it’ll nix some of the criticism from “feminists” like Maribel. [Room laughs even harder at this, turning heads to look at Editorial Intern, knowing that her internship will not lead to a paying job with the magazine; this laughter also reminds all the women in the room not to push this “feminism” thing.]

Editor 1: Okay, folks, let’s make this happen! Now: ideas for a cover. How about a variant on the “sad white babies with mean feminist mommies” theme? Anyone?

Why all the Scottish accents in American children’s films?

What’s the deal with Scottish accents in American children’s movies? Let’s list them:

• The villagers and lesser characters in Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) all have Scottish accents, while the leads have posh British accents (excepting the Huntsman, our working-class hero).
• When they filmed Tintin (2011), voice artist Andy Serkis gave Captain Haddock a Scottish accent, prompting outrage from fans of the books. It should be noted that while some fans protested that Haddock was portrayed as Cornish in the books, others pointed out that actually he was Belgian, as was the books’ author Hergé, and had only been translated as Cornish by the English publisher.
• How to Train Your Dragon (2010) was full of Scottish accents – inexplicably, as one presumes the film was about Vikings (who were Norse).
• Shrek (2001) had a Scottish accent – reportedly because voice artist Mike Myers wanted to use the same accent as his mother, who’d read children’s books to him in that voice.
• The entire cast of Brave (2012) have Scottish accents. Of course, in this case the characters are actually Scots, wearing kilts and all.

Qu’est-ce que c’est? Why so many Scottish accents in American children’s films?

Maybe it’s because Americans find Scottish accents to be funny and/or eccentric? less snooty-sounding than posh English? gruff and good-hearted?

Have we come to associate weird oldey-times with Scottish accents as well as funny clothes?

Or has it just become a weird tic in Hollywood?

It’s hard to figure the genealogy of this trend, as I doubt many children today would make cultural references back to Scotty of Star Trek — or to late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson, for that matter, or Trainspotting.

I found an article from the Journal of Sociolinguistics that posits that among English respondents in a large study, Scottish accents ranked almost as high for “social attractiveness” as Received Pronunciation (what I call “posh”), even though these accents didn’t rank nearly as high when it came to “prestige.”* So it’s not just Americans, apparently, who find the accent appealing.

Still, I’m baffled. Ideas? Comments?

And what does it mean that a generation of English-speaking children will grow up associating a Scottish accent with children’s films?

_____________

*Nickolas Coupland and Hywel Bishop, “Ideologized Values for British Accents,” Journal of Sociolinguistics 11, 1 (2007): 74-93.

“Snow White and the Huntsman” (2012): where do I begin?

Charlize Theron’s clothes are awesome. Like the silver-coated small-animal bones strung together in a headdress than hangs down onto her forehead:

Also, the Dark Forest is really cool, and the dwarfs are excellent.

Otherwise, Snow White and the Huntsman is a big mess of over-writing and confused themes that looks great (terrific CGI, creative ideas behind it) but feels incredibly shallow.

Now, I could complain about all manner of things, like Kristen Stewart’s acting (my friend M mused wryly as we walked out of the theater: “I sure hope Kristen Stewart never gets stuck in a paper bag”) or the preposterous notion that she is “fairer” than Charlize Theron’s evil queen Ravenna.

But let’s not be small.

Instead, let’s complain about the writing, because this film is confused (not unlike Stewart, above). What is this film about?

The original tale, as it comes to us from the Brothers Grimm, is a pretty simple catfight faceoff between an evil queen who wants to be the prettiest and a good, innocent girl whom everyone loves, especially the dwarfs. Queen puts girl to sleep with poisoned apple. Girl gets kissed by prince, and their marriage ends the evil queen’s reign. (In one particularly horrific version I still remember from my childhood, the queen gets punished by having to wear a bewitched pair of iron shoes that force her to dance until she dies. I always wanted to know why, if Snow White was so nice and all, did she permit that punishment?)

