The Film Noir Experience

In this film, Humphrey Bogart plays Babyface Martin, a man who has murdered many people, who has come home to collect his girl and see his mother and then disappear out West. Home is a tenement neighborhood on the East River that is overlooked by encroaching upscale buildings. In this neighborhood, gangs of kids fight, people do odd jobs to make ends meet and sole-supporters of families go off to stand on the picket lines every morning in an effort to force management to raise everyone's pay. In short, this film that came out in 1937 is a tale that makes you think, "Wow, the more things change, the more they stay the same."

That being said, it was very good. Bogart plays an excellent murderous psychopath. Sylvia Sydney is strong and thoughtful as the striking sister doing everything she can to move her younger brother away from the gangs and the poverty, and Joel McCrea is also excellent as the out of work architect/moral backbone/cynic of the neighborhood.

This film was based on a play and that shows in the pacing (and, the moral summation given by the brother of a judge towards the end.) But, it warrants a watch.

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Half way through this film Ed Helms sings a song about tigers, what they dream of, and what has happened so far in the film. It has been stuck in my head all. day. long. That is okay, though, because it is hilarious and every time I catch myself singing it, I smile.

This film is about three guys who take a friend to Vegas for his bachelor party and then proceed to have such a wild time that they don't remember what they did...including where they lost the groom. This film was funny, inexplicable and well executed. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much. Hooray.

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Oh, Sam Raimi, how I love you. love you almost as much I love GDT. (Almost.)

So, this film is about a cute, little blond thing (Alison Lohman) former Pork Queen from down on the farm, dating newly-minted Professor Dr. Nonbeliever (Justin Long) who is up for a promotion at her branch of the bank when an old lady comes in to ask for an extension on her loan. She has to make a tough decision, in order to prove she can make tough decisions, in order to put herself ahead of the competition for the promotion. So, guess what happens? Yup. Bam. Curse.

Highlights of this film: Possessed man dancing like a marionette, gore (so GROSS), Gorey-esque opening credits, Ash/Uncle Ben's car, Alison Lohman

Drawbacks: As much as I love Mac, this wasn't his best performance. Also, (and, this isn't the film's fault) it was paired with Orphan at the Drive-In, and well, you read what I thought about that.

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Former musician/Yale Professor/Drunk and Architect (I think) look to complete the circle of love by adopting an older child after a terrible and traumatizing still birth. They are a couple with secrets. He cheated on her drunk ass. She once passed out and almost let one of their non-stillborn children drown. Dr. Yaley Lush still has horrific nightmares about the still birth and feels incredibly guilty about it. So, they go to the orphanage and pick out the quiet kid from Russia painting and ignoring the festivities downstairs. She turned out to be a total psychotic bitch with secrets of her own.

This film was boring. Worse, the "twist" was something we guessed fifteen minutes in. It got points (okay, a point) for allowing to make a reference to the Tales from the Crypt in which a ribbon worn as a choker is the only thing keeping a girl's head on her shoulders. That was it. The soundtrack wasn't great. The acting couldn't save it. One of the other girl's in my car at the drive in fell asleep. This doesn't even get a meh.

Posted by Kate at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This may have been the most ridiculous film I have ever seen. And, since I've seen pretty much everything Monty Python has ever made, that is really saying something. (And, it is not saying something good.)

It is a cool concept for a film. Something terrible happens and we see it from more than one perspective. Right, I am with you. And they even went all out on casting Dennis Quaid, Sigourney Weaver, Dr. Lost...I mean, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, Zoe Saldana and my favorite hispanohablante Eduardo Noriega. It should have been a good film, right? I mean, Zoe Saldana AND Spanish-speaking eye candy!

There are explosions. Dennis Quaid chases Dr. Lost through the streets of Salamanca in a cute, little European car. Dr. Lost has the worst Gringo accent when he speaks Spanish. (Oh, and the rubbish he says. My God.) It hurt. Forest Whitaker saves a little girl from inevitable and painful death (which, by the way, I felt was the punch line in a Lars Von Trier kind of way. This was also painful.) El Guapo looks guapo even when he is being rundown by the Secret Service and, in the end, Dennis Quaid saves the day. I painted my nails during the last half of this film because I had to do something to keep from scoffing at the screen. (There were some continuity errors as well, like why is Forest Whitaker agreeing with El Guapo in one scene and the shocked, shocked! to be running from a bomb in the next?)

I should have listened to Media Zombie, but I didn't. This film was punishment. Boo.

