Thai noodles, a worthy goal

[Disclaimer: I am more than a bit jealous of the actress, who is not only lusted after by men worldwide, but whose Judaica collection and astrophysics ability far exceed my own. I saw her once on the street in NYC, and she is very, very tiny, somewhere between my size (moderately tiny) and the size of a miniature dachshund, and, yes, very pretty and well-dressed, but not unusually so for the neighborhood. Once over Thanksgiving break, I was sitting with my mother in the living room, and I said "I wish I were Natalie Portman." My (slender, lest something else be implied) mother responded, gesturing to the Thai noodles she was eating, "I wish I had a whole vat of these," which struck me as the most brilliant response possible.]

Like Will, I saw Garden State, though I saw it in the Garden State itself a few months ago, with two veritable Garden State residents. Beautiful as Portman may be, I'm more oriented toward admiring those of the Peter Sarsgaard gender. Sadly, though Sarsgaard himself was in the film, he looked only so-so, and Zach Braff, the male lead, reminded me of a sub-par Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore. I have nothing profound to say about Garden State, but I agree with Will that it's a not-terrible movie in which Portman is in no way pedophile-fodder. And I'm glad to see that Will and Matt Yglesias are as confused by Jonathan Last's article as I am.