The look on her face is priceless, as she realizes...

Betsy Draper's father dies (4th episode of Season 3 of "Mad Men"), which is unfortunate, as he added an interesting element of tension to the Draper family. Despite his weird behavior (dementia), he was quite kind to the children, especially the daughter - a real contrast to the ice-cold Betsy and the distant Don. Not sure what further plot elements can play out in regard to Betsy and her brother - focus will shift back to the Sterling Cooper office. There, we see Peggy trying further to come out of her shell, moving to Manhattan - and needing advice from Joanie as to how to find a roommate (she seems destined to find a mismatch). Peggy's mother, as is the pattern on this series, incredibly mean to her when she learns Peggy wants to move to Manhattan. And in a 3rd interesting plot development, as Sal pushes off his wife (I'm working), she asks him to tell her what's troubling him. He says he's concerned about moving into directing a live commercial, as opposed to drawing storyboards, and he acts out for her the dance sequence he has to direct. The look on her face is priceless, as she realizes, evidently for the first time, that Sal is effeminate - this may be the source of all their problems. Not sure how that will play out, but Don has been discreet with Sal's secret. Show continues to be edgy and cold and dark, not for everyone but for those who can stand the cold waters it's compelling, addictive. I would hate to be in this world, but glad to have a glimpse of it.

Chilling like an ice pick: Marriages in trouble on Mad Men

Three strong narrative intersect in 3rd episode of Season 3 of "Mad Men," and the emerging theme is marital tension (at least in two of the narratives). Especially interesting is Joanie's domestic life, newly wed with her priggish husband, the young doctor who can provide her with an enormous ring and the stature of a professional marriage - but little else. He obviously is overwhelmed by (and maybe embarrassed by?) her sexuality. Very good tense dinner party with his boss at the hospital and another resident. We learn, though an inadvertent comment, that her husband is not performing well at the hospital - and even more tellingly that he keeps this from her: I don't like to upset Joanie. At the same time, another party, as Roger Sterling throws a bash for his yooung (2nd) wife, former secretary at the firm who now lords it over the others. The Drapers attend, their own marriage deep in trouble. A governor's aide makes a strange pass at Mrs. Draper - there will be more to this. Roger's wife, drunk, grabs at Don, which leads to tense words between Don and Roger: Nobody thinks you're happy. We think you're foolish. Meanwhile, Peggy gets stoned with some of the other young execs: she's not wound as tight as everyone assumes. Series remains solid and tight, well written and beautifully produced. The chilling coldness of the characters is like an ice pick. You would not want a steady diet of this kind of show, but you can't stop watching once you start.

How cold and cyncical characters can succeed: Work in advertising!

Second episode of "Mad Men" Season 3 sets up more plot points for the series - Mrs. Draper's dad, suffering from Alzheimers, comes to live with the Drapers, and he'll be impossible to manage; the conflict between Cosgrove and Peter Campbell as they face off to become chief of accounts heats up - Campbell screwing up a meeting with the group that wants to tear down Penn Station (Draper comes to the rescue and takes on the account, personally), Cosgrove working to land the Diet Pepsi account. Peggy steps out of her shell a bit, inspired by an Ann-Margaret film clip, and wants to be more sexy - heads into a bar alone, hooks up with a guy. He's a dolt and thinks she must work as a secretary, and she doesn't disabuse him. I'm guessing we won't see him again, though a love interest for her might be a good plot element. Roger Sterling (John Slattery, my lookalike) dealing with family estrangement - his daughter doesn't want his new 20-something wife at her wedding. The Brits who bought Sterling Cooper seem unable to manage the company. As noted, lots of plot elements - not much coherence - in this episode. And other issues raised in episode one - Don's infidelity, Sal's homosexuality - don't even come into play. You get right down to it and Mad Men isn't so much about plot as about style and vignettes: the incredible coldness of all the characters, the cynical way they fake themselves through life, and turn that cynicism to their advantage as account execs.

Can you have a TV series in which every character is hateful?

Started Season 3 of "Mad Men" (and they're already advertising Season 4). It's like watching a house fire or a train wreck. Everything's horrible, but you can't stop watching. I suppose it's a great show - I'm still in for it in Season 3 - an unquestionable well acted, written, and especially designed. But how can you build a whole show in which every single character is unlikable? You'd think it's impossible. Here in first episode of Season 3 Dick Draper, after coming back home to his (pregnant) wife and being really sweet to her in first scene, goes off on a business trip and has sex with (or begins to, until a fire alarm goes off) with a flight "stewardess." Sal, the art director, maybe the most sympathetic character, still hasn't come out, even to himself, that he's gay - but Dick sees Sal in his hotel room with a half-naked bellhop. Uh oh. In the spirit of the show, he will probably use that information to gain some advantage over Sal, when needed. Meanwhile new British ownership fires longtime employee and promotes to young execs (the hateful Peter and the feckless Osborne?) to be co-chief of accounts, hoping they'll fight to the death. Peter, the most unlikable of them all, no doubt will do some really dirty stuff to best his rival. That's the way this world is, a teamwork of hate and contempt. Doesn't sound like anything you'd want to watch, right?, but so easy to get hooked on it - sometimess I guess we just want to root against someone else, everyone else.