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Jean Harrington and her father Handsome Harry are professional gamblers working the Southern Queen and taking rich idiots for a ride. That is, until Jean meets Charles "Hopsy" Pike, heir to the Pike Ale fortune and falls in love.

Him, too.

And, its all going swimmingly until Hopsy's overprotective man-nanny/body guard outs her as a professional gambler and breaks his heart. Hopsy then breaks Jean's heart. Time passes and Jean is presented with an opportunity to reacquaint herself with Hopsy as the Lady Eve Sidwich. Of course she takes it. She's plotting revenge.

So, that's the basic premise of the story. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Girl is given a way to get back at boy (with whom she is still secretly in love) and she takes it. Really hilarious revenge scene ensues. Boy runs boldly back into the arms of girl not even caring that she's totally played him.

While The Lady Eve is not one of Henry Fonda or Barbara Stanwyck's best, its a pretty good boy meets girl comedy and I did find it entertaining.

Posted by Kate at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are things in my Netflix queue that are honestly there because I was watching an awards show or reading a list of winners and just added things to my queue. That is how Vals Im Bashir got into my queue. All I remember about this addition to the list was that it was award winning and about a war. Maybe. I was expecting it to be brutal. Just not in the way that is was.

Writer/Director Ari Folman interviewed other veterans from the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon in order to help him fill in the gaps in his memory. As he tells a friend of his early on in the CGI film, "Its just not recorded into my system." He has a dream that seems to be about something that happened to him in the war and in order to put it together he discusses with other veterans their experiences of what happened. The film is a series of mini-stories, each one representing a memory of another veteran, all of them leading up to a comparison between things that happened during that war to other past atrocities and the suggestion that one might not be able to remember something because they don't want to admit to a role (even a minor one) that they may have played in it.

This film was shocking and a little heartbreaking. It wasn't a complete history of the events of the invasion of Lebanon; it wasn't comprehensive in its discussion what happened and why, but I think it is a pretty good chronicle of what some of the soldiers on the Israeli side went through and felt and how that has since effected their lives.

And, this might seem like an unfair or inappropriate comparison, but it reminded me a little of the Blind Spot, in that we take part in these things and we don't think about their consequences and then later we sit down and unravel some of what has happened and are presented with a picture that is dark and of which we are baffled, angered, upset and ashamed. I am happy that this movie was CGI animation and not live action, because it was difficult enough to sit through as it is. I think that a live action film would have cut into the film's ability to get the message across.

This is a good film and I'm glad I watched it. But, it was heart-breaking and there may have been tears (I admit to nothing).

Posted by Kate at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've had in the past month or so a mini Guillermo Del Toro Fest. El Espinazo del Diablo is a film about ghosts, gold, growing up, falling in love and standing up for yourself. Its, I think, the first of Del Toro's films set during the Spanish civil war in which the main characters are children. In this film, Carlos is brought to an orphanage away from the front where he meets Jaime and the other orphans that have been taken in and cared for by head mistress Carmen, Conchita and the Doctor.

Of course, the orphanage is also home to its full complement of secrets including but not limited to the unexploded bomb in the court yard and a ghost of a former resident. This film pretty embodied many of the things that make excellent children's literature excellent. Things like the difference between adults and kids and the power of fear. But, even so, this is still a film about a ghost so there are all the scares you'd expect on top of all the drama of being a little kid in a warring adult world.

Now, my feelings on this film (or anything else made by Del Toro) may be a little suspect because I have a bit of a crush on the man, but I really enjoyed this. It was scary. It was funny. It was heartbreaking and occasionally touching. It was hot. The bad guys get what they deserve. And, the story was woven with a palette of muted desert colors and rocking '40s hairstyles.

Given this film and the Orphanage, it may be possible that the best films about ghosts are made by Spanish speakers.

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So, at this point, I figure everyone has already seen this, but just in case you haven't, There are going to be spoilers in this post.

Robots and Explosions. Robots and Explosions! Robots AND Explosions! This film should have been so good. It should have been awesome because the robots were in disguise. It should have been funny. It should have been ridiculous, but it should have been a good time. And, maybe if someone else had edited the film and it had been, say 45 minutes shorter, it would have been all of those things. Except it wasn't 45 minutes shorter, it was eight and a half hours long (in slow movie time, not in *actual* time.) At some point in the second half Shia and Megan Fox were running from Petra to Giza (!!!)* and it occurred to me, "Wait, Megatron captured his parents and they haven't turned up yet. Oh, man, we have to sit through them rescuing the parents, too?!?!" And, then they turn up and I'm not even bothered that they might get killed by rampaging Decepticons because by that point I'd given up on all of humanity, starting with director Michael Bay.

