Where you been?

Here.

Recipe: Taco Pizza

Cinco de mayo!  Weeeeoooooo!  Chips! Salsa! Tacos! Dos Equis! You ever get a pound of ground beef for making tacos, eat a few tacos and then resume with the margaritas and suddenly your left with half your taco meat and fixins sitting there on the cutting board?  Don't throw them out and let's think about something else besides next day burritos.

Taco Pizza.

Ingredients:

1/4 pound seasoned, cooked ground beef

(if you cooked some onion or pepper into the beef, all the better)

1/4 Can of Goya red refried beans

1 green onion - chopped

1 clove of garlic - minced

Handful of grape tomatoes - quartered or halved

1/2 cup of pepper jack cheese - grated

Few spoon fulls of salsa - optional

One Boboli pizza crust

Okay, so everything's been sitting in the fridge for a couple days and you've sobered up.  You're ready to erase any lingering memories of cinco de mayo and throw those leftovers away.  But with the purchase of a good pizza crust you can make those leftovers into one of the best pizzas you've ever had.  If you have a good pizza stone thing for your oven you can use one of those, fancypants.

[So with your pizza crust or dough out you can get your salsa and splash some of that around.  This is a totally optional move - I've done it in the past and it's been pretty tasty.  It gives the dough or crust a bit of spice.  But the last time I did Taco Pizza it was without the salsa and I didn't miss it a bit.  But if you use a couple splashes of your favorite salsa, you should be in good shape.]

Pre-heat the oven to 450.  This is standard pizza temp.

Next, open up that can of refried beans -- this is key, it is the glue that holds the Taco Pizza together.  We don't have any typical pizza sauce going on here so the refried beans is critical.  Don't get any white-boy crapola either, go for the good stuff (Goya).  Take a spoon and flick the refried beans at the pizza crust, making dollops here and there.  You don't want to cover the pizza in the stuff but you want a good amount -- a half dozen or so dollops.

Now throw the meat around.  Use whatever leftovers you got.  If you didn't cook onions in your taco meat, maybe put in some chopped yellow onion for flavor and texture.  If you like it hot, throw some chopped jalapeno or some sort of pepper in there.

Cheese time.  Grate up the pepper jack and sprinkle it around.  Don't use too much cheese on this -- less than you would a normal pizza.  You want small pools of cheese, not a blanket of cheese.  Just as you wouldn't want your taco swimming in cheese, you want just enough cheese on your slice of taco pizza to give you that layer of flavor.

Chop up your garlic into little bits.  Then sprinkle those bits around the pizza.  I like to get a good amount just on to the rim of the crust.

Let's get some veg in here, eh?  Grape tomatoes are perfect for taco pizza (cherry tomatoes would work fine as well), just cut them in half or quarters so that they'll cook well in a short time.  Spread them around so that each slice will get a coupe pieces or more.  

Finally, the green onion, or scallion.  Take one, chop it up, and sprinkle it over the pizza.  It's like a garnish that will not only make the pizza look more attractive, but also add a nice bit of flavor.

[Additional topping suggestions could include - avocado, black olives, hot sauce, queso fresco - anything that you might put on your beef taco you can try here.  Have fun with it.]

2008 - Year of the Beard & Year of the Clam

The Beard is still going strong (being kept at a either a 6 or a 7 on the trimmer) and as summer fast approaches phase two of 2008 is coming to realization.

Living in New England is also living in Clamtown. Not sure if you knew that. My specialfellow friend has lived in New England all his life and doesn't like seafood. He is not well. It's like living in Arizona and not liking heat. I don't know how he does it--he gets by I guess. Eating a fried clam, is like eating a piece of New England. At its best it's a crispy yet tender, salty salute. At its worst it's a rubbery, uneatable, bitter mess. It's either the best of foods or the worst of foods. Anyway, viva la clam!


View Larger Map

Now this, for the most part, is an exploration of the fried clam. There are one or two places on the map that may not have fried clams per se, but do offer a clam dish and look interesting enough or have enough insanely positive word of mouth that they make it on the list.

I'm not going to even attempt to make it to all of these places or even most of the places. I don't have the money or the time. I'll be trying to hit three or four a month every other weekend probably. Some trips might be exclusives -- like the Martha's Vineyard one, some might be trying to hit two or three in one swing. By and large this is going to be a playing-it-by-ear endeavor.

