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David Edelstein and Nell Minow

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from: Nell Minow

Cinderella and the RVS

Posted Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1998, at 9:32 AM ET

Dear David,

I loved Ever After. There were some screeching anachronisms, the accents were all over the place, and a few things that simply made no sense at all, but what the heck, it's a fairy tale, and a sumptuously beautiful and thoroughly satisfying one. The settings and costumes were gorgeous. Anjelica Houston was gloriously haughty and malicious. Drew Barrymore, the best thing about many bad movies, had a chance to show off her sweetness as well as her spunk. I took two twelve-year-old girls, who adored it. The movie spoke to the twelve-year-old in me, too, the one who loves to see the heroine get the prince but who always hopes that just once, she would rescue herself first. There will always be the versions with the pumpkin coach and the bibbity-bobbity-boo. But just as Shakespeare is big enough for both the Zeffirelli and Luhrmann versions of Romeo and Juliet, so the Cinderella story will persist in all its variations, for little girls and big ones, and even for boys, too.

Or maybe not. One of my great guilty pleasures used to be Spy magazine. It folded, and so I now get a substitute to fill out the rest of my subscription. It is called P.O.V., and it helpfully adds, "For Men" as a subtitle, in case I couldn't tell from the ads for Tommy Hilfiger fragrance and stuff that makes your hair grow back. So, I get a chance to see how the other half reads. The cover stories on women's magazines usually tout what some female celebrity has learned about love. We don't find out anything about what P.O.V. cover boy Joaquin Phoenix has learned about love (or anything else about him, really; it's about the least informative interview I've ever read). P.O.V. has a lot more "helpful advice" than I expected, with Q&A's on fashion for the clueless "Is there such a thing as a general do-it-all suit that is right for all occasions?" "Can you wear socks with Docksiders?" (and what a nice idea to have the accompanying photos showing topless women modeling the clothes!). There's even an article on relationships, thoughtfully titled, "The Black Hole of Love." It provides a helpful little test for determining whether the lady in your life has sucked you into the RVS (romantic vortex syndrome). It concludes, "if the coming week doesn't, for the first time in ages, include a guy's night out (or even two), look out: You're infected."

My son is a boxing fan, so I got him this month's Esquire, which has articles on Don King, Ving Rhames' portrayal of Sonny Liston (including "The Rhames workout for a boxer's build"), and Prince Naseem Hamed. Plus, I always like to check out the "Women We Love." A feature story about Hugh Hefner (who poses wearing bunny ears) portrays him as still game (he endorses Viagra with even more enthusiasm than Elizabeth Dole did), though shaken by that treacherous Romantic Vortex Syndrome. His wife is described as "a woman who could siphon oxygen from male lungs, one way or another."

The Vogue gene skipped a generation in our family. I've never opened a copy. But P.O.V. and Esquire gave me a new appreciation for one cover line on the current issue: "The Joy of Revenge Shopping." Yes, I think the Cinderella dream will endure.


the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940
from: Nell Minow

Cinderella and the RVS

Posted Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1998, at 9:32 AM ET
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David Edelstein is Slate's film critic. Nell Minow's reviews of movies and videos appear on her Movie Mom Web page. Her book The Movie Mom's Guide to Family Movies is forthcoming.
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