Skip to main content

Movie Review: An American Affair

   Hey, everyone. I watched a good movie tonight on the Starz channel. It is called An American Affair. The story takes place in Washington D.C. in 1963. Cameron Bright stars as Adam Stafford, a teenager who has a terrible crush on his neighbor. The lady is wonderfully portrayed by Gretchen Mol, who plays an artist and a (sort-of) nut. She is divorced and her own son is dead. Perhaps for this reason she doesn't really seem to mind Adam stalking her. That is not the right word, really, but he is a bit obsessed with the hot blond lady next door. I mean, he reads her mail, peeks in her windows, photographs her without her knowledge, things like that.
    Perhaps she feels sorry for the guy. She hires him to clean up her back yard and the two seem to get along fine. I know what you are thinking. The story is far different than your typical older/younger hanky-panky. This lady, Catherine Caswell, and her ex-husband were mixed up with the CIA. A creepy agent played by the skilled James Rebhorn, (Lucian Carver in the show) hangs around and spies on Catherine, as well.
    Adam has almost no qualms about any of his actions. He seems to have disposed of any childish idealism at an early age. What he doesn't know, at least at first, is that Catherine is dating John Kennedy on the sly. Yeah, she is being sneaked in and out of the White House for liaison work with JFK.
    If that doesn't hook you, just forget about this one. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed this and would easily rate it as 4 stars out of 5. Perhaps 4.5 stars out of 5. It starts out as a young love story but in reality it is cloak and dagger stuff. I bet you like it.
      From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.
P.S. The pony has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I just liked the picture. Good night.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The White Chicken Mystery

    The other night I happened to come home very late. It was the middle of the night and I was driving up a steep mountain road. Near the top I saw something white in my headlights. It was standing in the other lane, standing very still. It was a large white chicken. It was probably a rooster because I thought I could see his comb as I whizzed by at my customary pace. He never moved a muscle. This is weird, don't you think?      After a couple of days to consider this phenomenon, I have come up with some plausible answers for his bizarre behavior. 1. He was conflicted whether or not he should cross the road. 2. He was feeling cocky and decided to play chicken with the traffic. 3.He was being hen-pecked at home and had decided to end it all. 4. Someone had egged him on to do it. 5. He had just watched the movie Fantastic Four and decided to try to stop a truck the way that Ben Grimm did on the bridge. 6. He had driven himself crazy wondering if ...

Egg Art

     Hey, everyone. One of the odd customs in America is the Easter Egg Hunt. Here at the Green Retreat, we do a hunt every Spring. I just ran across some of the pictures from this years hunt and it is obvious that an artist had sneaked into our midst. The orange egg is a rendering of one of the Angry Birds of gaming lore. If I were a bird and had to pass an egg that size, I would be angry too. Ha, ha.      We typically will dye about 10 dozen eggs and people get quite creative with their quotes and colors, as you can see. Many of the eggs are a bit risque for these pages. After having a few laughs, we hide the eggs. All of them are never found, which is cool. It is amusing to see old men (me) and all ages of folks, walking around with a basket on their arm. Some of the hiding spots are dastardly. Like eggs hidden in the guttering downspouts and ten foot up a tree. The kids are perhaps the most devious at hiding the colorful orbs, goi...

The Biscuit

    Hey, everyone. What a relief that Christmas is over, huh? I don't think it was meant to be the way it is.     I started thinking about the so-called good 'ole days today. My wife says that at her house, they would take a left-over biscuit and shine their shoes before church. I one-upped her by saying, "Oh, yeah? I ate the biscuit when everyone got finished with it. And I was grateful for it." Truly, though, you can and people did, shine their shoes with a biscuit. Hey, they were greasy little buggers.     Speaking of greasy little buggers, I remember when everyone had wells and were very conservative about water, particularly those of us who had to crank a handle up and down to get a bucket of water. There was no daily bath. (No showers in those days, mate.) About twice a week we took a bath and here's the recipe: The oldest kid took a bath first, then the next oldest etc. You can see why younger siblings hated the older. Bathing in the...