Movie reviews: Philomena and Beginners

***½ Philomena (November 2013) – Theatre

Judi Dench, Steve Coogan. A cynical reporter agrees to help the elderly Philomena locate her son, who was taken from her by the church when she was a teenager.

She says: A rather delightful movie about a pretty appalling subject. The interaction between the cynical, worldly, atheist reporter Martin and the sentimental, parochial, and still-Christian Philomena is wonderful. Especially those moments when you—along with Martin—realize that Philomena is not as naive as you might think.

Their journey together to discover what happened to Philomena’s son after he was taken from her from the convent she was sent to as pregnant teenager is full of twists that I didn’t see coming. It’s all based on a true story, and it doesn’t cast the Irish Catholic church in a particularly good light.

He says: It was terrible what happened to her! It all made me so angry!

But it was nice that I wasn’t bored by the movie.

**½ Beginners (November 2011) – Rental

Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent. After meeting a woman he connects with, artist Oliver thinks back on his Dad’s last few years of life as an out gay man.

She says: This movie plays with time a lot, flashing back to Oliver’s last few months with his Dad, who was dying of cancer but determined to live to the full to the end; to the period before when his Dad first came out as a gay man, after the death of Oliver’s mother; and to key moments of his childhood. In present time, Oliver is trying to negotiate a new relationship with the unpredictable but insightful Anna. Both Oliver and Anna have a history of failed relationships, of not being able to see them through. Oliver uses the memories of his Dad’s life as a lesson in how to change.

So, it’s a pretty arty. But the performances are great, the actors have good chemistry, and I enjoyed the journey.

He says: I didn’t understand that movie. Not my thing.

Weekend in Tranna

Why Toronto in February, when the weather, much more often than not, is abysmal? Two words: free hotel. Jean goes there for a work-related conference; hotels don’t charge extra for another person staying in the room.

Considering how bad this winter has been in general, the weather picture wasn’t so bad. The temperature had been in deep freeze all week, but rose for that weekend. KW was expecting a lot of snow Saturday (and that materialized), but Toronto, not quite as much (also materialized).

The main issue was that the snow they did get was very wet, as it was near the freezing mark, and we did do a ton of walking outside in it on Saturday afternoon. Tiring of the wet hair, I bought a hat with a brim, but there wasn’t much to be done about the wet coat collar, or the wet pant bottoms. And the “waterproof” boots eventually caved in under the pressure, allowing water in at the seams. Squish, squish!

I had no other footwear with me, so while I could and did change into dry pants and socks for dinner, the best I think of boot-wise was putting the feet in plastic bags in the wet boots. That did keep the feet dry when I was outside. Once sitting inside, though, eventually, there was a bit of a perspiration issue…

But hey, it really was nice to get away. Friday night Jean had a conference dinner, so I went out with my sister and her husband to Bangkok Garden, where they were offering a Winterlicious menu that was, in fact, quite delicious, along with being a good deal. My sister and I both had the options of mussels in lemongrass and beer sauce, rainbow trout with pineapple red curry, and chocolate chai mousse for dessert.

Jean remained occupied Saturday morning, so after breakfast (really good waffles with walnuts and banana), I decided to go check out the Bata Shoe Museum for the first time.

It had four floors of exhibits. The basement presented shoes though history, including the very oldest pair of shoes ever found:

The next floor showed footwear of famous people, such Elvis Presley, Elton John, John Lennon, and Justin Beiber. (Beiber’s “Baby, Baby, oh” song proved to be the biggest earworm.) The second floor covered traditional shoemaking, a somewhat endangered endeavour. And the top floor was for special exhibits. Currently it’s on sneaker culture, something I previously knew nothing about. Like, people spend big money on sneakers. They riot over particular limited editions of them. They build up huge collections, so they never have to repeat the same pair. One dude had enough to cover the next three years—new pair every day.

We had been thinking of going to the ROM Saturday afternoon, but I felt museumed-out, and Jean was somewhat stir-crazy from all the hotel time, so that become our soggy walk afternoon.