If you have any hot tips please pass them along. I will be updating the map constantly. This will also be coinciding with me picking up the remnants of last years botched Summer of Putt Putt -- only hit three courses... Sad. I promise this summer will not fail in such a manner. So if you know of any superior coastal mini-golf courses please pass the word along. I really haven't begun to work on the Putt Putt Map (the lack of a good Google Map was a problem to last years failure to launch) but here it is in it's infancy:


View Larger Map

The excitement should begin this weekend with Mike's Clam Shack in Wells, ME and THE Clam Shack in Kennebunk.

For Further Information

I'm inclined to leave this guy here as a time capsule of my late twenties.

Yep... [stretch...] Some good stuff here in the old TRB...

Anyway, enough looking back -- If you perhaps stumbled upon the page, or wondering what became, might I direct you to Reviews From the Couch...

Who?

What?

Oh, not much. Turning 30 in a few weeks.

Yeah, whatever.

You know that Scorsese movie's pretty great. Yeah, sorry, I know you know that.

Huh? No. Basically I haven't had a good internet connection to steal from in ages.

Yeah, I know. I should just pay for my own. This one isn't very reliable.

Yes, I still think I don't have much to add that isn't out there already.

Well, ok. Go and read The Pride of Baghdad and the Scott Pilgrim books; watch Veronica Mars and Smith and Kidnapped; listen to the new The Hold Steady, Yo La Tengo, The Walkmen, and Bonnie Prince Billy.

Yeah, I'll write more later.

What Poppa Tomato said to Baby Tomato

I'm not even sure if I enjoy this blogging business anymore. What's the point? All this crap you can find out on your own. You don't need me to tell you that a dvd for a Japanese tv show starring manequins as Americans called The Fuccons is arriving on the 20th.










Do you even need to know about the Grabowski Shuffle? Will it make you happy? Click here to find out. Thanks, Scott.

You probably already know Eugene Mirman has his own blog thing going on at the Village Voice website where he sometimes makes funny comments and posts his always funny phone conversations. (He also pointed out Steven Seagal's offical website for it's unabashed awesomeness. Free mp3s!)

Is it my job to tell you about the Law & Order Coloring Book?

I don't know -- when is New Yorkish coming back? Ever? That was a good blog. It didn't pretend to be anything more than what it was -- a collection of funny links, nicely organized and displayed. I recently went clicking through five or six connected blogs that all had the same damn links to the same damn stories -- it seemed to me like these people felt the need, the imperative, to update their blogs just for the sake of updating. Do we need 1 million bored people's opinion of the daily celebrity news?

Ah, fuck it. I'm just being pissy. Maybe I'm just realizing I have nothing to really offer this blogiverse. Three sentence netflix reviews and the same old music recomendations you can find at any annoying hipster music site out there. Hell, I don't even have time to update the sidebar but once every few months. Maybe I'll finish remodeling in here and feel better about it all. Maybe.

Here's something you won't find everywhere -- my grumpy old man email to the guy that runs Roger Ebert's website:

Hi -- First off, I'd like to say that I enjoy the blog and the discussions that have been going on within but felt the need to respond to what I found to be a bit of a continuity error.

I enjoyed the post "Misreading Spielberg (& Hollywood)" dated Nov 28 where you pointed out the numerous errors in a NY Times article about Spielberg and his relationship with the Hollywood studios. I went on to read the previous post "Can movies live up to TV?" and my jaw promptly struck my keyboard.

You mention about halfway through that "Alessandra Stanley, the TV critic for the New York Times and one of the few television reviewers I really enjoy reading..." Wuzza wuzza? Not one week later you'd be devoting a well meaning post on the flaws of The New York Times fact-checkers, or lack thereof, and ill-informed writers and here you are recommending possibly the least correct writer on their staff.

And there's been a lot of research done to back up the fact that she is the one of the more error prone reporters. The website Gawker even has an Alessandra Stanley Watch that pops up rather frequently to inform us of the most recent ones.

This might have been what lead John Cook, a former TV writer for The Chicago Tribune to go ahead and collect her mistakes on his blog. That's a lot of mistakes -- 23 mistakes in 2004 alone. Sure some of those mistakes could be blamed on typos or getting nit-picky -- but her actual reviews offer very little in the way of making it seem she knows what she's writing about. Take this example:

""American Dad" has amusing moments and engaging characters, but it is to "The Simpsons" what Japanese anime is to Disney's "Fantasia": fashionable, but crude and cheaply drawn in comparison."

I think anyone reading this blog knows that Japanese anime has offered some of the best animation ever put on film. One could assume she's talking about the children's cartoons like Sailor Moon or perhaps Speed Racer, but part of being a writer is making your point clear, no?

