This is one of the movies I wanted to make sure I saw before the Academy Awards. I have to start by saying that I'm a huge Coen Brothers fan- I think they're some of the most consistently excellent filmmakers of this era. And, happily, A Serious Man did not disappoint.
The film is a continuation (or perhaps an expansion on) a theme present in many if not all of the Coen's movies- the lack of order (or tendency towards chaos) in the universe. The main character is a man of science (well, math, but that's close enough) who, do to the ever increasing disorder in his life turns to religious authorities for aid and comes away with... nothing. The comment is clear- no one, scientist nor religious leader can explain why things happen. While the results of this chaos are painful for the film's main character (played convincingly by Michael Stuhlbarg), they strike the darkly comic notes that the Coen brothers have perfected over the years and end up being remarkably entertaining of the audience.
The film is something of an assault on organized religion in general through the lens of Judaism. And what a perfect group to poke fun at when so much of Jewish culture are about remembering the sufferings of the last few thousand years. The Jews are a perfect representation of a group of people who have, at least in their self-identification, been victims of the lack of order in the world. The film certainly plays on Jewish stereotypes, but there are also the fine details that reveal the Coen's familiarity with the culture. And perhaps more importantly, the Rabbis are meant to represent religious leadership in general in a hilarious yet poignant commentary on religion's ability (or lack thereof) to shed any real light on why bad things happen to people who have "done nothing wrong."
The film is well made throughout- well shot, well edited and successful in using the fate of one poor individual to represent the plight of mankind living in this crazy chaotic world.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
For want of a food processor...
I tried (and failed) to buy a food processor during the holidays. Macy's had a sale, but apparently I arrived a day late and the sale was over. I've wanted one for a while, but its been a little hard to justify as I don't cook all that much (athough I'm trying to cook more) and I'm perfectly capable of chopping. So I found myself waiting for another Macy's sale to drop the price under $100, but really wanting to make a recipe from my first issue of Cook's Illustrated (thanks for the subscription, Mom!).
The recipe was for Spicy Thai Chicken with Basil. A pretty standard Thai dish made with minced chicken. Sort of like this (although I didn't take this):
The recipe is pretty simple... if you have a food processor. As discussed, I do not. Yet I was determined to give it a go anyway. That translated into about 45 minutes of extra work: finely chopping basil, jalapenos (couldn't find the thai chilies at my local corner stores), garlic, and chicken. And mincing chicken, with no cleaver, is not a lot of fun.
That said, once the everything was chopped the actually cooking time is less than 10minutes total. So this really is an easily prepared and flavorful dish. The ingredients aren't too numerous either- probably only need an extra trip to the store to pick up some fresh chilies (jalapenos worked fine if no thai chilis) and shallots (the recipe actually has a bunch of shallots) as long as you have the thai standards of fish sauce and oyster sauce.
A good back-pocket recipe when a quick dinner is needed- at least after a food processor appears in my kitchen.
The recipe was for Spicy Thai Chicken with Basil. A pretty standard Thai dish made with minced chicken. Sort of like this (although I didn't take this):
The recipe is pretty simple... if you have a food processor. As discussed, I do not. Yet I was determined to give it a go anyway. That translated into about 45 minutes of extra work: finely chopping basil, jalapenos (couldn't find the thai chilies at my local corner stores), garlic, and chicken. And mincing chicken, with no cleaver, is not a lot of fun.
That said, once the everything was chopped the actually cooking time is less than 10minutes total. So this really is an easily prepared and flavorful dish. The ingredients aren't too numerous either- probably only need an extra trip to the store to pick up some fresh chilies (jalapenos worked fine if no thai chilis) and shallots (the recipe actually has a bunch of shallots) as long as you have the thai standards of fish sauce and oyster sauce.
A good back-pocket recipe when a quick dinner is needed- at least after a food processor appears in my kitchen.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Adventures in Crock-Potting #1
We received a crockpot/slowcooker as a holiday gift this year. It's taken us this long to finally get the thing out and start playing with it. Our first attempt came from a recipe found by mama Newman for Shredded Chicken Tacos. The beauty of this recipe (and slow cooker recipes in general) is that dinner can be ready when I get home. I tend to work late sometimes, add that to my decent length commute and sometimes its hard to find the motivation to shop and cook. Drop everything in the pot before heading to work, turn it on low for 6-8 hours, and voila! Dinner is hot and ready when I get home.
As a burgeoning foodie, I'm not sure if I should be offended by the idea of tossing all the ingredients in at the same time. The lack of technique involved goes against everything I've learned watching Top Chef or the detail-oriented care I tend to put in to my more elaborate cooking. That said, there are some nights when its nice to eat a home cooked meal without taking the time to cook it post-work.
