TiVo Lady

Then She Found Me? (Don't Bother Looking!)

Then She Found Me, a vaguely Boomerish movie directed by and starring Boomer Helen Hunt, would seem like it should be a wonderful mid-Sunday afternoon weepie while being Football Widowed.  (At $3.99 on Pay Per View, it's a total bargain!)  After all, it's about mothers and daughters, adoption abandonment and recovery, infertility and loss of marital affection, and the hot, desperate love of Boomer Brit Colin Firth (born 1960, believe it or not).  But, alas, instead, it's a big fat mess.

Helen Hunt plays April Epner, a thirty-nine-year old married woman who's desperate for a baby, but can't conceive, just like her adoptive Jewish mother.  The scenes of Hunt reciting Hebrew blessings are some of the most cringeworthy ever--this shiksa just cannot get her lips around those "ch's" and "sh's."  I did not believe for one nanosecond that Hunt was a nice Jewish lady.  Not only that, but she is so frighteningly thin, that she seems bound for a hospital ward at every moment.  Hunt has the torso of a twelve-year-old here, and I just wanted to yell:  "Put on some body fat you dope!  How can you ovulate if you only weigh 87 pounds???!!!!"  What is with these Serious Actresses who believe that they can stave off the aging process by getting down to their pre-pubescent weight?  This is a forty-five year old woman with bony arms, a scrawny back, and a starvation-inspired face who looks ridiculous.  If she were, in fact, twelve years old, her mom would be worried about her weight.  Boomer Bette Midler, who hefts an appropriate bulk for her age, plays Bernice Graves, the biological mother who gave April up for adoption, and now wants her back.  "Make her eat something!" is what I yell at the screen....

Matthew Broderick plays April's estranged husband, Ben Green, and his doughy physique is age-appropriate.  He's a forty-six-year-old man who looks it.  Still, it's never quite clear why he wants to leave the marriage, except that he "doesn't want to live like this," as he puts it.  Hey, maybe it's the bony Hunt-wife:  every time she turns over in bed, she stabs him with her hips!!!

The ever-lovely Colin Firth is the only redeeming factor in this mess of a movie, though it's a mystery  why he'd be attracted to the dour, depressed, scrawny April, who is his son's teacher.  The rarely-smiling woman leaves a trail of despair and desperation in her wake--any sane man would run, fast, in the other direction.

For all of this--and for ruining my private Sunday idyll--I award this movie a highly-deserved Cringeworthy Crown.

Waterfront Property

In case you didn't believe me, this is my back yard.  We do not, usually, have waterfront property.

This is the reason that I was able to stay inside and watch a TiVo-terrible movie, one so dreadful that it won the first Cringeworthy Crown ever.

Although it may be too soon, there's a chance that the new Fox show, Drive, could also merit a Crown of Cringeworthiness.  I watched only because the captain of the Serenity, played by Nathan Fillion, is starring in this new show.  Unfortunately, it stars way too many anorexic young blondes, makes no logical sense (why would anyone decide to pay $32 million to the nonprofessional driver who wins a secret cross-country race), and I really don't care who wins anyway.  Fillion was so fabulous in the ill-fated Firefly (also on Fox), that I longed to see him on the small screen again.  I should have kept my fond memories intact.  Sadly, I'm not sure I'll be able to get through even the pilot episode, even rapid-TiVoing through the commercials.  It's just that, well, I don't really care about cars.  Or about driving them.  Or about the people who drive them.  See?  Here's the Great Fillion.  And here's the too-skinny, too-young blonde. 

Hey, Fox!  Just put him back on Serenity already!!

Johnny Depp is a Boomer!

Here in the Northeast, we are having a Sunday monsoon.  It has been raining for nearly 24 hours straight; the roads are impassable, the 50 mile per hour winds are impending, and imminent household flooding is  possible.  All of this is to excuse my day of TiVo Dreaming, in which I watched TiVoed movies chosen by Mr. TiVo.  I saw an incredible movie, called The Ninth Gate.  Incredible in that it was so unbelievably bad, although it starred one of the most amazing actors alive:  the delovely Johnny Depp.  The phrase that comes to mind while watching this horrific mess of a movie--something about a book written by Satan that will call him to life--is this.  What the hell was Johnny thinking???  The only interesting thing to come of this TiVo travesty is that I learned that Johnny Depp is a Boomer!  Born in 1963, he just squeaks into our cohort--go Johnny go!!

Actually, this experience has inspired me to create an award.  I will call it The Cringeworthy Crown, in which an ordinarily talented actor/musician/writer/dancer participates in a work of art so bad that it makes the view cringe with vicarious embarrassment.  I hereby award the first two Cringeworthy Crowns to.....   Perfect Stranger, in which the usually semi-astute Bruce Willis starred, to his everlasting shame.  Add to this a seond crown to the Depp display, The Ninth Gate: may it disappear into TiVo Limbo and never be seen again on this earth.  Congratulations winners!