Or this statement in her review of the show "Over There":

"During World War II, many war movies were made long before its outcome was known: "Mrs. Miniver," "Casablanca" and "In Which We Serve" were released in 1942. Back then, wartime films focused on survivors and civilians struggling on the home front ; neither Hollywood nor the War Department wanted to demoralize audiences with too graphic a depiction of what their servicemen were likely to endure. "

If you look at the films involving the war made in 1942 -- it's clear that the majority of films did not focus on the home front. She seems to be skewing the facts to fit her review. Not something a good reporter/reviewer should do.

The last example (I could go on to find many others) is what bothers me the most about her reviews, this is in regards to the TV show Supernatural:

"The first half-hour of the pilot is quite effective: the camera angles, spooky music and jumpy sequences (whenever a character appears, it is sudden and startling) are as frightening as those found in any horror movie, with an added twist of suspense."

Effective spooky television is having every character appear in a sudden and startling manner? With dutch angles and spooky music, of course. And she never mentions what this added twist of suspense is... She reviews two shows in this column (Bones and Supernatural) and yet manages to properly review neither, I really couldn't tell if she was recommending either show or not. Instead she offers up vague descriptions and numerous comparisons to well known shows and movies.

Argh, I'm sorry, this was a rant that's been building up and your seemingly contradictory posts forced it out of me. I apologize for going on and on but someone had to do it.

Many thanks,
Sean

Brilliant! What can you say to that?

Dear Sean --

Yikes! I admit I like Stanley's writing style, but I guess I don't have the TV background to recognize her factual errors. (Well, I also tend to read her stuff in the morning before I've had my coffee, so unless I go back and look at it again later I must confess I'm a bit fuzzy.)

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll try to keep a more critical eye on her stuff...

Thanks gain for writing,

Jim Emerson
Editor, RogerEbert.com

Hmm... Not very satisfying, but I'll take it as an admission of something or other in the way of guilt.

Yes, let's leave on a lame sort of high note here.

We Now Resume to Comcasticness

I've always been first in line to give Comcast a grievance but always welcome it back in to my heart when reunited. And it feels so good. Gotta give a week or so to break in this dvr and make sure no parts fall off. Initial signs point to some possible gremlins in the gears but I won't rush to judgment.

The new tv stand entertainment center shelving unit thing and the cable and the ps2 back from the dead all make me want to save up for a new tv. And then I realized, why tv? Why not go all the way and save up for the proper visual sensory imput device.



This is what you real need to receive true Comcastafied bliss. Plus, you can take your military aptitude tests that you'll probably be taking one way or another shortly enough anyway. Go ahead and photoshop your head on that picture and tell me you don't feel delighted already.

New England Beer Festival 2005

Okay, so here are my belated notes on the beer fest form a few weeks back. Oct ‘9th to be exact. I’m simply going to write exactly what I jotted down in the book – no editing going on here.



12:10 – Inside the Cyclorama. Get glass & 15 beer tix & food vouchers. Slide into swag line.

12:15 – Get swag bag (t-shirt, bottle opener, stickers, coupons)

12:18 – Newport Porter – nice start, smooth, light not heavy porter, tasty

12:20 – Cambridge Brewing Co. Olde English Porter – too light, too smooth, airy, hollow, not bad tasting, not good

12:30 – Ipswich Winter Ale – Nice smell, coffee, tastes good, like it, toffee & biscuit

12:38 – Watch City Boston Bruin – refreshingly bubbly after the porters, bit of an aftertaste but not too bad [sip of Allagash Interlude had at this time – weird fruity apricot taste to it, will not try again]

12:53 – John Harvard’s Instigator – very nice, equal parts bite and drinkability, 7.8% is felt but not overwhelming… supposedly found after 2.5 years in basement… caramel? intimidating smell…

1:05 – Sam Adams Colonial 375 – smells exactly like beer should, nice foggy unfiltered, "dirty", beer supposedly made as colonials would, earthy, beer tastes exactly as beer should in some instinctual way

1:25 – Cambridge Brewing Co. Colonial Beer – supposedly the same idea going on here as 375 but quite different in look, smell, but taste is somewhat similar, darker heavier taste… not as good

1:35 – Pittsfield Brew Works Smoked Porter – A bit like the CBC’s light porter but much better, nice toasted taste, not bad at all

2:00 – Milly’s Tavern Hopnoxious – Excellent IPA type beer, snaps in flavor, refreshing, powerful [had sip of Millie’s Manchester IPA – like the Hop’s small cousin, more drinkable but not as crisp]

2:30 – After a bit of a line have some actual good food from Sunset, a place I haven’t had much luck from food wise but chalk it up to the fact that they opened a new location, the Cantina. Had chili with a cheese filled pretzel – excellent.



