(Flashbacks are a new feature on Zembla where we revisit old comedic scribbles unearthed from various notebooks and post-it notes that sit in a box on Sean's desk. Flashbacks exist simultaneously as historical documents and extremely dated social commentary.)

September 2001

I was watching TV when a commercial came on for Michael Douglas's new movie, Don't Say A Word, known less by its title than it is by Brittany Murphy's creepy "I'll never te-ell" catchphrase. From what I could glean from the preview, Michael Douglas has an young daughter who gets kidnapped, and he has to get Britanny Murphy to tell him something so the kidnappers let his daughter go.

I already think Michael Douglas is gross, but he becomes extra gross when he's paired with young women. The preview got me ready to become outraged and disgusted at Hollywood. Douglas was paired with Famke Janssen, a woman twenty years younger than him, and his daughter was only eight. Could we stop matching old men with young women and children already, Hollywood?

My outrage was checked when I realized that real life was grosser than the movie. Michael Douglas wasn't married to a woman twenty years his junior; Catherine Zeta-Jones is actually 25 years younger. And Michael Douglas didn't have an eight-year-old daughter, he had a one-year-old. These figures are sumamrized below:

Douglas = 57.
Janssen = 36.
Zeta-Jones = 32.
Movie child = 8 years old.
Actual baby = 13 months old.

The conclusion? The makers of Don't Say A Word are not gross. Michael Douglas is.