Also, dude, after two years Shia's character Sam, just tell the super hot chick you love her. Tell her you love her and stop torturing your audience with all this, "I'm really fond of you." bullshit. It is not often I find myself wishing I had to pee so I wouldn't have to watch something. Also, while I wasn't completely surprised by the unending dick and balls jokes, they got a little old. By the time John Turturro informs the aircraft carrier in the Gulf about the deploy a top secret super Anti-Robot weapon that he's underneath the evil robot's scrotum, I couldn't even laugh anymore. What should have been clever completely failed to land because of all the juvenile blather that had come before.

And, finally, what is this killing Optimus Prime rubbish? Those of us who are old enough (and/or sufficiently geeky enough) to remember the original cartoon film have already lived through this trauma. While horrifying the first time, this time it just made me mad.

Can Michael Bay go back to making films about asteroids and prison breaks, please? Those were fun films. This one was just...ugh. Although, it did have nice explosions.

*Since Petra is in Jordan and Giza is in Egypt, it was quite a run. Maybe if they'd just cut that out we could have saved the requisite amount of time.

Posted by Kate at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This film had a few things going for it from the outset: first, it has Ben Kingsley in it. Second, its about intrigue on the Trans-Siberian railway and I think it would be AWESOME to see Russia and other Asian destinations picking the train up in China and taking it to Moscow. Third, It has Eduardo Noriega in it and he's most welcome eye candy. (Also, Sorta Spoilers Ahead.)

In this film, Emily Mortimer and Woody Harrelson play a couple who have hit a rough patch in their marriage who have gone on a mission trip to China through their church and are now doing some traveling before heading back home. They meet another couple, played by Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara who tell them that they were teaching English in Japan. Ben Kingsley is a narcotics cop who discovers a missing stash of herion and a murdered drug dealer in Vladivostok. So, ya. Missing drugs. Cop. Fishy stories. Russian nesting dolls. Hot Spaniard. Rocky marriage. Oh, and somewhere in there, someone goes missing and someone dies and someone gets tortured by drug distributors looking to find their missing goods. But, you pretty much knew that was where this was going.

I don't know what I was expecting, but meh. It wasn't a bad movie. It just wasn't great. I'm not sure I really cared about Mortimer and Harrelson's characters and I didn't really get what could have been between them in the first place so it was hard to believe that they were trying to rekindle something. Kate Mara was great, although there was a part of the film where she disappeared that I didn't get at all. Ben Kingsley was a believable Russian narcotics cop who may or may not be hiding something. Again, it wasn't bad, it was just...meh.

Posted by Kate at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Richard Sherman is a married man (married for seven years) who works in publishing in New York City and who has just put his wife and son on a train to Maine for the summer.

He's all set to spend a nice quiet summer in the sweltering New York heat, not drinking and not smoking in his quiet building while the other summer bachelors step out, play cards, drink and smoke cigars, and stay out until quarter to nine in the morning. That is, he's all set to do these things until he comes home after a nice vegetarian meal to find out one of the other two flats in his building has been rented to a beautiful young woman. Richard Sherman then turns into Walter Mitty and pictures himself seducing this young woman and other possible scenarios.

The girl, played by Marilyn Monroe, is funny and a little ditzy and a good sport. Sherman and the girl become friends and spend some time together and Sherman wrestles with wanting to become closer to the girl without cheating on his wife, some pretty funny imagined scenarios take place. All in all, this iconic film (think Marilyn in a white dress standing over a subway grate while the trains pass underneath) was warm and funny with a happy ending.

Marilyn as always is gorgeous and well-dressed. I particularly enjoyed the champagne drinking dress. I also enjoyed the reference to the gay couple upstairs. But, here's the one thing I don't get about the comedies in which Marilyn Monroe stars: I can get that she's the pretty girl who doesn't understand how beautiful she is, but I just don't understand why Ms. Monroe always has to play the dumb blonde.

Posted by Kate at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Oh, Stella Dallas, you are such hard work. I just do not approve. This is a film about a selfish and unsympathetic woman who, through her utter devotion to her daughter, learns to think of others and be more than just selfish and shallow.