2:45 – Shed Restaurant & Brewery’s Saison de Shed – recommended from 3 dudes asking for our own recommendation, not really in the mood for a Belgian white type but good nonetheless, more enjoyable towards end of glass… recommended the Sam Colonial, Pittsfield smoked, and Newport to the dudes.

2:50 – Offshore Brewing Co. Inkwell – 10% going on here, not very drinkable at all, similar to a stout but chalkier and thicker than it should, bad pour as well so I got it for free, not ticket, so not that bad.

3:00 – Harpoon Munich Dark – an excellent beer, glad to be drinking a good beer again, unexpected from Harpoon.



3:20 – Berkshire Brewing Co. Coffeehouse Porter – even better than the Harpoon, loving the wintery beers going on here, chocolate and coffee…

3:50 – Stone Coast Brewing Co. 420 IPA – good, straightforward and tasty [was pretty drunk here]

4:00 – Smuttynose Winter – Last beer of the fest and one of the best – everything you'd want in a winter brew – halfway between an IPA and an ale, warming, excellent, love Smuttynose...

Last entry – had waffles, so damn good, so damn tasty

There's Calm in Your Eye

Still working on the background thing. Might tweak a couple of other things. In the meantime...

So who knew Wiley Wiggins had a kick ass blog? The News of the Dead has many fine things to be had. Like fun animated film on the dangers of inhalants, cool, if flawed, classic movie desktops, what’s up with Roland Topor?, Abraham Lincoln Land, and so much more – hours can be spent looking through the little treasures in his archive.

McSweeney’s has set up a new store, and in it is a rather exciting new DVD quarterly magazine thing called Wholphin. What you’d call a cross between a whale and a dolphin from what I gather. The material on the debut – Miguel Arteta's and Miranda July's short movie with Mike White and John C. Reilly, Spike Jonze’s covering Al Gore, Patton Oswalt… Yes please.

Scott pointed me to the #1 Colbert Report fansite, and yes, the fan fiction is pretty awesome. I’ve been able to download and watch the first week of the show resulting in much happiness. Comparisons to how much more quality the Daily Show and Colbert deliver than the past couple years of SNL aren’t too crazy to me.

Under Construction

Changes... Patience... No more robots allowed.

Belated Halowe'en Flick Follow-Up

Okay folks, sorry for the massive delay, I know you were all sitting by your computers waiting with baited breath this follow up post on English as a first language Holloween movies. Or rather, those computers sitting by their humans waiting for this post -- whichever the case may be. So without further ado...

Night of the Lepus – Yes that movie with the rabbits is finally available on DVD. Okay, some might not want to see Janet Leigh and DeForest Kelley running from giant fluffy bunny rabbits, but those are people without a campy funny bone in their body. Not the scariest movie by far – possibly horrifyingly bad, but a classic in it’s own right nonetheless. You'll laugh, maybe cry... A perfect double feature with…

Day of the Triffids – These movies came out on DVD a week apart from each other, coincidence? Much much better in the way of filmmaking with this one – not nearly as campy but still, rather than cuddly bunnies we have some nasty looking rubber plant life attacking us. Well, London anyway. And this has one heck of an opening sequence where we start right of the bat with nearly all of our population going blind and a possibly fairly realistic look at what would happen in the aftermath. Funny that this and 28 Days Later are both British movies, definitely some parallels. Many laughs to be had here but also some good fun.

The Changeling – Okay, enough of the campy crap and the gory Italian shit, gimme something I haven’t seen that might actually give me some scares! All right, buddy, check this shit out. We have George C. Scott in prime fashion, Peter Medak directing at the peak of his powers and one hell of a fucked up haunted house. You think The Sixth Sense was a brilliantly original movie? Um, watch this and tell me if you still think so. Think The Sixth Sense was a piece of crap – reinforce your beliefs with this fine movie. Not many horror movies actually stick with you and get under your skin – this one will do just that. No big special effects, no zombies or monsters – just creepy through and through, wonderful performances, eerie as hell music and sound (this is a movie that will excel with the best stereo system you’ve got), and a great story. Should be on your best of list with The Exorcist and An American Werewolf in London as the top of the crop.

My Bloody Valentine - Yeah, so is this a better valentine movie or halloween flick – not sure. But I do know it’s better than most of the 80’s slasher flicks. The set-up is pretty much pure cheese, I know, but the stuff in the middle is pretty meaty as far as this type of shit goes. Canada came out with a good assortment of this fare in the 80’s, you know those played to death Friday the 13th movies and Mr. Cronenberg’s terrific offerings, but this one’s top shelf as well.


