More Of El Capitan's Mini-Reviews
All The Necessary Info, None Of The Fiddly Details
OK, here's a stack of short reviews of flicks, places & things.
1) Ratatouille - There hasn't been a Pixar film that hasn't been outstanding, and this one enters the realm of haute cuisine, albeit with buckets of rats, so you do tend to lose the snob factor...
I'd recommend it unreservedly, and it's appropriate for all ages. Kudos to the writers for adding a touch of Anthony Bourdain's philosophy to the chefs at 'Gusteau's', and be sure you swallow your drink when the rats take over the kitchen. When the platoon of rats comes out of the Hobart dishwasher all clean and fluffy, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes!
2) The Kingdom - I'll probably never be a huge fan of Jamie Foxx's acting, but I liked this film. The last 30 minutes is about as hair-raising & edge-of-your-seat filmmaking as I've seen in a while. Plus, lots of exotic kung-fu... H&K MP5K-fu, RPG-fu, H&K G3-fu, Tokarev-fu (rarely see that!) and of course, grenade, knife and carbomb-fu.
3) Resident Evil: Extinction - If you haven't watched the first two films in the Resident Evil franchise, there's not much point to seeing this one. I've never played any of the Resident Evil console games, but I do occasionally think about playing with the film's protagonist, Milla Jovovich, which is why I bother to watch them.
As horror/action films go, I've seen better. There's quite a bit borrowed from every post-apocalyptic film ever made. However, I've also seen a hell of a lot worse, so you won't completely waste your time with this one.
4) Blackadder the Third - Found this collection of the 3rd season of Blackadder in the used DVD store. It reminded me why I much prefer the 2nd and 4th seasons. Still, it does include 'A Blackadder Xmas Carol', which is worth the price of the DVD by itself.
5) Rockfish Seafood Grill - I met the Wandering Hoosier for lunch at Rockfish on Sunday afternoon. He's in town letting a payroll program run him in circles, and getting him out of the ofice seemed a proper act of mercy!
Rockfish is inexpensive for a seafood place, and while I'm not sure how they charged such a low price for the enormous hunk of mahi-mahi Jerry had, they certainly made money on me. I ordered (I thought...) the halibut with a 'Ponchartrain' sauce which advertised shrimp & crawfish in a spicy cream sauce. When I buy halibut at the fishmongers at Central Market, I'm usually buying a slab of fish at least 6 inches square and 1-2 inches thick.
What I got at Rockfish was a piece of fish that closely resembled in size and thickness the rubber sole I pulled off my Adidas track shoe when I was 10 years old. It tasted good, but there was just very little substance. Oh, the sauce... It consisted of a tiny puddle barely covering 1/3 of the fish, with 2 small shrimp, one crawfish tail and a piece of another. See, I was reading "flounder" on the menu, and somehow equating that with the halibut I usually get. They're both flat fish, but there's a big size difference... Next time, I get the salmon!
Their bread pudding with a warm bourbon sauce was to die for, however. Jerry said it was the best bread pudding he'd had, and I could only think to improve it by adding a few golden raisins and crushed pecans.
6) Talisker 10 yr. old scotch - My friend Cisco Kid was kind enough to gift me with a Talisker scotch sampler at Xmas. It's got three small bottles, containing Talisker 10 yr old, Talisker 18 yr old, and Talisker Distiller's edition, aged in amoroso sherry casks.
Talisker is the only scotch produced on the Isle of Skye, and like all the "maritime" scotch brands, has a unique salty/peaty/smoky taste. The 10 year old is the only one I've opened so far, and it's a big bad-ass scotch. This makes my usual Glenmorangie taste like spring water in comparison. I'm going to have to think about this one... One could spend a lifetime analyzing a scotch this good. I'm hesitant about opening the other two, lest my head explode from sheer joy!
OK, here's a stack of short reviews of flicks, places & things.
1) Ratatouille - There hasn't been a Pixar film that hasn't been outstanding, and this one enters the realm of haute cuisine, albeit with buckets of rats, so you do tend to lose the snob factor...
I'd recommend it unreservedly, and it's appropriate for all ages. Kudos to the writers for adding a touch of Anthony Bourdain's philosophy to the chefs at 'Gusteau's', and be sure you swallow your drink when the rats take over the kitchen. When the platoon of rats comes out of the Hobart dishwasher all clean and fluffy, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes!
2) The Kingdom - I'll probably never be a huge fan of Jamie Foxx's acting, but I liked this film. The last 30 minutes is about as hair-raising & edge-of-your-seat filmmaking as I've seen in a while. Plus, lots of exotic kung-fu... H&K MP5K-fu, RPG-fu, H&K G3-fu, Tokarev-fu (rarely see that!) and of course, grenade, knife and carbomb-fu.
3) Resident Evil: Extinction - If you haven't watched the first two films in the Resident Evil franchise, there's not much point to seeing this one. I've never played any of the Resident Evil console games, but I do occasionally think about playing with the film's protagonist, Milla Jovovich, which is why I bother to watch them.
As horror/action films go, I've seen better. There's quite a bit borrowed from every post-apocalyptic film ever made. However, I've also seen a hell of a lot worse, so you won't completely waste your time with this one.
4) Blackadder the Third - Found this collection of the 3rd season of Blackadder in the used DVD store. It reminded me why I much prefer the 2nd and 4th seasons. Still, it does include 'A Blackadder Xmas Carol', which is worth the price of the DVD by itself.
5) Rockfish Seafood Grill - I met the Wandering Hoosier for lunch at Rockfish on Sunday afternoon. He's in town letting a payroll program run him in circles, and getting him out of the ofice seemed a proper act of mercy!
Rockfish is inexpensive for a seafood place, and while I'm not sure how they charged such a low price for the enormous hunk of mahi-mahi Jerry had, they certainly made money on me. I ordered (I thought...) the halibut with a 'Ponchartrain' sauce which advertised shrimp & crawfish in a spicy cream sauce. When I buy halibut at the fishmongers at Central Market, I'm usually buying a slab of fish at least 6 inches square and 1-2 inches thick.
What I got at Rockfish was a piece of fish that closely resembled in size and thickness the rubber sole I pulled off my Adidas track shoe when I was 10 years old. It tasted good, but there was just very little substance. Oh, the sauce... It consisted of a tiny puddle barely covering 1/3 of the fish, with 2 small shrimp, one crawfish tail and a piece of another. See, I was reading "flounder" on the menu, and somehow equating that with the halibut I usually get. They're both flat fish, but there's a big size difference... Next time, I get the salmon!
Their bread pudding with a warm bourbon sauce was to die for, however. Jerry said it was the best bread pudding he'd had, and I could only think to improve it by adding a few golden raisins and crushed pecans.
6) Talisker 10 yr. old scotch - My friend Cisco Kid was kind enough to gift me with a Talisker scotch sampler at Xmas. It's got three small bottles, containing Talisker 10 yr old, Talisker 18 yr old, and Talisker Distiller's edition, aged in amoroso sherry casks.
Talisker is the only scotch produced on the Isle of Skye, and like all the "maritime" scotch brands, has a unique salty/peaty/smoky taste. The 10 year old is the only one I've opened so far, and it's a big bad-ass scotch. This makes my usual Glenmorangie taste like spring water in comparison. I'm going to have to think about this one... One could spend a lifetime analyzing a scotch this good. I'm hesitant about opening the other two, lest my head explode from sheer joy!
posted by El Capitan | 4:46 PM
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