If you can't already tell, I wasn't on board with the title character of this film and that made this character analysis hard to sit through. Stella starts out as a girl just looking to improve herself who falls in love with a former millionaire playboy who now works at the mill where her father and brother work. Stella orchestrates a meeting and two scenes later they are married. A scene after that, they have a baby. While she loves being a mother, she is shortsighted and more impressed with the trappings of the hard-earned modest means of her husband. She's now a member of the club she's fantasized about her whole life and she gets to wear fancy clothes and meet people who would never have looked at her twice before her marriage. She stops with her own self improvements and when her husband's job takes him to New York City, she refuses to go. Stella Dallas never stops being the slightly uncouth mill worker's daughter, despite her rise in station through her marriage. All that being said, when Stella does grow up, it is heartbreaking and beautiful.

Barbara Stanwyck plays the hell out of Stella- from the dialect to her walk when she's trying to be fancy. And, her moment of triumph when her daughter has everything she could ever want is so subtle and elegant that it is amazing. Anne Shirley is also a treat as Lollie, a daughter who loves and implicitly trusts her mother. Their relationship is very touching. If you are interested in character studies, this is a Master Class by Stanwyck. But, if you're looking for cracking dialogue or a solid redemption story, take a pass. When it comes to redemption, this film is a lot o work for about fifteen seconds of pay off. Stanwyck gets an A. Stella gets a C. True Story.

Posted by Kate at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tyler Cowen has made me laugh with his book Discover Your Inner Economist. But, he has also made me think about markets, narratives, efficiency and the little things that I can do to improve my quality of life. I've already discussed his chapter on high culture. In a later chapter, he also makes some interesting observations about food. Some of his suggestions, I am going to implement and see how they work for me.

I usually operate under the notion that if I can make it at home, I don't want to eat it at a restaurant. I like this guideline for two reasons. First, I enjoy a challenge in the kitchen. Sure, there are other people out there that make a much nicer pumpkin curry. People with a proper background in the art of curry-making who learned from their Mother or Grandmother or Aunties instead of the internet, but my pumpkin curry is still pretty good and it is a lot of fun to hollow out a pumpkin and then to serve guests a meal in the pumpkin shell. The second reason is that I feel that eating out should be a celebration of exploration. I like my trips to restaurants to be interesting, challenging and fun and part of the fun for me is eating something I've never tried before, or something that I've never seen cooked that way before, or eating something that I always mess up at home.

Some of Dr. Cowen's suggestions are in line with my "eating out should be an adventure" guideline. He suggests that when you go to a fancy restaurant, you should order the most disgusting sounding thing on the menu. His idea? Anyone can roast a reasonably serviceable chicken. Not everyone can make Cow's brains taste like something of which you want to take a second bite.

Another suggestion he makes is that when you eat at home, you should eat healthfully. This makes perfect sense, at least for me. Since I am the one making a majority of my meals, I should focus on the skills the create healthy and tasty meals. An obvious bonus of this is that if I only eat healthy things at home, I should end up healthier in the long run. But, the other bonus is if you leave the junk food for outside the house, after you've had the awesome plate of cow's brains (after a started including some foie gras, of course) when someone offers you Baked Alaskan for dessert, you don't have to say no.

So, I look forward to implementing some of these suggestions, especially now that summer and CSA season is here.

Posted by Kate at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have this past week continued to investigate the question of how classic films (or perhaps, just films from before 1960) hold up to time. The other night I watched Too Late for Tears (1949). In this film Jane Palmer (played by Lizabeth Scott) has to decide whether she wants the life she has or the life she could have with a satchel full of ill-gotten gains.

Mrs. Palmer has a serious case of the Keeping-up-with-the-Joneses-itis. Her husband has all he needs because he has her (insert head-cock and "Aww" from the audience.) The two are on their way to a friend's house for dinner when a blackmailer's payoff accidently lands in their car and they are faced with the tough decision of what to do. Should they give it to the police? Should they keep it for themselves? What if the blackmailer should find them? Smooth Jane talks her husband into keeping the money for a week and they put the bag in the baggage claim at the train station to think on it.

And, as per usual, All Hell Breaks Loose.

The blackmailer turns up. Jane's sweet and innocent sister-in-law who happens to live across the hall gets nosy and suspicious. Her husband, after an argument over the money, decides it should be turned into the police. And, a mysterious man claiming to an old army buddy of her husband's appears on the scene. What's a girl to do? Lie, cheat, scheme, and murder, of course!