Society – So I want to go to bed, trying to think up one more movie to put on this list… Then it hits me. I’ve talked up Re-Animator and it’s sub-par sequels. Those sequels were done by a guy by the name of Brian Yuzna. This guy never really reached the knowing sly touch that the original Re-Animator’s Stuart Gordon brings to his movies (even with his fighting robot movie Robot Jox that just came out on DVD). But Society came pretty damn close. There’s a funny subversive slant to the plot of what goes on behind the doors of the well-to-do that is rather enjoyable. And it has one of those stories that I loved most when I was growing up. The kid who senses something strange is going on in his town and through some sleuthing of his own finds out it’s worse than he thought and gets in over his head [see: Blue Velvet, Fright Night, some others I can’t think of right now].

Others to be noted in this wrap-up: Society beat out Wes Craven's last good scary movie The Serpent and the Rainbow and Stuart Gordon’s Dagon. And speaking of Gordon and his love of H.P. Lovecraft (which is some good shit to read if your thinking of warping you mind with some horror reading this Halloween) there’s this movie you may find interesting… click the pic for more info, thanks boingboing.

An Italian Hallowe'en

So All Hallow's Eve is one week away, and perhaps you're hosting a party of some sort, as is half the population of 18-34 year olds. And perhaps I can maybe point you in the right directions so you're not playing Evil Dead 2 for the hundred billionth fucking time... Perhaps...



Last year I was touting the good ‘ol Dario Argento. Not the most original of suggestions but the guy still gets over looked in some circles. So, in keeping with the Italian angle, these guys did know their horror, how about Mario Bava, “Maestro of the Macabre”? Like Argento, he does have his big ups and his decent share of big downs. So to cut to the cream of the crop, check out Blood and Black Lace. Like Argento’s Suspira, it’s one of the originators of the whole slasher flick genre. For one, it’ll look great on your TV – the guy’s movies are rather stunning in just their composition, lighting, and so forth. And for two, the guys will dig the numerous hot Italian babes that end up going under the knife at one point or another.

Black Sabbath and Black Sunday are his two other classics. Black Sunday was his first breakthrough film. Even though it was made in 1960, years after the Universal horror classics like Bride of Frankenstein and Dracula and the such, it ranks right up there with them. And Barbara Steele, va-va-va-voom… A great opening scene in this one, and a lot of fun to be had. Black Sabbath – I mean, the name alone… Well, this one’s in color for those of you who shy away from the awesomeness of the B&W, but it still looks great, as does all his early work. It’s a trilogy (It’s aka Three faces of Fear) and hosted by Mr. Boris Karloff himself. It’s the foundation of what he was good at – placing young women in suspenseful situations, watching them scream and cringe and probably die a bloody death. Yes, it’s the foundation of the horror movie itself – and this was another of the modern age of horror’s originators.

Now at most Halloween parties there’s a movie on in the background and a group of people milling around chatting, flirting, getting drunk, maybe all three at once. These Bava movies are good movies to have on in the background because they look great (especially if you have a good TV), have great looking ladies in them, and if you have any film geeks at your party they’ll probably be a bit impressed. But say the subtleties of these movies aren’t really what you’re looking for at your party. You want some fucked up shit – heads rolling, people getting eaten, chainsaws, limbs being lost, etc.

Okay…




To complete the Italian trifecta we must touch on Lucio Fulci. The one that even the critics will point to as being a high water mark was The Beyond. This movie has it all – demons, zombies, dismemberment, eye gouging, hey, this guy’s got the moniker “Godfather of Gore” – but like his Italian brethren he does it with a certain panache (also, he was once a med student, that’s really hilarious once you see a couple of this guy’s movies). He also makes his movies look like a million bucks. Some nice cinematography goes a long way to harshening the blow of getting your intestines ripped out. And that happens in a couple of his movies.

Like Zombie... There really isn’t much more to say – these Fulci movies (along with Gates of Hell – which unfortunately isn’t on dvd) are the cream of the gorehound’s crop. Besides Romero’s Dead movies these are as good as it gets. Great shots, great music, great make-up, top notch, and some would say better than the genre deserves.

Well, that’s the top of the Italian stuff – but after all that I feel like mentioning a guy at the bottom. Now this is for the freaks only – but Umberto Lenzi is the master of the, yes, cannibal movie.





