Dummies, Death, and J.Lo

Characters in thrillers--especially the women--live in a parallel universe, don't they? A universe where they've never read a thriller or seen one on TV or in a movie theater.

Because otherwise they wouldn't behave like dummies even now, heading past the middle of the decade.

Take Jennifer Lopez in this year's erotic thriller The Boy Next Door.

She plays a high school teacher of classics here. That's right, and in a school that offers a year-long course in Homer. The poet, not Homer Simps...