In the end, this one turned out to be a tale about why avarice is a deadly sin. Or, perhaps why marrying the wrong kind of girl isn't good for your health. The contrast between good girl sister-in-law Kathy and bad apple Jane was pretty obvious, but wasn't at all heavy handed. This was refreshing. Lizabeth Scott plays the house wife/bad apple with style and grace. You want to believe she's the girl Alan Palmer married but you have to believe she's the girl scheming along with Danny Fuller. The plot is entirely character-driven and as such is an interesting investigation of what people will do for money. (Sorry, not just money. Buckets of cash, or as they say in Latin, multas pecunias. )

The print that I saw wasn't the best. Sadly with old movies transferred to DVD, sometimes things jump or the sound cuts out because something happened to the original film. It wasn't too bad but it was noticeable enough to break me out of the story which is always a shame. Also, while it had some of the snappy dialogue common to films from the era:

Jane: What'll I call you besides Stupid?
Danny: Stupid'll do if you don't bruise easily.

it doesn't force it. I got to the twist before the characters did, but that's pretty common in character-driven films. You know what's going to happen because the character's flaws are completely obvious to you but not to them. Still, this film was well done and definitely worth the watch.

Posted by Kate at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Its like jello on springs. With a motor.--Jerry (Jack Lemmon) in Some Like it Hot.

There is really only one thing you want to know when you see are about to settle down to watch a classic film, "How has this stood up to time?" I have a number of classic films in my Netflix queue, so I am often in the position to find out how things have fared. Recently, I had a chance to sit down and watch Some Like it Hot. I have seen this film a number of times; Usually I have it on as background noise while I knit or read or cook. But, this time I really sat down and watched it.

I was really worried, to begin with, that some of the humor and the acting would not have aged well. I was worried, in the opening minutes of the film, that I would end up with that feeling of embarrassment that you get when someone has done something and it hasn't turned out just they way they planned, but they worked really hard on it and you really wanted them to pull it off. The film opens with cops chasing after bootleggers in Chicago in 1929. The speakeasy where are heroes are employed as members of the band is raided a few minutes later. We meet Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) and we find out that they are roommates and that Joe is a total cad. They later witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and have to flee the city disguised as women as part of an all female band in order to save their own skins. This is also when our heroes meet Sugar Cane (Marilyn Monroe).

At this point, my feeling of embarrassment on the filmmaker's behalf subsided. Marilyn Monroe is hilarious (and super hot) as Sugar Cane. All of her lines are delivered with this sense of artless innocence, like she doesn't really know what she's got going on. Its wonderful. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as men pretending to be women are also top shelf. No sense of embarrassment here. (And, why I would have thought that, I shall never know, considering the caliber of those two actors.) Tony Curtis for most of the film goes back and forth between being a man and being a woman. And,some of the timing involved in the switches that go on in the film is spot on and flawless. Plus, the challenges to conventional takes on gender and sexuality that a film like this puts forth still have merit today. Who would have thought that a film set in 1929, made in 1959 would have the potential to make you think about "convention" and "how things are done" today. So, at least with Some Like it Hot, the answer to the question is, "Why, yes. Yes it does."

Posted by Kate at 05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So, this morning I was writing and listening to Blue October (don't judge me. No one has taste during Finals week.) And, this song called "Calling You" came on.

Now, I got into Blue October in a fit of all things Twilight last year (there are many reasons why I wasn't sleeping so well last April; this is my excuse. Stephenie Meyer put a lot of Blue October and Muse on her "Twilight playlists". Follow the twilight link above; they're probably still up.) They're from Houston, Tx, apparently. Its sort of dirty hippie music. But, not like Phish. Dirty hippie, drunk college kid, if Dave Matthews only ever wrote love songs music. The sort of shit you'd expect Edward to sing/write for Bella the rest of incredibly boring and super-creepyweird, immortally long lives. The sort of music that's filled with hope and naivety, and descriptions of proto-codependent behavior.

And, you're asking me, "Kate? Why would you listen to that? Or, you know, read Twilight?" I don't know. I'm just like that. Sometimes, I want things I don't really like. For example, when I eat cheesecake. I'm not a fan, but every now and then, I think, "Ya, I'll have a piece of that."

I was listening to "Calling You". And its just...God. Its just so creepy. I know its meant to be sweet and romantic and...its...oh. Creepy.

You can find the lyrics here.

I'm sure that its sweet to be told that someone is going to tell you that they love you another thousand times. I'm sure its nice to have someone calling to just see if you're okay and asking you if you love them...and...

Look, scratch the surface of this cynic and I really want to believe in love and puppies and people keeping promises and taking care of each other. Mostly, though, I don't think those things actually correlate all that often with creepy codependent behavior like asking someone if they love you repeatedly (even if you do just love the way it sounds.)