The beauty is, on top of being almost absurdly easy, this dish was tasty and well textured. If I made it again, I'd add a little more spice (then again, there aren't many things I WOULDN'T add a little more spice to). I made tacos out of the meat, but it could just as easily be used as enchilada filling, nacho topping, taco salad topping, etc.
I intend to continue this series of Crock Pot adventures now that I've moved past the fear of leaving an electrical appliance on all day while no one is home. I'll have to continue to suppress the part of me that finds the whole notion insulting to the art of cooking, but that shouldn't be too hard if all the dishes that come out of the thing are as easy and tasty as this first one.
As a burgeoning foodie, I'm not sure if I should be offended by the idea of tossing all the ingredients in at the same time. The lack of technique involved goes against everything I've learned watching Top Chef or the detail-oriented care I tend to put in to my more elaborate cooking. That said, there are some nights when its nice to eat a home cooked meal without taking the time to cook it post-work.
The beauty is, on top of being almost absurdly easy, this dish was tasty and well textured. If I made it again, I'd add a little more spice (then again, there aren't many things I WOULDN'T add a little more spice to). I made tacos out of the meat, but it could just as easily be used as enchilada filling, nacho topping, taco salad topping, etc.
I intend to continue this series of Crock Pot adventures now that I've moved past the fear of leaving an electrical appliance on all day while no one is home. I'll have to continue to suppress the part of me that finds the whole notion insulting to the art of cooking, but that shouldn't be too hard if all the dishes that come out of the thing are as easy and tasty as this first one.
Speisekammer
I've been meaning to get out to Alameda to give this place a shot for a while. But Alameda is not particularly accessible and it took me until now to make it. Speisekammer is Alameda's bastion of German food and drink- like Suppenkuche East. I went for lunch with my coworkers as a celebration after a successful screening. And let me tell you, there may not be a better way to celebrate than a breaded, fried, meat cutlet.
To be fair, we started with potato pancackes (latkes to those of you from the tribe). They were beautiful and delicious:
For a main, all of us but one went with the Weinerschnitzel. And a good decision it was. On top of the two slices of breaded pork cutlet, we got roasted potatoes. They were delicious, and I quickly realized that was mostly because they had a whole lot of bacon mixed in. Bacon makes things good. Make a note.
My meal paired very nicely with my Weltenburger Kloster Dunkel (a dark wheat beer). Now my body wants a nap time, fortunately, things are slow at work so I might just take my body up on that offer. [NOTE: I don't sleep at work. At least, not on purpose.]
To be fair, we started with potato pancackes (latkes to those of you from the tribe). They were beautiful and delicious:
For a main, all of us but one went with the Weinerschnitzel. And a good decision it was. On top of the two slices of breaded pork cutlet, we got roasted potatoes. They were delicious, and I quickly realized that was mostly because they had a whole lot of bacon mixed in. Bacon makes things good. Make a note.
My meal paired very nicely with my Weltenburger Kloster Dunkel (a dark wheat beer). Now my body wants a nap time, fortunately, things are slow at work so I might just take my body up on that offer. [NOTE: I don't sleep at work. At least, not on purpose.]
Monday, November 2, 2009
Paranormal Activity
During the week leading up to Halloween, we figured it was the appropriate thing to do to head to our local cinema and watch a scary movie. Paranormal Activity seemed to be getting some good buzz, so that was our selection.
For those who don't know, its a Blair Witch style horror film- hand held cameras manned by the characters in the movie. It's kind of a dream come true for producers, as its really cheap to make with low production values, and pretty easy to sell. Apparently, Paranormal Activity only cost $15k to make. That is pretty low. And to this point its made something like $85million, so something tells me we'll be seeing a lot more of this type of movie in the future. I just hope they do them better.
For me, Paranormal Activity was lacking in, oh, how do I call it, scariness. It was only an hour and a half long, but the total amount of actual scary parts probably boiled down to about 5 minutes. If that. Too much of the movie was a boring- waiting for scary things to happen. And when the scary things happened, they weren't that scary. Now, I don't scare particularly easily in movies. But I can safely say I've seen at least 5 movies scarier than this one (in no particular order, and off the top of my head: Alien, The Ring, The Orphanage, The Descent, and the scariest movie ever: Event Horizon). And that's without spending much time remembering all the slashers I've seen. Shoot, come to think of it, I think Blair Witch was scarier.
