Books turned into movies are train wrecks for me. I know it’ll be terrible, but I have to look anyway. With a couple of exceptions, movie versions of novels are usually insults to the original work, and those involved should be banned from the business (I’m looking at you, Possession cast and crew). But, knock me down, Perfume isn’t just acceptable — it’s the most perfect page-screen job ever.

Stanley Kubrick claimed the book was "unfilmable." Pfft — and Eyes Wide Shut was…

The filmmakers did not cut or change anything from the novel. They also did not dare to create their own original scenes. The script was 100 percent faithful. The images and scenes play to our senses — remember what wet rock or the juice of plums soaking into your skin smells like? Unfortunately, you also have to imagine the stench of a pre-sewer fish market in 18th-century Paris. The acting — Ben Whishaw owns the screen in what is mostly a silent performance.

What surprised me the most was how, aside from the replication of details and specific scenes, the filmmakers managed to keep the heart of the book intact. They weren’t just painting by numbers, they really understood the center of it: what does love smell like? Most book-to-movie versions are usually cold and empty scene-by-scene plays, or the filmmakers have their own ideas about characters’ goals and motivations or even about what the story itself should be. Perfume, as a movie, is that elusive, legendary thirteenth essence.

Ironically, just after seeing this movie, I opened a newspaper this morning to see an article about a Brown University psychologist’s new book about the effect smell has on men and women. In The Scent of Desire, Rachel Herz uses scientific studies to show the dominant role the sense of smell plays in attraction and reproduction. "For women, [smell] beats out all other physical characteristics; for men, all but appearance — and for both sexes, body odor comes perilously close to outscoring all non-physical characteristics as well." Apparently, it’s not in his kiss, it’s in his smell.

I don’t like book clubs. I don’t like Oprah. And I’m no fool — a month away from the film release of Love in the Time of Cholera, the big O chooses Marquez’s intoxicating tale as her new book club selection. Isn’t that a cheeky marketing ploy. No one else could get people to read in droves, and the film will surely get some nice time on her show. I won’t hold it against the film — especially as the under-rated John Leguizamo has a chance to show the world what he can do.

Make no mistake — my Perfume experience has not changed my cynical, expect-the-worst approach to books-turned-film. But you know I have to watch.

Jennifer Leblanc

My dirty little secret? I love women’s magazines. I can’t stand many of them for very long (I’m never going to be as severly lean and tan as they are in Self; Bitch is just too serious — and the defense of J.T. Leroy wasn’t necessary; and Cosmo — puh-leeze — quit regurgitating the same stale sex tips.

But my adoration for Glamour lasted longer than any of them. I really did buy it for the articles, not just pictures of cute shoes (although that goes a long way with me); not the Lifetime-television-type tales but the real articles about women’s health (which stated facts, not ideologies), politics, Marianne Pearl’s articles, and the fact that I could stand to look at their models without wanting to feed them. And the pictures of cute shoes.

Alas, the honeymoon is over. Espousing normal bodies and self-acceptance is wonderful, and they have more than practiced what they’ve been preaching. The diet-pill ads started to get to me first. Two full pages devoted to another phony miracle diet pill (which will probably kill you) completely negates the well-fed models and mentality. I have a ballpark idea of just how much ad revenue those ads brought in (two full pages in a glossy? $$$$$$), but you can’t have it both ways. I’m sure there are plenty of stinky little perfume pages to make up for those two pages.

What pushed me over the edge was last month’s issue (America Ferrara on the cover), which had an interview with Elizabeth Hasselbeck — not just an interview but an article featuring her as a champion of free speech in the fearsome face of Rosie O’Donnell. "How to Come Out On Top," reads the headline. In their eyes, the poor little blond is somehow victorious after losing her cool on live TV, taking on the big scary lesbian, and repeating her beliefs (not based on facts) about healthcare and the war. "I love having a debate with other women who are intelligent and passionate." If only Hasselbeck was intelligent. Then she wouldn’t believe that the morning-after pill should not be given to rape and incest victims, that it’s only okay for rich people to live together and have children out of wedlock, and despite the enormous humanitarian crisis of the disastrous Iraq war (based on lies about nonexistent chemical weapons), it is just.

"What are the big domestic issues for you?" they ask. "Education. Health care…It’s insane that mammograms and ultrasounds aren’t free to all women. I spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention about that." Well isn’t that special? Too bad she aligns herself with the party that could not care less about anyone’s health or well-being. You want women to have free mammograms and ultrasounds? Try Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide a variety  of low-cost or free health exams for women. Many clinics don’t event perform abortions —  they are simply about healthcare.

The Republicans are the wrong party to speak to about women’s healthcare. Under this administration, the FDA appointed a veterinarian as head of the Office of Women’s Health. That’s what we are to Republicans —  just a bunch of animals. 

That was enough. But Glamour kept going. In this month’s issue (Mariah Carey on the cover), there’s an interview with Jenna Bush (the one who was arrested twice on alcohol-related charges and who is engaged to a former Karl Rove staffer) and her "bff" —  a former Glamour staffer. Jenna has a new book out, called Ana’s story, about an unwed teenage mother with AIDS in Panama. You know, the country that Jenna’s grandfather bombed (thank you, Wonkette).

This is just too much for me. Other women’s magazines have bored me and irritated me, but none of them have ever outright pissed me off before. I cannot believe that a magazine that once received a "Champion of Choice" award from NARAL-NY would air-brush and sell one woman whose beliefs are in complete opposition to everything that Glamour used to be about, and another whose father has, and continues to, set back the healthcare, choices, and freedoms of both American women and women overseas by decades.

That’s just not my style.

Jennifer Leblanc