He carved out a little niche for himself and while I’m sure he’d of rather gotten some more chances at the finer things in life – it’s what paid the bills and he could film a scene of some unholy natives chowing down on some poor dude like no other. You want to fuck up some people’s minds at your party – put on the movie that was banned in 31 countries, Cannibal Ferox, or as it’s hilariously subtitled, Make Them Die Slowly. And serve up some bloody marys while your at it – good lord I’ll promise you at least one person will loose their candy. Or perhaps take the insanity down to a 9 and put on Eaten Alive! Now Mr. Lenzi doesn’t really play by the classing it up game that Fulci and Argento do – this man’s out to fuck you up with as much gore, nudity, and gruesomeness as possible, so this shit will definitely offend someone if you have more than 10 people at your party. Not to say that all his movies are like that – you could look at Spasmo that despite it’s American name is pretty tame in comparison with some of his 80’s stuff, and also quite better – can actually be compared with some of his Italian brothers stuff. Except more fucked up.

I'll come back tomorrow, hopefully, to chime in with some of the lesser known American horror movies if you dare not risk the greatness of these fine gentlemen.

Jens Katamari

Jens Lekman put on a brief but damn fine gig at the PA’s Lounge the other night. I recommend catching the guy and his troubadour show. A couple of songs at the beginning were a bit like being at the ol’ sock hop at the community rec center via 1959, but after singing his break-up song mid-way through it turned a bit more dramatic and, well, better. I still don’t quite know how he got his trumpet player, sit down bassist, keyboardist, and violinist to fit in the tiny place but they were all amazing together. The opening act of Nedelle – well, you take your own chances there…

This article on the PA’s Lounge performance from a year ago is a good read and strangely enough is nearly the exact thing that happened on Monday and has plenty good pics and mp3s (the PA's site still has some mp3s on it as well). Except there was no cool Boston By Starlight cover to cap things off. This is the rest of the tour…

Nov 19 - Athens, Greece - Small Music Theatre (soloshow)
Nov 5 - Toronto, Canada - The Music Gallery @ St. George the Martyr Church
Oct 29 - San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop
Oct 28 - Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland
Oct 25 - Austin, TX - Emo's
Oct 24 - Houston, TX - Walter's
Oct 22 - Richmond, IN - The Earlham College Comtock Room
Oct 21 - Bloomington, IN - Second Story

In other stories of music recommendations I’ll tell you to go get your ears on some of Wolf Parade’s Apologies to the Queen Mary… and an Elliott Smith demos comp from his Basement on the Hill sessions you can find here… and Cage’s Hell’s Winter is downright brilliant…

Katamari

I have to thank m’lady for this one. Being the Japanophile she is, once she heard/saw of the PS2 game Katamari Damacy we went out and bought it the next weekend. At first I thought well, this sounds fun enough – you roll a ball around and pick up random objects – the bigger the ball gets picking up things the bigger objects you pick up… Sure.

Um, sweet sassy molassy, this game is like video crack. And I’m jut talkin’ about Damacy – you may well know that We Love Katamari is on the shelves now – or was, since it was sold out from Target and Best Buy last we checked… Anyway, so, yeah, I haven’t tackled that one yet but I’m still working my thumb blister on the Damacy.

There’s a funny thing that happens playing these games. You’re building your ball for your father, the King of the Cosmos. And very rarely do you get his praise – ok you met your given goal for the round but the reply is, well you met you goal but c’mon you’re the prince, you can do better, if I was rolling that ball I’d do much better! Okay, onto your next round, pathetic prince. And so on. Do you think I’m impressed, no! So there's this guilt and need to do better that actually does make you want to be back to these round and do better. I've beaten this thing a couple times over now but I still want to find those gifts and get his praise...

There’s also much Japanese weirdness – the intro and segues are very trippy. Every other round you can build a constellation [sorry, the point of Damacy is to roll up enough things on your ball to recreate the stars in the sky since your dad fucked up one day and lost them all] and when you do this Japanese girl turns around and says, “I can it… I can feel the Cosmos!” Or something like that. It is indeed awesome.

So I’m trying to get this t-shirt… Either I have it being shipped to be or either it's unavailable -- click on the pick to possibly understand this.

What Ever Happened to SARS?

Recently watched the 6 episodes Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant's new series Extras. Hilarity. Not quite as crippling as The Office but a damn fine piece of work. Stephen Merchant's part as Ricky's agent is brilliant. The show is infinitely better than anything that came out on American TV this season. Well, I guess they're showing it on HBO... But you know what I mean.

This is pretty sad... Right now as I write this Takashi Miike's Izo is playing practically down the street from me. Only I just found this out 10 minutes ago. Curses! Also, that trailer's dissapeared... But all that is practically meaningless anyway as it seems this one's come out on dvd at some point over the past couple weeks anyway. That certainly snuck up on me.