I appreciate what the filmmakers were able to achieve with a small budget. In fact, I think sometimes small budgets make for better horror movies as filmmakers are forced to rely on storytelling and subtler forms of building tension. Alien was great because you rarely see the monster yet you still feel the tension due to the setting and the atmospheric effects. Along those lines, the creepiest parts of Paranormal Activity were the smaller creepy moments- like when the girl sleepwalks and stands staring at her sleeping boyfriend for a couple hours in a row.
I have always appreciated horror as a genre; it highlights the ways that filmmakers can use all the tools of the trade to manipulate the audience's experience and control their emotions. It also (often) provides a platform to attack/question/portray social norms that other more "serious" films have a hard time doing. For those reasons, I'm always interested in seeing a different approach to horror, even if the end result is less than successful.
For those who don't know, its a Blair Witch style horror film- hand held cameras manned by the characters in the movie. It's kind of a dream come true for producers, as its really cheap to make with low production values, and pretty easy to sell. Apparently, Paranormal Activity only cost $15k to make. That is pretty low. And to this point its made something like $85million, so something tells me we'll be seeing a lot more of this type of movie in the future. I just hope they do them better.
For me, Paranormal Activity was lacking in, oh, how do I call it, scariness. It was only an hour and a half long, but the total amount of actual scary parts probably boiled down to about 5 minutes. If that. Too much of the movie was a boring- waiting for scary things to happen. And when the scary things happened, they weren't that scary. Now, I don't scare particularly easily in movies. But I can safely say I've seen at least 5 movies scarier than this one (in no particular order, and off the top of my head: Alien, The Ring, The Orphanage, The Descent, and the scariest movie ever: Event Horizon). And that's without spending much time remembering all the slashers I've seen. Shoot, come to think of it, I think Blair Witch was scarier.
I appreciate what the filmmakers were able to achieve with a small budget. In fact, I think sometimes small budgets make for better horror movies as filmmakers are forced to rely on storytelling and subtler forms of building tension. Alien was great because you rarely see the monster yet you still feel the tension due to the setting and the atmospheric effects. Along those lines, the creepiest parts of Paranormal Activity were the smaller creepy moments- like when the girl sleepwalks and stands staring at her sleeping boyfriend for a couple hours in a row.
I have always appreciated horror as a genre; it highlights the ways that filmmakers can use all the tools of the trade to manipulate the audience's experience and control their emotions. It also (often) provides a platform to attack/question/portray social norms that other more "serious" films have a hard time doing. For those reasons, I'm always interested in seeing a different approach to horror, even if the end result is less than successful.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
F.A.T. #1: Saha
We recently held our first F.A.T. dinner and I'm going to label it a resounding success. At 5pm, I received a text to meet on the corner of Larkin and Sutter- right in the middle of the semi-sketch Tenderloin neighborhood. I tried to picture the area with little success- certainly couldn't think of any "fine" dining establishments in the area... Maybe some coke dealers, but no restaurants to speak of.
We met the rest of our party on that corner and followed this month's leaders into Saha, a very cute little restaurant situated in the unlikely Hotel Carlton. Saha is a self-proclaimed "Yemini Arabic Fusion" restaurant. Translation: delightful mixture of middle eastern/north african/french-californian flavors. They had a huge menu with a whole bunch of small plates and them some larger ones. The space is very cute and intimate- its not particularly large and not too loud.
The beauty of going with a big group (we were 8) is that we got to try a number of things. We started with a Sampler Platter, Saha Ravioli, and a Grilled Mezza Plate, which were large enough for eight of of to get a little taste of everything. The Saha Sampler comprised of a number of spreads and neverending baskets of Pita. Most of us agreed that the Raita-like spread was our favorite, along with the Zahaweg which is a spicy sauce made from tomatoes, peppers, and spices. The meat on the mezza platter was also all delicious, with the Merguez sausages highlighting the group.
For entrees, most of the meat-eaters agreed that the Sage Roasted Duck was absolutely delicious- easily the best dish of the night. It was tender and delicious and reminded me why I love duck. All of the dishes were hearty and flavorful. Other highlights were the Lamb Tangine and the North African cous cous. We were too stuffed for Dessert, although some of the options looked interesting.
All in all, the first F.A.T. experience was a huge success. We had a delicious dinner in a restaurant most of us had never heard of (good find, F.A.T. #1 leaders!). Hopefully we'll keep the ball rolling- our next meeting (a dive this time) is set for 11/12!
We met the rest of our party on that corner and followed this month's leaders into Saha, a very cute little restaurant situated in the unlikely Hotel Carlton. Saha is a self-proclaimed "Yemini Arabic Fusion" restaurant. Translation: delightful mixture of middle eastern/north african/french-californian flavors. They had a huge menu with a whole bunch of small plates and them some larger ones. The space is very cute and intimate- its not particularly large and not too loud.
