Tune in to Bruce Bratton’s juicy Universal Grapevine program, next Tuesday—February 12, at 7:30 and you’ll get to hear me and film critic Lisa Jensen go boca a boca with Bruce about our Oscar picks, and favorite films of 2012.
That’s KZSC 88.1 FM.
The gloves are off!
I have loved O’mei for over 25 years, and as of last week I still love this low-key house of brilliant flavor combinations, culinary creativity and seasonally-changing menus.
Winter seems to fire the creative juices of O’mei cooks, who have come up with a whole new menu long on chili-laced squash, Sichuan green peppercorns, eggs and house-cured pork belly Small plates now include blistered red peppers with thin-sliced cured pork belly that is as good as the first time you tasted ice cream.
Several entrees of seasonal note include a comforting, spicy stew of pork belly, mixed squashes, Sichuan peppercorns and bits of soft tofu in a dazzling broth(below right). Prawns with minced pork, black beans, peas and egg. And as local fans know, O’mei desserts also dazzle, including a new special of apricot almond custard.
Perhaps it’s human nature to take quality for granted, but I’m thinking this outstanding restaurant should be at the top of everyone’s dining list. Maybe it’s the economy, but this place should be packed nightly.
Remember the expression, use it or lose it?
Yes, this new, lively, friendly pizza parlor does make very delicious pizzas. But they also offer appealing salads, such as the Santa Croce (shown right), which comes to your table absolutely overflowing with argula, kale, purple radicchio, carrots, celery, even toasted hazelnuts—plus Parmesan Reggiano and feta.
It is a rhapsody to the entire idea of an insalata mista—liberally dressed in lemon and olive oil.
Tramonti. More than just killer pizza!
Set aside the debate about whether or not this film endorses the use of torture as an enhanced interrogation tool. There are other issues plaguing this film by director Kathryn Bigelow, and they primarily involve the curiously empty—or at least vaguely characterized—center of the action, a fledgling CIA operative named Maya (Jessica Chastain).
I loved and admired Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, a taut, bravura war film that packed an authentic emotional punch. And while I was mostly caught up in Zero Dark Thirty (the echo of many Vietnam vets’ favorite slang for “early,” as in “we had to get up at O dark thirty”), and riveted by its expert visual and verbal architecture—I didn’t love it. And I have puzzled since then over why I didn’t love it. Then it came to me: Jessica Chastain! Wrong. Utterly wrong! Too pretty, too fragile, too unbelievable—especially the voice, a voice lacking in anything like authority. A high-pitched voice in a masculine power context is clearly a cry for condescension.
My concern with this bracing story of the roughly ten-year “hunt” for Osama bin Laden has to do with the choice of lead actress — a choice, however, that might ruin the film’s believability in order to make a more subtle political point.
As Bigelow’s film dramatizes (more…)
Musicals affect me something like dry martinis. The more I consume, the weaker my inhibitions become. In the end, against my critical instincts and even my good sense, I succumb. I cave in. I cry. Which is what I did starting with the very first note of “I Dreamed a Dream,” all the way to the death of Jean Valjean—a death saturated in religious iconography, grieving children, and fairytale closure. An end, in short, worthy of anything by Verdi.
In fact it’s probably a good idea to stow away any preconceptions you have about stage musicals—the kind that involve dialogue, a big musical number, and more dialogue. If you think of director Tom Hooper’s ambitious screen version of Les Misérables (loosely based upon the multi-volume epic by Victor Hugo) as something of an opera, you’ll gain enough emotional traction to use up half a box of Kleenex before the credits roll.
By now everyone with a computer or TV knows that Oscar-winner Hooper (The King’s Speech) decided to venture into dicey territory and have his actors actually perform their own singing. On screen.
No dubbed voice-over, no professional singers creating the vocals in studios and then layering their voices atop the screen performances. Nope. There was Hugh Jackman singing with passionate conviction in a range much higher than his comfort zone. And Anne Hathaway, weeping, trembling and raging her way (more…)
A book of sensory adventure: The rituals, passions and discoveries of an engaged life.