What's also sad is that the theater it's playing at, The Brattle, is finding it hard to make ends meet these days and may go under. Nasty bit of news, that is. It's a great place to find movies that don't find a distribution deal in the US. As well as new prints of onld movies and well, everything in between. They used to, still do?, have a yearly thing of showing Brazil and Blade Runner as a double feature. For a better ode to the Brattle check this article for a practical eulogy. I can't help but think how at this moment there's people across the nation looking for donations to help rebuild their towns and cities, schools and libraries, and a independant movie theater must seem like the last thing worthy of their spare cash right now. But it certainly would be a shame to see it go.

Didja See Me? Huh, Didja See Me?

Good bye. There I was. Hell, don't think that dipshit back there a few posts ago trying to eat some kinda hot sandwich was me... My old lady likes to post some pictures... Me, up there in the right corner like I said all along is me, and waving my hat in this embarrasing photo, yeah... Most times I got my beard under control... Eh, whatever, let's see the White Sox win one, no? I kinda like that slogan they got going -- from red to white. They're even worse off -- last big win is 1917? Well, best of luck, and I think you have a good shot at it. Though m'lady used to be familiar with St. Louis... So let's see what happens...

5 Fingers of Death

If you're at all a fan of the kung-fu movie, well, you may have already seen this movie. Me, I just got done watching this and couldn't contain myself – had to come on here and rejoice.

I’ve already admitted that I’m not too up on my Shaw Bros. So I started off with the 5 Deadly Venoms… Man, I guess you could say it’s good or bad that I picked that one but 5 Fingers of Death may well be the best kung-fu movie I’ve witnessed (that I can remember).

Okay, the acting is pretty top-notch as far as this shit goes. The main guy (Lo Leih) – you totally root for him the whole way, the guy can act and... and I’m sounding like a complete geek right now but hold on… The movie starts off with a brilliant fight scene between an old guy and a dastardly group of ne’er do wells and the old guy kicks a good amount of ass. This scene, with the old guy swapping kicks and jumping around completely wraps you into the movie – something Venoms failed to do…

Now I’d love some people to come on here and tell me what Shaw Bros. movies I’m missing out on, but I can’t imagine a better one than this. It hooks you in right at the start, the dubbing is decent, the acting is pretty damn good, and the last half hour kicks complete ass backwards and forwards. And in between that there’s great fight scenes and scenes that actually make you care about this main guy (Lo Leih – who is brilliant in his acting and fighting, what happened to this guy?)

And lastly, yes, this is the movie that Quentin got the Bride’s fight sound from. That alarm that went off when Uma was about to start some shit – that’s the sound that goes off when Lo’s about to lay the Iron Fist down on some sad bastard. Though it is indeed tweeked a bit in Quentin’s world and has an added ending that is extra special.

If you like your kung-fu, go rent this movie. Head, I know you had Venoms on your list – look, I admit I have some flats on my queue, this one is infinitely better than Venoms, my promise to you and to everyone else.

The Beginning of Another Beautiful Post Season

Ahhh, wasn’t that a nice 14-2 loss to start things off? What Red Sox fan could ask for more? Everyone knows that sweep of the Angels last season was frightfully dull and without the requisite panic and drama that we sox fans need. Yes, this was a good start. Seriously.

Silver Jews Breakfast Pizza

May everyone in America go watch Serenity this weekend. And go home, drink good beer, listen to Tanglewood Numbers, and have great sex. This is my wish unto every one of you. You may replace Serenity with History of Violence and I will not be displeased.

And when you wake up...

Thumbsucker: The Review

I figured with the amount of jibber-jabbing I've been giving the book and the impending movie I’d chime in with my two half-pennies on the results. It’s not that I really think that anyone reading this went out and picked up the book and read the thing and is now wondering about the movie – but hey, what’s life without fantasies and bookends.

The movies pretty good actually. It’s a skipping stone to the book though. As I predicted we don’t get the pot baby or the job at the gas station. We also don’t get the Mormons, which is probably the most missed, and we don’t get the majority of the dad’s story arc (his cry for help family hike and the lost weekend on the island with Justin). Now yes, this is all sorely missed – but I know just as well as anyone that making a good book into a good movie is a Sophie’s Choice struggle. And for the most part they’ve succeeded.

The good/bad is that Keanu and Vince (Vaughn) almost steal the movie from the central family – that’s not to say that Tilda or the other Vince (D'Onofrio) do a bad job. Not at all, Tilda especially brings her Mom part to life, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that she looks and Vince gives his main scenes that deep well of substance that he always offers up (this time not as creepy as most) as the Dad. If they’d given 15 minutes of touching on his hunting obsession I’d definitely be more pleased, but it seems they wanted to clock in at the 90 minute area so we’re given a small firecracker version of the book.

