I AM FREQUENTLY inspired by women in the movies. Don't worry, it's nothing deep; I don't want to save gorillas like Sigourney Weaver. Nor will I be burning myself at a stake when Luc Besson releases Joan Of Arc. And I'm already regretting last week's decision to become a virgin again like Elizabeth I.
But I do recall losing my mind after T2: Judgement Day, in which Linda Hamilton flexed biceps to die for. If I had a figure like Hamilton's, I reasoned, I'd save a lot of money on clothing because I wouldn't be wearing much. So I joined the Conrad hotel gym, which a) cost a lot more than a few new frocks and b) ended up in a embarrassing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation sequence when I fell off the Lifecycle and had a phantom heart attack.
Following a screening of Ever After, in which Drew Barrymore as Cinderella nabs her Prince Charming, played by the oddly-named Dougray Scott, my life has changed again. Fat-bottomed girls, as Freddie Mercury once said, they make the rockin' world go round.
I know, it's not nice to call movie stars fat because then they go into a terminal creative decline like Batgirl Alicia Silverstone, cruelly dubbed 'Fatgirl' by the tabloids. And apparently Kate Winslet is upset because Arnold Schwarzenegger is insisting she lose four kilos before they appear together in a romantic comedy. (Think twice, Kate, about everything.) But let's just say that when Barrymore popped up on the screen, the words 'stick insect' didn't spring to mind.
Yet Barrymore, with limp brown hair and a wicked stepmother played by Anjelica Huston, manages to lead a very exciting life in Ever After, even wearing a set of gossamer angel wings to the ball. This, I believe, is part of a subtle move by Hollywood - and I know the words 'subtle' and 'Hollywood' aren't a natural match - to reassure normal women everywhere that Prince Charming likes something to hold onto.
It's definitely a trend. First we had Silverstone filling her leathers in Batman And Robin, then Winslet stretching her corset in Titanic, Barrymore in Ever After, and now Christina Ricci bursting forth into adulthood in a movie called The Opposite Of Sex.
And while you might think, 'Wow, flesh!' when you see Drew, Alicia or Kate, when you see Christina, you think, 'Wow, lots and lots of flesh!' But in The Opposite Of Sex, which is a good, funny movie, and also in Buffalo 66, which is a bad, boring movie, Ricci successfully plays curvaceous sex kittens.