For supper we went to George on Queen, a restaurant with a good reputation. It’s a nice room with notably well-dressed patrons and excellent service. They specialize in multi-course meals, but we went for just three (rather than five or seven).

We were quite blown away by the first course, which was centered around duck for me, and smoked trout for Jean.

All the elements on the plate really worked, and were creative and fun.

The next two courses, of tuna and lobster, then seabass and arctic char, were very good. But they couldn’t quite match up to the standard of the first, so you couldn’t help feeling a bit let down. For dessert, we just shared some cheese, and I had an ice wine while Jean had an Italian sweet sparkling.

On the walk back from George

Sunday we met up with sister and husband again, this time at a dim sum restaurant, the Crown Princess. This one is fancier than most and doesn’t feature the usual little carts; instead you have to order from a menu. The items were of a very high standard, definitely above the average dim sum place (though I also like that). And it wasn’t really that expensive.

Good job that we aimed to arrive by 11:00, because it got busier and busier as we were sitting, until there was quite a lineup. We had the table right by the door, where the hungry people in line could watch us eat. A bit awkward!

Chopped Canada (or what to do with that freeze-dried shrimp)

I’ve written before—though not for a while—about how I’m not a big Food Network fan, despite liking to cook, and being known to occasionally watch TV.

But I have been somewhat taken with Chopped Canada. I’d seen the American version a few times and found that somewhat interesting, so checked out the Canadian version.

The first episode was fantastic because one competing chef was clearly an unlikable ass, and he ended up going mano a mano with a woman—a cooking school teacher rather than restaurant chef—who at first had seemed hopeless out of her element. (The other two contestants were also men, but of less striking temperament.)

And, satisfyingly, the nice woman won. Deservedly. In the end, she made a better three-course meal.

Although the remaining episodes haven’t had such vibrant personalities, I’ve been continuing to find it entertainment. But I can’t kid myself that it’s any kind of useful.

Because in real life, you are never handed four random food items, some of which are barely food (strawberry drink powder, processed cheese slices, macaroni deli slices?), and told that in exactly 20 minutes (or 30 or 60—depends on the round), you have to turn it into an appealing appetizer, main, or dessert, complete with lovely plating. Just doesn’t come up.

However, in a recent episode, where the ingredients were not so much bizarre in themselves as just not seeming to belong together in one dish, two of the items that had to be used were freeze-dried shrimp and dark chocolate. One of the chefs, having made something lovely with the other two ingredients in that round, seemed at a bit of a loss what to do with these ones. So although he seemed quite dubious himself, he just melted the chocolate, and tossed the shrimp in there, and served that on the side.

Of course, the judges were a bit dubious, too. Yet to a man, and woman, they declared the freeze-dried shrimp in dark chocolate to be absolutely delicious.

So there’s my one takeaway from this show so far: Apparently, some day, I need to get me some freeze-dried shrimp and chocolate-coat them. (If anyone out there is brave enough to try this before me, do let me know how it goes…)

Un-chocolate-coated shrimp…

Feeling angsty? Need some power?

iTunes Genius playlist feature, whereby iTunes create a playlist for you based on a particular song, often isn’t nearly as smart as its name would lead you to believe. Sometimes the results are simply odd, and the songs don’t seem to go together at all. Often they are obvious in a boring way, such as combining a Lowest of the Low song with music by other Canadian band, as though Canadian-ness rather than lyrical intelligence, passionate delivery, and great melody were the key features of their sound.

But I thought this particular one, built around Tracy Bonham’s “Mother Mother”, was pretty good. The songs did seem to work together, and yet I doubt I would have thought of combining them myself.

[To people viewing this in email: There are a couple videos in linked in this post. They may be visible only in the browser, not in the email message.]

I call it “Empowered angst”. Partner acting like a crazy person? Propose to her! (Anything, Anything) Being teased cause you don’t drink, you don’t smoke? Own it! (Goody Two Shoes) Being cheated on (Bring Me Some Water)? Let them know what they’re missing! (Like the Way I Do).

