LOVE RANCH by Cali Tamayo 2.5 hearts
Award-winning Director, Taylor Hackford and I have at least one thing in common: we both first fell in love with Helen Mirren in the 1980’s. And how could we not? She looked so stunning and beautiful in ‘White Nights’ and then…standing next to the also oh-so-stunning and beautiful Mikhail Baryshnikov, it was a totally dazzling supernova…that even the movie itself got eclipsed. Then came ‘Prime Suspect’ and before I could finish the first season, it was true love… From Galina Ivanova to Jane Tennisson, Mirren’s characters are often fierce, sometimes imperfect and constantly riveting.
So, we are used to seeing Dame Helen at the top of her game and in control…and believe me, that is not chaging anytime soon. In Love Ranch, a lovely little movie about the lives and misadventures of the married couple who owned the first legal brothel in Nevada, Mirren plays Grace Bontempo, the grand dame of the legal brothel business in America, with a look right out of Norma Desmond’s closet that is to die for. . . even if her business may just kill her. Grace is a successful business woman who went into her mother’s line of work.
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Perhaps is the wear and tear of running a brothel with a philandering husband (is there any other type when you are in this business???) Or maybe is the bad medical news she just got from the good doc. Or maybe it’s just time to retire and reconnect with your worthless husband Charlie (a nicely coiffed Joe Pesci.) But before you can say, ‘Honey, I have six months to live’, Grace will be asked to become the manager of a young bull of a boxer, Armando Bruza (Sergio Peris-Mencheta). Ever the silly man, Charlie decides that this young Argentinian boxer can help him achieve his dreams of becoming a big time boxing promoter (and judging by Charlie’s hair, he could have been bigger than Don King).
All this would be a hell of a comedy if it weren’t inspired by the real life story of the Mustang Ranch owners Joe and Sally Conforte, who in the 70’s were way ahead of their time. Owners of a thriving prostitution busine