What really makes the movie good is that you know that Mike Mills (the writer/director) loves these characters. And that’s not just because I’ve read his interviews. That love is up there on the screen and it’s infectious.

HOT KUNG-FU JOHN WOO JEAN-LUC GODARD ACTION

It's that time again...

Five Deadly Venoms -- My familiarity with The Shaws Bros kung-fu flicks of the 70's is sorely lacking. So this seemed like a good place to start. It starts off OK. Then it slides a bit downhill with a rather unlikable main protagonist. The last student of a dying kung-fu master is sent to track down and keep tabs on his previous five students, the 5 deadly venoms of the title, each one the master of a certain reptilian technique. The plot set-up is rather ridiculous, the dying master seems to have an uncanny ability to know just when the shit's about to hit the fan, thought the only reason he seem to be telling his young annoying apprentice is because he's dying... But hey, we're not renting this movie for its plot structure.

So the 5 Venoms always wore masks so the dude doesn’t know who they are, only that they're probably going to be going after the money that the master has left his friend in this small town with a horrendous judiciary system. Yeah, I told you it’s ridiculous, but just stick with me. Once two of the Venoms are revealed to be the evil ones and the guy with the money is killed the movie starts to pick up – at this point it goes from 2 stars to 3.

The kid from the beginning that we think is the main character thankfully stays in the background and some pretty cool set pieces happen when 4 of the 5 Venoms figure out who each other are and a couple of them get arrested and have to deal with some pretty severe forms of questioning.

The last half of the movie is far superior to the first and there’s some pretty gruesome death scenes and a damn fine finale. Starts off at 2 stars and ends up squeezing out a 4 out of 5.

A Better Tomorrow II – This is a movie I’d seen way back in ’95 or ’96. Alls I remembered is that the last half hour of this movie blew me away. I’m not the biggest John Woo fan. The only classic I think he’s created is Hard Boiled. Which appropriately enough was the last movie he directed for China. I liked The Killer and A Better Tomorrow well enough but can’t quite get into the soap opera melodrama, though I won’t deny that these elements are what him the first guy to turn his gun battles into opera.

But this movie’s definitely one of his poorer efforts. (Though you can read elsewhere that this was a very troubled production, one of the biggest budgeted films of Hong Kong at that point since it did film in New York and the producer Tsui Hark was starting to get his own directing ideas. Tsui’s become a better director if you ask me but sadly hasn’t been given a second chance or even a decent opportunity in the US – which may or may not be a good thing.) The shit subtitles and crappy transfer on this DVD certainly don’t help – I’m not sure what it takes or what it costs to put new subtitles on a movie, but damn, this one’s one of the worst I’ve seen. Practically every other sentence has a misspelled or otherwise fucked up sentence – some of it engrish-ized. “Yes, hats a very good pran.”

We won’t mention that Chow Yun-Fat died in the first one and comes back as Ken’s twin brother Mark is a pretty cheesy thing, because hey, Chow Yun-Fat is always a good thing in a John Woo movie regardless. There’s so much over-acting in this movie it pretty much becomes painful, especially with the whole Uncle Lung business losing his mind and repeatedly getting force-fed over and over again.

But! Besides all this, we’re treated to possibly one of the finest staged and choreographed acts of insane bloodshed ever put on film. You could pretty much put this DVD on at the 1 hour 13 minute point of the film and go crazy. The amount of perfectly exploded blood packs and squibs and the ingenious use of introducing a samurai sword in the middle of an automatic gun fight… And the second or third to last shot on the men resting together in the aftermath. Yes, this is why 10 years ago I thought this movie was the shit. 2.5 out of 5.


Alphaville – French new-wave sci-fi. If that sounds interesting to you, you’ll love this. Jean Luc-Godard’s version of 1985 pretty much. You have a mostly highly enjoyable adventure with Lemmy Caution, a Sam Spade type who arrives in Alphaville with an unknown agenda. You can’t say too much more without giving the whole thing away. The city’s evolved into a fascist state through the calculations of a computer program, and Lemmy’s shaking things up with the help of an always obsession worthy Anna Karina. It’s a fun mix of noir and sci-fi long before Blade Runner, though the subject matter does get a bit repetitive at times.

There’s so much going on and trying to be said in here but there’s a good amount of playfulness that keeps it entertaining. For 1965 it’s pretty cool to see Godard play with these genres and the idea of a fascist future created through computer programming. A lot of elements of Fahrenheit 451 also in here as well. Well worth watching – 4 out of 5.