Song	Artist
Mother Mother	Tracy Bonham
Blood Makes Noise	Suzanne Vega
What I Am	Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
Dear God	Sarah McLachlan featuring XTC
Fall Down	Toad the Wet Sprocket
Anything, Anything	Dramarama
Wild Horses	The Sundays
Fuck And Run	Liz Phair
New	No Doubt
Sweet Jane	Cowboy Junkies
Voices Carry (Single Mix)	‘Til Tuesday
Pretty In Pink	The Psychedelic Furs
Goody Two Shoes	Adam Ant
Crush With Eyeliner	R.E.M.
Crazy Baby	Joan Osborne
Bring Me Some Water	Melissa Etheridge
I’m Afraid Of Americans (V1)	David Bowie
The Emperor’s New Clothes	Sinéad O’Connor
Middle Of The Road	The Pretenders
Follow You Down	Gin Blossoms
Temptation Waits	Garbage
Excuse Me Mr.	No Doubt
Like the Way I Do	Melissa Etheridge
Possession	Sarah McLachlan
Bang And Blame	R.E.M.

Hey, remember this video? Aimee Mann being stifled by her jerk of a boyfriend?

Maple syrup pie

Not sure what it is about Canadians and all our variations on sugar in pie crust: Tarte au sucre (literally, sugar pie), butter tarts, pecan pie, and now maple syrup pie.

I made this on a whim this weekend. The recipe is from Canadian Living. I already had a homemade pie crust ready, so the rest was easy. Walnuts in the bottom of the crust. Then you mix eggs, brown sugar, maple syrup, whipping cream, and flour and pour that in. Truly a dieter’s delight, a nutritionist’s dream!

Maple syrup pie with whipped cream — How about some whipped fat on that baked sugar?

Not sure if this will change at all with refrigeration, but it’s quite a bit runnier than I expected, though I used the recommended amount of flour and eggs and baked it for the specified time.

And the taste? Well, the word sweet comes to mind…

They made me tweet the promo, but I actually do like Unroll.me

Are you one of those “zero inbox” people?

Or someone wise enough to have some “junk” email address that you reserve for corresponding with corporations and organizations, keeping your “real” email account in a pristine state for communicating with actual friends and family?

Or someone who quickly and ruthlessly unsubscribes or trashes any unsolicited email that you receive from corporations and organizations?

If so, then this post is not for you.

But if you’re somewhat daunted by the amount of email you’re receiving; noting that even as you unsubscribe from three mail lists, ten more seem to pop up; even finding yourself setting aside time each weekend to try to plow through the mountain of unread email that has accumulated during the week… You might be interested in Unroll.me.

It’s a free service. If you sign up and allow access to your email account, it will scan through and list all the “digest” emails—all those mass mailings you get. You can then go through the list and, for each, decide whether to:

Unsubscribe
Keep in Inbox
Add to RollUp

And what is a RollUp? Well, that is a single email message you receive daily, tidily compiling in one spot all those “digest” emails that you are actually interested in, but no longer want clogging up your inbox as individual mail messages.

As new digests arrive, Unroll.Me will continue to detect them and give you the option to categorize those, also. And you can always go in and manually tweak things.

The unsubscribing option has a limit of five: Once you reach that, you have to agree to promote Unroll.me somehow to do more unsubscribing. I went with tweeting, as I have few Twitter followers anyway, so I figured that would annoy least people. The other options are a Facebook post or sending an email to five friends (making you something of an email spammer yourself, of course).

Other than that, I haven’t found too many catches with it. No idea how they plan to make money from this, but the RollUps are not cluttered with ads.

And yes, it’s helping. Maybe not quite as much as I’d like, due to some digest emails being sent from varieties of email addresses (I’m talking to you, Liberals) and possibly a need to move a few more items from Inbox to RollUp. But yes, my Inbox is already a somewhat calmer place.

I use it with Gmail, but it apparently works with many other email clients as well. In Gmail, “under the hood”, it’s using an Unroll.me label, marking roll-up email as read when it arrives, and having it skip your inbox. So if you ever want to see or delete the original emails, you can just pop up into that Unroll.me folder.

