"Then She Found Me" (TSFM)

Rented from Blockbuster

Awful. At first, it sort of seemed like maybe it was going to have something going for it, but a big NOT on that. I'm afraid Helen Hunt, who directed this, had better take directing lessons or something.

This brings me to the topic of those movie review blurps that are printed on the outside cover of the DVD. The ones that say "exceedingly funny", or "the best movie of this quarter" or "the acting is superb, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen". Who are these liars? Who paid them to lie? I'm at a loss. This movie had these types of things written on the printed DVD cover and it was nothing like that. I know, everyone has different tastes, but there are some basic things and although this movie tried, it didn't work.

Now, being a middle aged woman, I have no stones to throw when it comes to beauty. However, Helen Hunt, who not only directed, but stars in TSFM, was not looking good. Both my husband and I were appalled at her thinness, which we believe is the main reason behind the fact that she looked haggard and unhealthy. She is not an older woman, but she looked older than her co-star, Bette Midler, who is a woman of a slightly older age. I appreciate the fact that Helen is not afraid to show her "real self" in front of the movie camera but to also have dialog at various times stating, in Colin Firth's words, "You are a beautiful woman", was just a bit incongruous considering that she was not just prettily plain, but obviously suffering from the effects of a close to, if not totally, anorexic lifestyle.

Sorry about that. It's just so obvious that she needs to put on a couple of pounds that will make her face look softer.

I can't waste anymore time with the movie. I wish I had more cowpies to give it so I'll use brown type instead.

Rating for Then She Found Me

Television: Madmen

Renting the seasons of this television series as they become available.

I've viewed almost all of Season I and I'm hooked. I was hooked after the first Episode. It's the characters and how everything looks. The story is secondary, as far as I'm concerned, although it also is very good. Revolving around the characters in a New York 1960's ad agency there are the clothes, the hair, the smoking, the drinking everywhere including in the office, the dominating males, the sleazy males and females, the secretarial pool, the switchboard operators - just everything that is reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn and Rock Hudson. It's just too, too cool.

I heard the remnant of an interview on PBS with Matthew Weiner who wrote it. He had it down pat. I was only about 10 years old at this time, but I remember no seat belts in the car and having no fear of dry cleaning bags. I remember wearing big petticoats that made my gathered skirt stick out like a flower. Garter belts - I wore one, but remember that my Dad said I was so skinny I probably needed suspenders to hold it up. I remember I wore those cat eye glasses, too.

Anyway, it's really just a very glamorous soap opera with all sorts of tomcatting by both sexes. But that's not all. There are intrigues of the ad agency sort, some serious backstabbing and office gossiping. It all adds up to a very entertaining series. It does move slowly, but that's OK. I want to be able to savor the pink dress with the tiny white belt, the 1960's era home decorating or watch the slatternly, bohemian artist maneater wearing a belly baring Mexican top and stacks of funky bracelets on her arms. Her friends are inclined to beatnik rebelness. (That's like in rebel)

The language is not terrible. The dialog includes what typically chauvinistic males of that era might use and it's at times rather vulgar. The affairs are steamy, but not too much so. It's the atmosphere that draws you along with the assortment of characters that are not easily forgotten.

Just watch it if you have cable or rent it if you don't.

Rating for Mad Men

Gran Torino

Viewed at the local multiplex full theatre

This is one of the R rated movies. It was great.

Clint Eastwood directs and stars. He has gone way past the days of being Rowdy Yates in the 1959 television western series Rawhide. Or being Dirty Harry.

He plays a grouchy, recently widowed old fart named Walter Kowalski. Wait, that's only the beginning. He's a foul mouthed, ex-Korean war soldier who is a bigot of the highest order. He sits on his porch, in his old intercity neighborhood where all of his white neighbors are being slowly replaced by individuals of other races. He mutters disparaging remarks about them to his dog as he reaches for another beer from the cooler next to his chair.

His neighbors are Asians and his mutterings are particularly aimed at their existence. Their old patriarch grandmother sits on her porch and glares at him. This continues until he feels obligated to take a forceful stand against a despicable gang that is trying to recruit the young son of the family. I guess if Dirty Harry was a old man, he might be Walt . Walt doesn't actually say "make my day", but that's what he means.

Other encounters ensue and as time progresses, a better side of Walt is seen. This, despite his continued verbal abuse and there is plenty verbal abuse. We, the theatre audience, chuckled in disbelief and some discomfort at the numerous racial slurs that are uttered. I wonder. If I was Asian, Mexican or Italian, would I have been offended?

A young, fresh faced priest from his parish who knew Walt's wife and promised to make sure Walt went to confession, persists in visits to Walt. Walt is very annoyed. However, the dialog between these two is crucial in plot development. As my daughter would say - this was a movie about the "human condition". She avoids "human condition" movies. I tell her she is missing a lot.

The characters are diverse, the acting great. The storyline is predictable to some extent, but with never a dull moment. At the end of the movie, most of us sat quietly for a couple of minutes in a sort of reverent silence. When it comes out on video, we'll rent it.

RATING FOR GRAN TORINO: