EAT, PRAY, LOVE, AND DIE OF BOREDOM....

Just back from my summer in France, I went to my favorite movie house, the Prytania, and saw "Eat, Pray, Love" just because that's what was showing. I knew something was wrong when I entered the packed theater and counted five males among a bevy of ladies of all ages (including a 97-year-old friend of my late mother). Uh-oh, I thought, chick flick. How right I was. The excruciatingly long film (almost three hours--rivaling "Gone With The Wind") consisted mainly of close-ups of Julia Roberts' grotesque mouth eating pasta and talking, talking, talking. This flick had more talk than a French art film—with none of the intellectual depth. Also no plot, no character development, no action, no climax, just sugary postcard-style images of Bali and gobbledygook aphorisms about meditation and the meaning of life that would be embarrassingly trite on a bumper sticker. ("If you want to get to the Castle, you have to cross the moat.") Gets my nomination for Worst Screenply, Worst Actress, Worst Direction and Worst Three Hours Spent in a Dark Room.