Jolie's exotic mixture of brains and glamour makes her the one reliable international star, and one of the few of either gender to make people in every country pay to see her.

The Disney animators' rules on adult females: mothers are perfect but imperiled; stepmothers are wicked and occasionally homicidal; godmothers are sweet things with magical powers.

We lived a lovely, middle-class, suburban life in Philadelphia. And I really thought that the TV programs of the '50s, like 'Father Knows Best' and 'The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet' Nelson were documentaries filmed with hidden cameras in our neighborhood.

Although the Academy prefers their Best Pictures grounded in realism, not fantasy, Lee's 'Life of Pi' win proved that the voters understand and appreciate the qualities a visionary director needs to create an otherworldly adventure.

You may not be able to change the course of government, but you can achieve some peace. And books were the path to that. I grew up in a house where books were everywhere.

I was born during the war, on October 20, 1942, as the second of five children. My father, Rolf Volhard, was an architect.

On June 23, 1864, Ambrose Bierce was in command of a skirmish line of Union soldiers at Kennesaw Mountain in northern Georgia. He'd been a soldier for three years and, in that time, had been commended by his superiors for his efficiency and bravery during battle.

By the end of World War II, we were the most powerful and least damaged of the great nations. We also had most of the money. America's hegemony lasted exactly five years.