And, seriously? The Chorus? I'm just calling you to see/if you're sleeping, are you dreaming/if you're dreaming, are you dreaming of me. I'm imagining that conversation would go like this:

Caller: Hi! Just calling to see how you are!
Callee: Its 3 o'clock in the morning.
Caller: Were you sleeping?
Callee: Yes.
Caller: Were you dreaming?
Callee: Yup.
Caller: Of me? *sounds hopeful*.
Callee: I'm hanging up now.

(Unless of course the callee is me, and its actually 3 AM. Just to let you know, if you call me then and you're not on fire, dead or in jail, the string of words that will come out of my mouth directed at you will make a sailor blush. It will also probably make you cry.)

Obviously, I'm not the demographic a song like this (or really, a book like Twilight). Still, I don't think this is what you should shoot for. I don't think people should glorify relationships like Bella and Edward have. He's controlling and creepy and she's selfish and constantly in need of "looking after (in his mind and then in her mind because she practically ends up with Stockholm Syndrome)" because her boyfriend is frequently putting her in situations that are dangerous for her. Why is that okay? Your boyfriend puts you in danger and you cleave to him because only he can save you? I don't know a lot about healthy, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't count.

Posted by Kate at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So, I live near the The Niagara Wine Trail. I know this because I've driven past the "Niagara Wine Trail Begins Here" sign at least one hundred times since Monday.

I figured, I should see what its all about. Apparently, you can purchase their "vino visa passport" and with it you get a wine tasting at all of the vineyards on the trail.

I went to the first one today. The Warm Lake Estate Vineyard and Winery was Wine Spectator's highest rated Pinot Noir in New York State in 2007. The wine tasting consisted of five wines all made from the pinot grape. The two Estate wines (which were nice and smooth and a little sweet and a little spicy. I'm thinking the bottle I bought needs to be served with a lovely steak.), one I think was called "Mountain Road", (I should have taken better notes.) This one I didn't like as much, it had a huge black peppery kick at the end which I didn't care for. And, then the last two were their Glacé Noir. The first one was way too sweet for me. Although, apparently it is fantastic when mixed with pomegranate juice and chocolate martini mix. The last one was a mistake. It was meant to be the Glacé Noir, but instead ended up being more like a pinot brandy. It was fantastic.

From there I did a little exploring. I got lost for a minute on the way to where I planned to have lunch. I finally gave up looking for it and decided to go to the next place where food was served (that wasn't a fast food chain.) The next place I drove past was a bar and grill next to a take out sub place. I didn't feel like eating in my car, so I walked into the bar and grill.

Let me rephrase that. I walked into the BAR and grill. At this point, I just had to go with it. Yup, I had lunch down the bar from the two guys who had decided that Happy Hour started at 2 pm.

Then, I found Lake Ontario. Which isn't hard because it is huge.

But that's not where the excitement started. The excitement started after I breezed past the second vineyard I was planning on visiting. Looking for a place to turn around I found Russell's U Pick Blueberries. Russell gave me a bucket and let me wander through his twelve acres of blueberries.

When I first arrived here in Buffalo, we went to the grocery store and the first thing I saw was a huge flat of blueberries (that I had to be talked out of.) And, for the past week I've been thinking about going back to the store and buying blueberries and doing a lot of baking. Right now, I have four and quarter pounds of blueberries chilling in my fridge. Tomorrow, I'm going to make a pie from scratch. And, then maybe some blueberry buckle. Goodness, I couldn't be happier.

After that, I stopped at a fruit farm and bought some super cheap fresh veg (and a pint of apricots!). And, I drove past some orchards that I'm hoping are "U Pick" apple orchards once apples are in season. I think Western New York and I are going to be very good friends.

Posted by Kate at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
T. S. Eliot

I know everyone else discovered this film when it first came out in 2003; I'm a little behind the curve. It is beautiful and compelling. The story of two Americans trapped in a foreign culture by obligations who become friends, bonding over their inability to sleep as well as their outsider status with both the culture surrounding them as well as their obligations.

The film itself is beautiful, Tokyo seems to be perpetually glowing with a steely, blue light. The buildings all gray and white with people running around in charcoal and navy business suits. While shots of Charlotte (Scarlett Johannson) in temples around Japan are often lit brightly and warmly with a much richer colour palette including rich greens and reds.

So, I know this hasn't been much of a review, honestly I'm a little out of practice. The film was incredibly enjoyable and I recommend it.

How great would it be to start of a Jazz band with Bill Murray?

