Stuck as I presently am without a car, I got duped big time last night — baited with the promise of a meal at a superlative sandwich place, and thus tricked into going to the mall. Which, let’s be honest, guys, is the worst. For me the true urge to shop for clothes comes around like a Smurf baby, once in a blue moon, and if there’s one thing worse than shopping for some item of clothing you need — a new shirt, or suit — when you don’t really want to be there, it’s watching someone else shop for clothes. Terrible, just awful.

Feigning potential interest in some overpriced neckwear, though, I wandered off in Nordstrom’s, and began walking figure-eights through the men’s shoe department, which inexplicably has a bank of televisions posted in a corner pocket, and also alongside one wall. Averting my eyes from Texas’ impending bowl victory, I looked at one screen, and wondered why Liam Neeson seemed to be talking on the telephone. “Oh,” I realized, “it’s a movie trailer… for Taken.” I was most decidedly not taken, even with the sound turned all the way down. Watching it, I did my best to supress a yawn.

I just saw the trailer proper now, in talkie form, on television, and even though it’s action intercut with Neeson saying some bad-ass shit, about how his skill set will allow him to track down and kill his daughter’s Parisian kidnappers, nope, it’s still confirmed… Liam Neeson talking on the telephone doesn’t, on a purely gut level, make anyone want to see a movie. Quite the opposite, in fact. Taken releases January 30, from 20th Century Fox.