Vanillafied

Well, look no further. "The First Wives Club," which opens Friday, is the latest and arguably the slickest chick flick to reduce its adult male characters to inconsequential quivery-lipped milksops. It's not so much male-bashing as all-out male-demolition, a happy-faced Hollywood excuse to trot out one vanillafied stereotype after another. Men are stupid! Men are venal! Men are libidinous reptiles!

Just when you're ready to dismiss the main character, Theodorous Melville, as simply another hopelessly vanillafied brother, debut writer and director Kwyn Bader ups the comedic ante.

Costa may just be the fresh blast of honest-to-goodness, not-playing-games, old-school-meets-new-school, funky, fuzzy-haired soul that this vanillafied, predigested, pop-tart-obsessed media culture has been looking for.