May 1, 2008
Our third anniversary, another red carpet event, and movies that will
make you laugh
It’s been a very busy and fun-filled few days for The Three
Tomatoes. It started last week when we attended the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival at the red carpet premiere of Baby Mama, and the after-party at MoMA. That was followed a few days later with an invitation to
see the very funny film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. And we
started this week off with a fabulous penthouse celebration of the third anniversary of The Three Tomatoes, a terrific event that was sponsored by Nina McLemore. Here’s a recap, a little celebrity gossip,
and The Three Tomatoes review of the movies.
Our Third Anniversary, thanks to you
The Three Tomatoes can hardly believe that it was three years ago this
month that we sent out our first newsletter, to 60 friends, just for the fun of it. But what’s really amazing is that today we
have a few thousand friends who subscribe to our little newsletter. Smart, savvy, accomplished women , who like us, felt they had
become invisible, at least to marketers and a lot of the media who virtually ignore us because we are (gasp!) over the age of 45. That is
what gave birth to the idea of The Three Tomatoes. We love sharing all kinds of things that we
like, from clothes, to beauty products, entertainment, restaurants, and more, that we think you’ll like too.
The Number Three
We've been told the number three has all kinds of spiritual and symbolic
meanings, to which we usually scoff an “oh, please!” But since it’s our third year, we thought we’d check it
out. And among the many meanings of “threes”, including solid, real, substantial, complete, the one we like the most is that
“three” denotes divine perfection. We think we’ll go with that one.
An evening of divine perfection
So Tuesday night, 160 tomatoes joined us at a fabulous penthouse in midtown,
for an evening of divine perfection, that included amazing city views, cocktails, hors d'oeuvres courtesy of Nina McLemore, and shopping from the fabulous Nina McLemore Collection of beautiful jackets and more, designed for
“women who aren’t kids.” An added bonus was a terrific panel discussion called “Lessons Learned”,
moderated by media personality Valerie
Smaldone that included Gael Greene, New York
Magazine restaurant critic and author of several best selling books; Amy
Hill Hearth, best selling and award winning author of Having our Say: The Delany Sisters First 100 Years, and her new book, Strong
Medicine Speaks: A Native American Elder Has her Say; and Valerie Block, Deputy Managing Editor of Crain’s New
York Business, who is also a singer and song writer. And to cap off a perfect evening, blues singer Amy Coleman sang a few songs for us. View our event photos .
On the red carpet at Baby Mama
It sounds like The Three Tomatoes are jaded
about these things. Well hardly, because this is only the second red carpet we’ve been on. But the first, which was last year
spoiled us forever, because we were on the red carpet with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt at the premiere of a A Mighty Heart, followed by the
Hollywood A list after-party which we attended and wrote about like we were 16. But trust us, the Baby Mama premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater was fun too. We were positioned right at the entrance of the red carpet, so we
saw everyone arrive, including of course the stars of Baby Mama, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and
supporting actors Steve Martin, and Sigourney Weaver, plus the arrival of Robert DiNiro and his
beautiful wife. Standing next to us was Chevy Chase, white-haired but still cute, dressed in jeans, black tee, and sports
jacket, waiting for his daughter. (They also sat in back of us during the movie.) But now to the important stuff, who was wearing
what and how did they look.
Tina Fey is adorable, very tiny, and younger looking in
person. She had on a terrific black strapless taffeta dress, with full skirt (with pockets) that showed off her teeny, tiny waist.
(And why don’t all cocktail dresses have pockets by the way?) Amy Poehler, who is equally adorable, should
fire her stylist. She wore an off-white dress that made her look washed out, and it had several ruffled layers that did nothing to show off her
cute figure . But our favorite awards went to the “women who aren’t kids.” Faye Dunaway,
who looks fabulous (and must have an equally fabulous plastic surgeon), wore a lavender pants suit with a black silk shirt, and long hair
flowing, which on her looks terrific. Christine Lahti, who has an amazing body, was by far the most dressed up (after Tina) in
a red satin sheath that clung to her well toned body. The only jarring thing was the back had a deep V-cut and her bra strap was showing.
And then there was the regal looking Sigourney Weaver whose casual yet elegant look was a three-quarter length turquoise
patterned jacket with a green shell, jeans, and strappy high heel sandals. She looks like one of those women who dresses herself, and can
just throw anything on at the last minute and walk out the door looking fabulous.
Okay about the movie. Baby Mama is the story of a 37 year old single, successful career woman (Tina Fey), who wants to be a Mom. When she
is told she has a 1 in a million chance of getting pregnant, she hires a surrogate (Amy Peohler), a blue collar gal from South
Philly. The movie is predictable, but Tina and Amy are so cute, funny, and often poignantly touching, that you can’t help but love
them. But the real show stealers are supporting actors Steve Martin, who plays Tina’s whacky new age boss, and Sigourney Weaver,
who is head of the surrogacy agency. Greg Kinnear, who is one of our favorite actors, plays Tina’s love interest, but the role has so
little substance, even Greg couldn’t pull out a real character. That said, it’s an enjoyable, light-hearted hour and a half,
with a few laughs along the way.
We will not be Forgetting Sarah Marshall
If you’ve never heard of the new movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall then you must be living under a rock,
because they’ve done some of the cleverest outdoor promotions of any movie in a while. Like signs on top of cabs that say “I
hate you Sarah Marshall”, and “Yes your butt does look big in those jeans Sarah Marshall.” But that doesn’t
necessarily mean you’ve rushed out to see the movie, which is another Judd
Apatow production, whose previous movies include The forty- year Old
Virgin (a long one joke movie), Superbad (which you would have to pay us to see) and Knocked- up, which we loved and
thought was very funny. Okay, so we’re not the target audience for these movies, and we probably would have waited for the DVD for
this one, but we got a lovely invitation to see the movie from the tomato mother of Nicholas Stoller, the movie’s director and co-writer. He’s written several
screen plays, and this movie is his directorial debut. So we joined Nick’s proud parents and several of their friends at a Sunday
afternoon showing at a theater in NYC, and this group of aging boomers laughed our heads off.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a smart, witty, warm, sophisticated, and very funny movie. In fact a couple of folks
compared it to Sideways in terms of quirky, dysfunctional characters. The plot in a nutshell, features a heartbroken and
depressed Peter (Jason Segal) whose girlfriend, TV sitcom star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) has broken up with him after five years. He heads
to Hawaii for a vacation to try and get over her, only to run into her vacationing at the same place with her new boyfriend, a British rock star,
played hilariously by Russell Brand. (If you don’t know any of these actors, don’t think it’s you. We had never
heard of any of them either before this movie.) Plus, there’s a great and very funny cast of supporting actors who really make this
a great ensemble movie. Even the full male frontal nudity scenes featuring Peter, which in a lot of movies would just be gratuitous, are two of
the movie’s funniest bits. If you’re looking for a smart comedy, and some good belly laughs, don’t wait for the DVD,
go see Forgetting Sarah Marshall now.
Some weeks it’s good being us. Makes up for some of those other
weeks. Martini cheers to all you tomatoes. Thanks for helping us grow and getting to three years.
‘til next week,
The Three Tomatoes
Copyright©2008. The Three Tomatoes. All rights
reserved.