Movie review—The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (and other notes)

So this is the difference between having read the book before (she) and not (he)…

** ½ The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Theatre)

Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson. President Snow is not happy about how the last Hunger Games ended, and lets Katniss know it. She sees signs of rebellion for herself on her Victory Tour with Peeta. Neither are prepared for Snow’s plan for the 75th Hunger Games.

She says: I think the movie did a good job of showing the oppressive force of the Capital and the danger and excitement of the simmering rebellion in the districts. And it really did seem sad that [spoiler alert?] past victors were sent back to battle again. I also appreciated the fierceness of the women characters—Katniss, of course; Mags, in her own way; but especially Jenna Malone as Johanna. Johanna did make that much of an impression in the book, but on-screen, I couldn’t get enough of her speaking truth to power. And the final shot of Katniss was awesome.

Katniss’ continuing lack of skill in correctly interpreting what’s going on around her (and the plot device of keeping her in the dark so much) was a bit meh, but not enough to ruin the movie for me. It also, cinematographically, looked gorgeous, including Sam Claflin as Finnick, who was as good-looking as I’d hoped, based on the novel. Katniss also seemed more truly in love with both Gale and Peeta than I recall her being at this point in the trilogy, but I guess that’s allowed. ***

He says: I didn’t think it was that good. It was like they couldn’t think of a new story, so just redid the plot of the first movie, sending Katniss and Peeta into the Hunger Games again. And I’m not sure it holds together. If Peeta was in on it, why was he acting so suspicious of the others in the arena? **

And other notes

Also viewed recently, at home, were two much smaller, character-driven movies: Mike Leigh’s Another Year and Norm Baumbach’s Frances Ha. If you like movies about interesting characters and how they interact with others and get on in the world—but without a big dramatic arc—these two are good examples of that. Another Year features a happy couple and their messed-up friends and family. Frances Ha follows struggling dancer Frances in her efforts to “become a person” with an actual career, place to live, and friends.

But these are not the sorts of films Jean enjoys. I didn’t even ask him to watch Another Year. He actually picked out Frances Ha from a short list of options, but then he was sorry he had.

As for award seasons, as usual I haven’t seen too many of the big contenders. But I am happy that Dallas Buyers Club is getting so much recognition. Was reminded it was directed by Canadian Jean-Marc Vallée, who did two other movies Jean and I both enjoyed: Café de Flore and C.R.A.Z.Y.

I made kale chips

Google tells me that kale became “suddenly hip” in 2012, but by end 2013, we were “so over it”. My timeline was a bit different. I never ate kale as a child or teenager, that I recall. I believe I first encountered it when I started getting food baskets from organic farmers; maybe 15 years ago? Then I had to figure out what to do with it.

Raw kale is quite disgusting, but I found that once it cooked and lathed in butter and balsamic vinegar, with maybe some raisins and pine nuts, it’s actually pretty good. And it is this nutritional powerhouse, all vitamins and flavanoids and omega-3s.

Today, as the subject line suggests, I decided to try preparing it a new way: As kale chips.

Those were remarkably good! Jean and I were both surprised. They get all crispy, and a bit salty, and the baking mellows out the bitterness… (Of course, this wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Nothing is everyone’s cup of tea, not even cups of tea. But we definitely liked it.)

Plus, it’s super easy to make. You cut up the kale leaves (don’t use the stems), toss them with about 2 Tbsp of olive oil, spread them on a baking sheet, then sprinkle with sea or kosher salt. Bake at 400 F for about 14 minutes. My guide was my Gwyneth Paltrow recipe book, but there are similar recipes online.

Living life online

A poll that got some play last week said that Canadian smart phone owners spend about 86% of their free time looking at a screen.

I’m sure my numbers are ranging up around there as well. And that sounds terrible, as though I’m frittering my life away as a couch potato, playing violent games, reading Facebook posts, and watching mindless television.

When really, for me, I believe it’s not so much a change of activity as just a change of medium. I used to read books, magazines, and newspaper exclusively on paper. Now, more and more, I read them on screens. But regardless, it’s still a good activity for my brain.