Who's going to make a great film about outsider art? : Seraphine

"Seraphine" got some very strong reviews, and it's interesting to a degree as a biopic about a real outsider artist, Seraphine, a social outcast with religious obsessions who scrubs floors for a living and paints to save her soul (her guardian angel told her to paint her visions). It happens that she's hired to clean for a leading Parisian art dealer, champion off Rousseau and Picasso, who learns of her talent and shows her strange works in his gallery. Though she did sell her art, her mental condition deteriorated and she spent her last years in an insane asylum. It seems to me that the movie may have played down her insanity, as she seems mainly eccentric (wearing a bridal dress and giving away possessions) and self-destructive (spending wildly) rather than a menace to anyone else. I wonder if that was so? Her actual artwork - which the movie uses (at least images of her artwork) - doesn't do much for me, all closely patterned images of flowers, blossoms, fruit. Others disagree. Have to wonder how many other great "outsiders" remain still undiscovered, not having the good fortune, in a sense, of scrubbing floors for an art dealer. Did his patronage make her famous, or her talent? Or both? In a funny way, this film makes a good bookend with the much more commercial Coco Before Chanel: both involving extreme talent exhibited by an unlikely and unfortunate provincial French woman, same country setting, nearly the same time period, in both cases the woman championed by a powerful man - but then the conclusions are so different, Chanel going on to fortune and Seraphine not. Also Seraphine and her patron both struggle through life and particularly through the war (WWI). I wish I liked this movie more, but the pacing was glacial and the story line felt curiously removed from Seraphine, we really end up knowing little about her other than her art. Remember the outsider artist in Junebug? He was more interesting, and scary.

A very powerful movie with one troubling flaw: Precious

I liked "Precious" (and I know I'm supposed to say that it's based on the novel Push by Sapphire) much more than I thought I would. I remember reading Push (source of the film Precious directed by Les Daniels) when it came out and thinking it was kind of melodramatic and tendentious, if well-meaning. Turns out it was a great source for a movie. Precious really throws you right into the strange and sad and terrifying world of the young girl's life: school where she tries hard but can't succeed, home where her mother is a cruel tyrant, social agencies where she's enmeshed in bureaucracy, a new alternative school where it will be a struggle for Precious to fit in. And yet - things do work out for her, in a sense, but in no easy way, it's a constant and for the most part completely believable struggle, as she gains her freedom from the horrible mother and gains a bit of self-confidence, prepares to move forward with her life. To the film's great credit, we begin to understand the mother, too, and for once a movie doesn't blame everything on the unfeeling social workers and the crushing bureaucracy of the system. The social agencies do help, and Mariah Carey, surprisingly, is terrific as a thoughtful but tough social worker. The scenes in the classroom are a bit derivative, think Freedom Writers and probably a dozen other films, but the violent confrontations between Precious and her mom are unprecedented, and the Precious's interior monologues are poignant and revealing. Great acting by Monique and the Oscar winner (name?) who plays her mom. I can understand, however, that this film is particularly disturbing to black viewers (in the same way that A Serious Man disturbed me and other Jewish friends), in that the black characters, except for Precious, are pretty much all horrible and the sympathetic characters are white or mixed-race (and the comic characters are Hispanic?). I wish that hadn't been so; it's a troubling (and avoidable) flaw in an otherwise very powerful movie.

Read something by Tolstoy Instead (of watching The Last Station)

What's with the incredible fascination with the last days of Tolstoy? So many writers have been drawn to that trope, the old man, surrounded by sycophants and bloodsuckers, trying to shed all his worldly wealth, fighting with his wife, at last lurching off to a remote railway station where he dies - with the world press waiting beside the railroad tracks, one of the first great celebrity media events of the modern world. The movie "The Last Station" (by Michael Hoffman, based on Jay Parini's novel) faithfully tells the story but adds little to the well-trod ground. It's a typically BBC-type high-production value enterprise, with a great star turn by Helen Mirren as Countess Tolstoy. Christopher Plummer got an Oscar nod for his Tolstoy, but I don't see why: big, bombastic, but strip away the beard and the peasant outfits and there was nothing special I thought. The special twist on the story is that most of it is seen through the eyes of Tolstoy's secretary (Bulgokov?, played by MacAvoy is what's become a typecast for him as the acolyte to the tortured great man, cf Last King of Scotland). Bulgokov struggling with conflicted ideas and loyalties: should he be spying on Tolstoy? Must he be a true Tolstoyan and remain celibate, despite the advances of sexy, athletic co-worker (what do you think? any guesses?). The fact is there was nothing to make the movie interesting or moving as a story, a drama. The orchestral score - surging strings, an occasional trilling on the piano - was noisome. Do yourself a favor and read something by Tolstoy instead, maybe The Death of Ivan Illyich.