Pallas

For future surveys I suggest adding 2 options: "None of the above" and "N/A" for folks who don't use those services and/or ver much favor another option.

The reviewer misses that Daniel Craig is incredibly buff. It is absolutely mandatory that he take off his shirt more than once and this promise definitely attracts female audience. In his first Bond film there a sequence when he was naked, sitting on a chair (and being whipped - not pleasant). He is really physically beautiful, not muscle bound, just very buff. Naomi Harris IS very memorable -- winsome and also believably physically strong and decisive -- not in the tradition of Bond-girls-who-will-be-dead-by-the-end-of-the-film. Ralph Fiennes is good in a small part which obviously will be much larger in the next Bond film. Mendes et al are looking to the future!

This reviewer missed two important points: 1) Not only is this princess with the flyaway red hair a model for young girls, she is a strong female character for boys to appreciate as well -- and I know several who do. It is long past time for boys to learn that clever and independent girls are admirable and no threat to males of any age. 2) The other message is that even if your mother has been transformed into a she bear, she is stll your mother, and will fight a dangerous male bear at the risk of her own life in order to save yours. Oh, and also, the princess asks that he mother "will be changed," not specifying that she means that her mind will be changed to agree to let the Princess make any decision about marrige. Message -- be careful what you wish for, you might get it -- and find out you should have been more specific.

"Eat, Pray, Love" is a quest movie. Because the person on the quest is an adult woman it follows an unfamiliar pattern for quest movies, which are generally about men. It does not involve warrior tricks or muscle flexing or guns. With all due respect to Bob Grimm, he would be well advised to petition the editor of the Tucson Weekly to find someone else to review what are sometimes called "chick flicks." Grimm belongs with Sly Stallone et al He would be much happier sticking to them. He is unable to grasp female quests, female metaphors. He seems to find them disquieting. Grimm's description of "Eat,Pray, Love" is very far off base. Liz Gilbert is -- in real life & in this film -- an experienced and successful travel writer who is married to & the sole support of a boy-man who has never finished anything and seems to have no goals or direction in life. At some point he was enrolled at Harvard Law for one semester, then no more, apparently. They attend a party for her most recent book and, on the way home, he fantasies that he might like to go back to school to get a degree in ed. admin. because of a casual conversation he had at the party. After 8 years together, that is the last straw. She initiates a divorce. At a divorce conference he throws a tantrum insists that she pay him all her royalties for everything written while they were married, and give him all their joint assets. She wants her freedom from this twerp so badly that she agrees. She does, indeed, then take up with an actor. Their relationship deteriorates to frequent fights & rare sex & he proposes that they stay together because he fears what will happen to him if they part. She realizes that she has spent her whole life since she was 15 being defined by her relationship with one man or another and needs to break that pattern. She secures a book advance (this is not explained in the film, unfortunately), large enough that she can travel for a year. She goes first to Rome for 4 months; then to India for four months; then to Bali -- where she had been before on a travel assignment. The photography is breathtaking -- of the wet rice terraces of Bali, the Augusteum in Rome, the exuberant city of Naples, the chaos that is India -- along with the serene & beautiful Ashram; and, again, Bali. There are two refreshingly ADULT men in this film: Bardem (romance) and Richard Jenkins (friend) as "Richard from Texas." She is befriended in the Ashram by Richard from Texas, who has the most powerful scene in the film. The film editing is skillful. Julia Roberts is in nearly every scene & we don't get tired of her. The Sound track is a montage with some oddities. (The Queen of the Night aria doesn't fit & is obtrusive.) This is not a great film, but it is immensely better than Mr. Grimm's review of it, and the fault lies not with the film but with the reviewer. I respect his knowledge of film making, but he completely & totally misses this film. It is just not a genre he values, or understands, or appreciates. And as for being whiney - it is her husband & the actor who are whiney. She accepts responsibility for her own decisions & actions. They want to be mothered. .Posted by Pat M. on August 27, 2010 at 2:06 PM

Okay - you got me! I said to myself, "this has to be an April Fool's Day joke!" Three paragraphs into it I called Yvonne Merrill & said "ask James if this is real!" Then I read further & it got sufficiently bizarre (Legislator Newtalk?) that I was persuaded it HAD to be an April Fool's joke - but I still called the Weekly to verify that. You understand, of course, that this Legislature has a track record which indicates they just might try to do this! Of course there will be others who think it a good idea, I know. Oh, well.

Falcon9 - I don't know where you are getting those figures, but they do not correspond to present reality, not at all! Our schools are ranked 50th in some studies, 49th in others. Our wages are well below the national average. Our unemployment rate was recently one of the highest in the nation - and getting worse.