And, I used to write letters with pen and paper. Now I communicate via some kind of screen, mostly. Which is a relief to my recipients, as my handwriting is terrible. (And sometimes, I will still print the results on paper and mail them out, just to be retro.) Nevertheless, I’m still keeping up social ties.

What about exercise? It’s not new that I do that in front of screens. First with VHS, now with DVDs, and I imagine I’ll move on to streaming options in the future, but regardless, I’m a long-time fan of following along with video workouts. And my collection of music DVDs are a big help in getting through treadmill and free weight workouts. Inside or out, with screens or nature, it’s still good for the body.

Thanks to digital sheet music, I even use screens when making music. I now have this Bluetooth foot pedal so I can change pages without lifting hand from keyboard. It’s very cool.

[And the article has “listening to radio” as a non-digital activity. Who in the world ever just sits and listens to the radio, without also doing something else at the same time—driving, cooking, brushing your teeth, paying your bills? And aren’t most radio stations accessible online? To list “listening to radio” as an activity in itself is just peculiar.]

But all that defensiveness aside… I do believe it’s good to get out into the real world and interact with it directly, sans screens. And, I’ll admit, I sometimes I suspect my balance there is off.

A real symptom of this is my, frankly, incredibly low usage of my smart phone. Per the poll, average smart phone usage is 1.5 hours a day. Here I am way below average, at maybe 3 minutes per day?

Because basically, most of what I can do on a phone I can also do on a tablet or computer. And given a choice, I’d rather use those, because the screens are bigger. The phone’s advantage is great portability + not requiring an Internet connection. So it’s fantastic when you’re out and about; often it’s the the only option there.

I’m having to conclude I’m just not “out and about” that much.

(On the plus side, my cell phone bill is only $30 a month, including data! For those not from Canada: That’s pretty good.)

Nevertheless, I did recently upgrade my cell phone. The old one had the world’s tiniest amount of storage, and that was making it incredibly difficult to update the few phone apps I do consider critical: Evernote, Twitter, Swiftkey, Gmail, GPS. Weary of its constant “Out of space” warnings, I paid it off the old and am now the proud owner of an unlocked, 16 GB, Google Nexus 4.

I am stunned at the speed of this thing, I must say; couldn’t believe how fast everything downs (on the same wifi connection as before). It also has a nice, sharp screen and the very latest version of the Android OS. My older Android tablet seems rather stodgy by comparison.

So given that nice design, I’d actually like to use it more, but that just isn’t going to happen unless I actually get out, away from home and office, more often. Ironic?

Movie review: Dallas Buyer’s Club

**** Dallas Buyers Club (November 2013) – Theatre

Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner. A promiscuous, homophobic Texas cowboy is stunned by an HIV diagnosis during the mid-1980s, when that is most definitely a death sentence. He finds unlikely alliances among gay men as he fights for treatment options to prolong his life.

She says: Much less sad a film than I was expecting, given that it is about young men who are dying of an awful disease. But this movie focuses on their fight for life, and while not everyone survives (hardly a spoiler), the movie doesn’t wallow in those moments. It never goes for cheap sentiment.

The gaunt Matthew McConaughey is almost unrecognizable but very good in the lead role of Ron Woodroff, who is not always sympathetic, yet you can’t help rooting for him, even before the prejudice he encounters due to his diagnosis gradually causes him to evolve into a somewhat better man. Jared Leto, as his transsexual partner Rayon in the “buyers club”, is also very good, and I wish the movie had spent more time on his rather fascinating character.

The “buyers club” is formed when the medical establishment has nothing to offer these men. They look for alternative and experimental drugs and therapies, try them on themselves first to test efficacy, then sell them with no guarantees to people who have no other hope. The response of various officials—medical, legal, regulatory—to the club forms the crux of this film. Really interesting.

And often funnier than you’d think from that description!

He says: Wow! I liked that movie! About time. (Although it was disturbing just how good-looking a “woman” that Rayon was…)

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