Posted by Kate at 09:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I love food. I love eating it. I love cooking it. It makes me happy. And, awhile back I lost nearly hundred pounds using the South Beach Diet, so I was excited as all get out to hear that they were putting out a holiday and party cookbook. Because, if there is anything better than cooking and eating food, it is cooking and eating food with or for people you like!

The cookbook is divided into two parts: Parties and Holidays and has set menus that all include a "game plan" so that you know what can be done ahead, and how ahead things can be done and what absolutely has to be done on the day. Also, at the beginning of the book there is a "Checklist for Success" that includes important things about party planning that are things that I always forget but are extremely helpful like under a reminder to decide where you'll have your guests put their coats. (Which I never would have remembered to do for a Christmas party I'm hosting had it not been for the book.)

The general parties include things like "Phase 1 kickoff party", baby shower, brunch, hors d'oeuvers, and a Super Bowl party. The second section includes menus for New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, Cinco de Mayo, Hanukkah, and of course Thanksgiving and Christmas. The recipes are all labeled as to which phase they are in and at first glance they all top shelf. The moment I made it through my first read of the cookbook, I knew I had to dive right in and try a few recipes. I haven't tried any of the recipes for a party yet nor have I made an entire menu, but all of the recipes serve generally betwenn 8 and 12 (except for Valentine's Day, for which the recipes appropriately only serve 2). So, when I do use the recipes for a party, there won't be any awkward doubling or tripling.

I started with the stuffing recipe for Thanksgiving. Turkey Sausage and Pear Stuffing is a phase 2 recipe that was easy to make and was also very tasty and the sausage combined with the sage and pear were an excellent compliment to the turkey. This was an excellent whole grain answer to a traditional dish. And, I tried Easter recipe of Herb and Garlic Roasted Leg of Lamb for Christmas Dinner was amazing. The recipes were easy to follow, and weren't too complicated, which is always appreciated.

This cookbook is an excellent addition to my South Beach collection, and I can't wait to cook out of it in the New Year!

Party at My House!

Posted by Kate at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This review has been a long time in the making. I should have written in a long time ago, but for some reason have been loath to put my thoughts on the subject down on the page. This is not a reflection on the album. Or, if it is, it is a reflection of how staggeringly good I found the disc to be. For some reason, I’ve always found it easy to slate a band. Writing about a disc I thoroughly enjoyed is a somewhat harder task. Presumably, this is because I do not want to be one of those bloggers that gushes like a little school girl about bands that I like. (Having once been a little school girl, I assure that there are moments in my past that involve enormous amounts of gushing. However, I am older now and although I am still in school I’d like for the past not to repeat itself.)
MEWITHOUTYOU is one of those gems of a band that's music has grown along with the musicians. While their first album is full of screaming and anger and more towards the hardcore end of things, their most recent offering, Brother,Sister, is introspective and full of things that make indie rock good.
Brother, Sister is an album that is built as if it were one unit. In this regard, listening to it reminded me a bit of The Mars Volta. But, unlike the Mars Volta this album is focused and well-done art rock. (I would describe The Mars Volta as a clever synthesis of a myriad of influences, but that is another story.)
MEWITHOUTYOU is a christian band on Tooth and Nail, but while the influence of religion here, will noticeable wasn’t in your face or annoying. Instead, it came across like music made by people exploring and discovering things about themselves and their faith. The lyrics are sung in such a way that is in places almost like speaking. An oversimplification of this would be that front man Aaron Weiss is going a little hip hop. More appropriately, the lyrics are delivered with such earnestness that they preclude one from singing in a conventional sense. Their full force is felt in the delivery, which makes them powerful. Given the amount of overproduced pop on the airwaves, this in itself is a reason to sit up and take notice. There was not a song on this album that didn’t fit with the rest, that’s how finely crafted it is. And, there wasn’t a song that I disliked, which is rare.
Brother, Sister is an album with frenetic guitars and crazy clapping and desperation and joy. It was an honest pleasure to listen to it. The themes in the album are internal and introspective, but also include a fair bit of social commentary with such lyrics as, “We’re like children dressing in our parents clothes” from “The Glass Can Only Spill what It Contains”. I wholeheartedly recommend this Brother, Sister whether you are a fan of the band, or just a fan of good, exploring and expanding tunes. Yes.