In short, the original doesn’t really leave much room for a feminist reading unless you are prone to wishful thinking, or if you are a clever writer of fan-fic. Mostly it’s a tale of men taking care of the delicate Snow White — various dwarfs and princes and whatnot — while she talks to fawns and bluebirds and perhaps sings a song. Feminist it’s not.

Snow White and the Huntsman wants to turn Snow White into an action hero. Or perhaps I should say that at some point in the writing process someone said, “What would happen in she kicked some ass?”

The writers didn’t really follow through, however. Except for that one scene in which Snow White makes a very nice running & sliding move down a drainpipe to escape from Ravenna’s castle.

Mostly she’s dragged unwillingly toward bravery, leadership, and violence by helpful men. When the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, aka Thor except with a Scottish accent and darker hair this time) helps her slog through the awesome Dark Forest, he slices off her ridiculously long gown to miniskirt/ thigh level to help her move.

So helpful to have those men around for their quick thinking, because no way would that have ever occurred to this Snow White.

It’s not that vestiges of a feminist vision behind the film aren’t still in evidence, but they mostly emerge from Ravenna’s mouth and/or her backstory, which are actually kind of interesting. “I was ruined by a king like you, my Lord. Men use women,” she tells Snow White’s father on their wedding night. If that seems like a kinky thing to tell your new husband, she follows it up by offing him in short order. Later, when she meets the Huntsman, Ravenna says ominously, “There was a time when I would have lost my heart to a face like yours. And you, no doubt, would have broken it.”

Of course, beyond this level of man-hating there isn’t much sisterhood. Mostly Ravenna spends her time sucking the youth out of pretty young girls … because the youth-and-beauty theme still predominates.

Helpful information: the film was co-written by three men with all-over-the-place resumés: John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, A Perfect World), Hossein Amini (Wings of the Dove, Killshot, Drive), and Evan Daugherty, who has no films under his belt at all.

Now, I’m not a robot: like anybody else, I’m perfectly willing to watch Chris Hemsworth affect a Scottish accent and get sweaty and dirty as he protects Snow White.

I just had a hard time when the Huntsman tells Snow White that she needs to take on leadership in raising an army to fight the queen, and she demurs … until that magical kiss raises her from the dead and she finally assumes the role of leader —

— only to give the Worst. St. Crispin’s. Day. Speech. Ever. Let’s just say that Kenneth Branagh will not be looking to Stewart to star in any forthcoming interpretations of fiery Shakespearean heroines, at least any characters that have lines that don’t need to be mumbled.

There’s also a very confusing plotline in which Snow White is proclaimed to be “life itself” despite the fact that she brings death and destruction wherever she goes. Oy vey.

In other words, whatever impulse motivated the writing of this film (that is, beyond the impulse to create narrative set pieces in which the CGI experts could make shit look cool) ultimately falls apart because the whole thing is a mess.

What I realized after witnessing so many potentially feminist plotlines dissolve into anti-feminist helpless girl and/or catfight scenarios was that this is the quintessential statement of what media critic Susan Douglas calls “enlightened sexism” — the film makes gestures to feminism to calm us down, to remind us that it’s not a retrograde tale like the original fairy tale, but it makes those gestures merely to brush them aside and assert the same old sexism as ever. Indeed, it sells sexism to women under the guise that this sexism is somehow feminist.

In the end, it doesn’t matter that Hemsworth is a hunky bit of all right, nor that the dwarfs are enacted by an utterly delightful assortment of great actors (Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Nick Frost,  Ray Winstone, Johnny Harris), nor that Charlize Theron makes the best bad guy ever, nor that her clothes are so great, nor that the CGI is so watchable.

What matters is that we’ve been sold another bill of goods in the form of that red apple, people. And once you take a bite, you drop into such a deep sleep that you’ll be mistaken for dead.

When Ken wore one too many ascots

Good thing she’s seen all those episodes of CSI, because she’ll know how to use the bleach to proper effect.

You’d never guess I was on vacation with a photo like this, would you? Haven’t seen a film in days. Because at some point in the day the only real question seems to be, “Is it time for cocktails?”