Nevertheless, I should have suspected something was amiss given this film's casting. Drew Barrymore as a modern Cinderella? I was waiting for that scene where Drew jumped on Prince Henry's (Dougray Scott) desk, pulled her shirt over her head, and invited the young prince to do a few lines of blow off her bare breasts. I'd bet that faster than you could say "abdication of the throne," the Prince would have been riding that peasant girl like nobody's business no matter what the evil stepmother (Anjelica Huston) had to say about it.

And is anybody else sick of these fairy tale updates where the woman is completely rewritten to be a perfectly '90s vision of feminist equality? Drew reads books, thinks for herself, can throw an apple as well as any man and still looks good in a dress. Cut to real life and only the latter applies (Quick: What woman has had the greatest influence on President Clinton's presidency?). The only thing missing was Drew dropping a new transmission into a '66 Mustang, but I guess the filmmakers had to include at least a passing acknowledgment of historical accuracy.

Actually, Tennant's casting stumble has given me a whole series of ideas for new adaptations of The Brothers Grimm stories. How about Sleeping Beauty? Drew takes too much heroin and only a handsome L.A. pharmacologist can wake her up. How about Snow White? Drew and seven dwarfs -- can you say midget cocaine orgy? Finally, how about Drew as the miller's daughter in Rumpelstilzchen? The miller, wanting to get his daughter's career in show business back, tells the head of a major studio that Drew can spin her troubled past into a golden acting career. Whoops -- somebody already bought that one.