Posted by Kate at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pick Me Up is an incredible reference geared towards helping people answer those pressing questions like, “How are things related?” and what exactly is an “emirp”? The book is divided up into eight areas of expertise, color-coded for convenience. The book suggested that you start anywhere, so I did. I opened up to a page at random (pg. 186-187) where I read about religion, specifically “Religion: Islam to India” which covered Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. There were brief descriptions that compromised the bottom third of the pages. The top portion was taken up by pictures which included images of holy sites such as Mecca, The Golden Temple in Amritsar and the river Ganges as well as photographs of items of importance/interest to the different religions.

From there, I followed a reference to “forever” in the book that took me to page 249 which asked the question, “What time is it?” This section had a number of questions that it answered in the same, blurby style as before, with a brief description and some small illustrations. There was more to said on this page than on the religion page, but then, with “time” what sort of illustrations could you show? (Sundials, clocks and calendars, if you were curious.) There was a bit about “when time began”which briefly discussed the different calendars that have been in use. This contained a reference to Latin, so I jumped to page 54. Here I found interesting little tidbits on some of the world’s languages. For example, Ecclesiastical Latin is an official Language in Vatican City, even if everyone uses Italian. I did not know that. From there, I went to page 96 on colonization (not surprisingly referenced in a blurb on the English language). I then spent the next hour and a half surfing through the 352 page book, moving from one topic to the next covering everything from numbers to art, then to how to tell stories, the ancient Greeks, democracy, I Ching and world literature. (I am more than a little embarrassed to admit, having graduated from high school one, town away from the National Czech and Slovak Museum that I did not know where Franz Kafka was from.) A few more hours of with this volume, and I will be queen of the pub quiz.

The eight areas of expertise that the book was divided up into are : Science, technology and space, Society, places and beliefs, History, The natural world, People who made the world, Arts, entertainment and media, You and your body, and Planet Earth. In a table of contents of sorts there is a list of all the things that you’ll find in each of these sections, including page numbers. And, as always there is an index at the back of the book.

Each page as a bar that is color-coded on it that includes some text that explains what you’ll find on the pages as well what section the page belongs to. Each set of pages is not necessarily connected to what is preceded or followed by them in the book, so this is not your standard encyclopedia. It’s a little like a hard-copy of a website complete with reference links, a more colorful wikipedia, if you will.

Because each of the pages has small boxes of text that describe whatever the topic on those pages are, nothing is gone into in great detail. However, what is there is interesting. There was typically only one link per blurb, so there were things that could have been linked to other pages, but were not. But, there is always the index, if you’ve read something that you feel should be linked to something.

The format of the book lended itself to amused browsing taking you from interesting snippet to interesting snippet without dragging you down into a load of information you might not understand/be interested in. It is handy to have a reference book that hits the highlights and saves you from having to wade through an entire Encyclopedia Britanica entry. This book is definitely geared towards the younger set, junior high and high school students but I found it interesting nevertheless. In short, Pick Me Up is something that you’ll not only want to pick up, but that you’ll loath to put down.

This review has also been posted at BlogCritics.

Posted by Kate at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You have a problem when the artwork on the CD cover is more striking than the tunes on the disc. This is not to imply that I didn’t like Prepare the Masses by A Change of Pace. Its solid, if conventional rock. I was just more intrigued by the guitars with wings like fighter jets and the fists in the air that were taller than buildings.

This album races from beginning to end. All of the songs are up tempo, except the last track “Safe and Sound in Phone Lines”. And, there are some catchy guitar riffs. Instead of breaking changing things up with slower tempo songs, this album has “White Lines and lipstick” which has a heavier more metal sound to it with a wicked guitar solo in the middle. And, then there is “War in Your Bedroom” which has vocals prominently featured (and again a heavier sound). There is also the poppy “Take Care” which turned out to be infectious.

Lyrically, this album seemed very hopeful, with songs like “Take Care” and “A Song the World Can Sing Out Loud”, and I liked that. It also was pretty tied up in relationships and love. I was expecting, with a title like “Prepare the Masses” for something that would be overtly political. Track 2, “How to Rape a Country” offered some of that. For the most part, this album seemed to be about war as a metaphor for love, which is fair enough. Just not what I expected.

A Change of Pace are from Peoria, Arizona and this is their second album. While it is conventional and does not offer up any tracks that really stuck in my mind these gentlemen are talented musicians and it is worth a listen. This album is sure to be enjoyed by listeners who are already fans, but its unlikely it will win many new fans. It is solid rock and I do look forward to what this band does in the future. Some of the songs are available to listen to at A Change of Pace’s Myspace page and their official website. A Change of Pace are on Immortal Records.

Posted by Kate at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)