The previous movie year can never truly be put to bed until the Slate Movie Club has convened. In the past we’ve seen fireworks fly, particularly when Armond White was a participant, but recent years have seen a more collegial atmosphere prevail. This year it’s more of a sorority vibe, actually; Slate critic Dana Stevens has invited four female critics to participate in the roundtable. No boys allowed! Since, despite our best efforts, the Screengrab remains largely a boy’s club, we’re all in favor of this development, especially since the self-proclaimed “Vagina Movie Monologues” group is more than willing to dish on such topics as the unusually smooth face of Nicole Kidman.

“We needn't discuss anything prototypically ‘feminine’—though the mere question of what that might mean could make for a great conversation,” Stevens writes. “I'll raise another topic that we've all discussed, freely and hilariously, over drinks but tend to approach gingerly in print: What is the state of plastic surgery on-screen in 2008? And why is this topic so hard to broach without descending (or seeming to descend) into the ‘what has she had done?’ realm of celebrity gossip? Are we entitled to ask what's become of the once expressively mobile faces we come to the movies to see?”

"You know, I was talking to a (male) colleague about how we, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Movie Club, were all cautiously excited about talking about Worked Over Faces (to put it succinctly)—I mean, from a cinematic point of view—and he observed that women are much harder on other women than men are,” Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly responds. “I briefly felt shallow. (He's a great friend.) But then I thought, really, it's that we women look at faces (and boobs, and butts, and the kitchens, gardens, and sunsets) on screen in a different way than men do. It's like—I don't know, it's like we do an instantaneous translation: "Oh, hmmm, Nicole Kidman's forehead and Hugh Jackman's teeth, not real, OK, and now back to Australia.”

In all fairness, we’ve been known to mention the topic of Kidman’s peculiar visage – to say nothing of Mickey Rourke’s Dick Tracy villain-esque face – here at the Screengrab, too. And it should be noted that the ladies of Slate do go on to actually discuss, you know, the movies of the year. You can read the ongoing discussion starting here.

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