American Hairdo

Saw a fun movie the other night.  I think it was called American Hairdo (or Two Years  A Hairpiece or Gravity Defying Body Parts or something). It was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, but snubbed in the hairdo and make-up category, go figure!

Anyhow, it was all about this glued-on toupee with a combover who is married to an up-do with a side of baloney curls, but the combover is also having a relationship with a Charlie's Angels shoulder length wave redhead. The combover and the wave are in cahoots as genuine fake-loan con artists, with the added attraction of the wave's breast-baring daytime business attire. The wave faux-cheats on the combover with a fake-perm with prosthetic tooth veneers and a beard and mustache who works for the FBI. 

Authentic Charlie's Angel

Anyhow, the toupee-combover is an authentic con man and the fake-perm is a manic FBI agent who snags the combover and the shoulder length wave in the act of real-scamming and gets them to set up a faux-scam involving a number of regular-boys' haircuts, one gigolo side bang, a slicked-back sleaze-head, a schmatte-wearing hair-hiding faux Arab, and a pair of Junior Soprano eyeglasses.

In the middle of all this is a well-meaning but corrupt Elvis pompadour who is the mayor of a New Jersey city, and number of his connections:  Grecian Formula political heads. 

There's not a lot of diversity, but in one scene the corrupt Elvis pompadour does have his arm around an Al Sharpton Afro, but we never see one Jheri Curl at all. (Where are you now, Super Freak?)

Everything ends up swell for some: the combover and the wave move in together, the up-do and the side-bang move in together.  None of them get killed or go to jail.  On the other hand, the rubber-curler faux perm from the FBI is real-conned by the combover and the wave and ends up in disgrace. The Grecian formula political heads and the Elvis pompadour end up fined or in jail. We don't find out what happens to the Afro.

Along the way (not in scenic order):  a science oven (microwave oven) explodes on account of the up-do sticking a foil-wrapped metal baking pan inside it; the wave and the faux-perm go disco dancing at Studio 54 where they do the Hustle and have faux-sex in a toilet stall; the Elvis pompadour and the combover lip-synch to Delilah; the faux-perm's Mamma Mia dishes out some gratuitous cliches with the cannoli; one huge fat middle-aged male belly gets an entire scene to itself as well as a cameo at the pool party (but you can go Google that yourself).

I like to think of myself as a 60's gal, but now that I think of it, I did spend more of my adult years in the 70's.  Care to join me as I drown my aged sorrows in an iconic fern-bar cocktail? Harvey Wallbangers all around, bartender.

Done with Downton

Okay, I'm a mean girl at heart.  I laughed when Matthew flew out of his snappy roadster and broke his neck at the end of Season Three.  I knew it was coming.  I had read that Dan Stevens was done with Downton and on to other things.

I decided I was done with Downton, as well. I just can't bring myself to watch a show where I want to slap more than 50% of the characters, no matter how much I enjoy seeing their costumes. 

More fun than a barrel of suppurating donkey meat with a soupçon of fox flesh.
But not much more fun.

So, I wasn't one of the twenty gazillion watching the Season 4 premiere last Sunday night.  I'm not saying that if I come down with a case of stomach flu a couple of months from now, and the room is reeling, and I am lying there sucking on ice chips that I won't succumb to a Downton binge. But right now I am looking forward to new seasons of House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black on Netflix.

Netflix is so much more civilized.  They release all the episodes on the same day and we, the customers, can choose how we want to watch. Why, it's almost like living in the future. 

And while I'm at it, why doesn't anyone say that someone who sits down and reads a book over the weekend is "binge-reading." It's as though binge-watching were something shameful, like eating thirteen pints of Ben & Jerry's at one sitting.