The beauty of going with a big group (we were 8) is that we got to try a number of things. We started with a Sampler Platter, Saha Ravioli, and a Grilled Mezza Plate, which were large enough for eight of of to get a little taste of everything. The Saha Sampler comprised of a number of spreads and neverending baskets of Pita. Most of us agreed that the Raita-like spread was our favorite, along with the Zahaweg which is a spicy sauce made from tomatoes, peppers, and spices. The meat on the mezza platter was also all delicious, with the Merguez sausages highlighting the group.
For entrees, most of the meat-eaters agreed that the Sage Roasted Duck was absolutely delicious- easily the best dish of the night. It was tender and delicious and reminded me why I love duck. All of the dishes were hearty and flavorful. Other highlights were the Lamb Tangine and the North African cous cous. We were too stuffed for Dessert, although some of the options looked interesting.
All in all, the first F.A.T. experience was a huge success. We had a delicious dinner in a restaurant most of us had never heard of (good find, F.A.T. #1 leaders!). Hopefully we'll keep the ball rolling- our next meeting (a dive this time) is set for 11/12!
Friday, October 16, 2009
Where the Wild Things Are
Let the wild rumpus start!
Went last night to see this film in slightly odd circumstances- it was a coworker's birthday and she basically filled the theater with her (mostly drunk) friends. So perhaps not the best viewing environment for what is a fairly sensitive and emotionally complex film.
The book was a childhood favorite of mine (and most people, I'd imagine) and I've been excited about the film version. It is a tall order to translate a popular, short, children's book that has more pictures than words (seriously- there are only a few sentences in the book) into a 2hr (or so) feature film. Spike Jonze is certainly a good choice for the job as he has always been a very visual director and, if done correctly, this movie needed to place a lot of weight on the visuals.
And it did. The landscapes are beautiful, alternating between super bright bleak deserts and dark and twisted forests, vastly elegant seashores and shadowed caves. The landscape is a character in this film- often reflecting the moods of the characters (mostly Max). The Wild Things themselves are very cool looking- I think mostly "real" (non CG) with a little CG help at times? I just looked at some images from the book, and I can attest that the recreations of the Wild Things in the movie are pretty accurate.
It is a challenge to stick a pile of emotion on the face of a muppet, but the filmmakers did a good job of demonstrating the seething emotional sea of childhood. Because really, the Wild Things are reflections of parts of Max, and therefore reflections of childhood. They are made larger than life by Max's imaginings, each hyperbolic representations of a facet of Max's psyche or part of Max's life. And that's what the story is- Max coming to grips with himself and with the fact that he can't make everything perfect, that for all the rumpuses and moments of beauty, there will be fights and moments of darkness, fear, and confusion.
The film was beautifully realized and true to Sendak's original vision. It is slow, but in a contemplative way, not a boring one. A solid performance from the young boy who plays Max, along with beautiful visuals make the movie a success. Recommend to all.
Went last night to see this film in slightly odd circumstances- it was a coworker's birthday and she basically filled the theater with her (mostly drunk) friends. So perhaps not the best viewing environment for what is a fairly sensitive and emotionally complex film.
The book was a childhood favorite of mine (and most people, I'd imagine) and I've been excited about the film version. It is a tall order to translate a popular, short, children's book that has more pictures than words (seriously- there are only a few sentences in the book) into a 2hr (or so) feature film. Spike Jonze is certainly a good choice for the job as he has always been a very visual director and, if done correctly, this movie needed to place a lot of weight on the visuals.
And it did. The landscapes are beautiful, alternating between super bright bleak deserts and dark and twisted forests, vastly elegant seashores and shadowed caves. The landscape is a character in this film- often reflecting the moods of the characters (mostly Max). The Wild Things themselves are very cool looking- I think mostly "real" (non CG) with a little CG help at times? I just looked at some images from the book, and I can attest that the recreations of the Wild Things in the movie are pretty accurate.
It is a challenge to stick a pile of emotion on the face of a muppet, but the filmmakers did a good job of demonstrating the seething emotional sea of childhood. Because really, the Wild Things are reflections of parts of Max, and therefore reflections of childhood. They are made larger than life by Max's imaginings, each hyperbolic representations of a facet of Max's psyche or part of Max's life. And that's what the story is- Max coming to grips with himself and with the fact that he can't make everything perfect, that for all the rumpuses and moments of beauty, there will be fights and moments of darkness, fear, and confusion.
The film was beautifully realized and true to Sendak's original vision. It is slow, but in a contemplative way, not a boring one. A solid performance from the young boy who plays Max, along with beautiful visuals make the movie a success. Recommend to all.
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