Years ago, when he enjoyed jogging along country roads as a student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he noted the puzzled expressions on the faces of local farmers.
It matters when those of us struggling with little-known illnesses keep talking and keep answering the puzzled expressions of people in grocery lines.
Vin Diesel is the elder statesman of the breed, but coming up fast behind him are Taylor Lautner, of the "Twilight" saga, and Tatum, an affable Southern boy who went into acting from modelling, scored a hit with "Step Up," and now bears the deeply puzzled expression of someone who never expected to be standing in the rain wearing a leather skirt.
When a commander rebukes a younger soldier with, "Look, you're only seeing the small picture," the soldier's puzzled expression articulates the film's central question: in the case of a ground war, is it possible to see anything else?"Lebanon", out now in select cinemas.
Saga, meanwhile – wearing the same puzzled expression for minor social transactions that she uses for working out who the murderers are – pored over relationship manuals to acquire plausible girlfriend skills for her new live-in lover, Jacob.
The first showed a man sitting upright in the blasted street, his legs twisted horribly, looking out at the world with a puzzled expression; in the second, he was leaning over his elbow, a bent pipe cleaner in rags; in the third, he was lying prone, his eyes staring fixedly at the camera.
Plus, being a data-driven digital music business in the current landscape just doesn't elicit the same puzzled expressions it once did, especially from investors, the CEO tells us.
But of course we're building up to a huge Wayne Rooney gag, and Wayne himself does a wide-eyed cameo, in full kit, agreeing to Xavier's proposal that he is the "mutant" who should join the X-Men: "Anything for the team," he says – and there's zero comedy in his puzzled expression and the "Apoca – who?" line when the mission is explained to him.
"For the moment I'm searching for words," the coach said, wearing his habitual puzzled expression.
