This modern-day "adaptation" (if it could really be called that) of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter is predictable yet quite charming to watch. Lots of well-known actors in the supporting cast: Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Fred Armisen, Malcolm McDowell. Emma Stone is fun as the protagonist: I give this movie an A!
Wanted
Got around to seeing this, even though I knew it wouldn't be as good as the comic of the same name. And, of course, it wasn't. It had some of the same attitude, though (lots of swearing and killing), and they made the movie somewhat unpredictable, even though the comic already had some surprising plot twists.
Ponyu
A cute little Japanese movie about a boy and his fish. Or maybe a fish and her boy. A little trite, but enjoyable in the spirit in which it was made. Hearing Tina Fey and Matt Damon voice the boy's parents was a bit disconcerting!
Red
This movie (like Expendables, featuring a cast of older actors) is a lot of fun to watch. Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman,, and Brian Cox play a bunch of "retired" spies/assassins who are forced to unretire. Quite the fun film!
The Expendables
My first Blu-Ray movie from Netflix. The picture quality didn't make up for the poor storytelling. At first I thought it might be an action-oriented remake of The Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven. That would have made for a fine movie. Oh well, what can you do: bad movies will continue to be made.
Despicable Me
A charming, if somewhat predictable, animated film. I thought this film was cuter (in terms of the kid-friendliness and charm) than Megamind, but the latter was the more entertaining story.
Conversations with Other Women
Two of my favorite actors (Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter), and some interesting writing (although disorienting cinematography). I enjoyed it!
Nuela
Excellent South-American food. I know, rather generic classification of food over a large continent: but it's how they describe themselves. A heart-of-palm salad was great; the oxtail empanadas acceptable, but not so special. The ceviche was excellent: we had tuna with a mildly spicy coconut sauce. The salmon entree was good, but not as good as the ceviche. We finished with a passion-fruit curd topped with a coconut sauce. All in all, an excellent meal.
Megamind
Megamind is hilarious! The spoof of the comic genre was well-done, and had lots of quick little inside jokes (like when Marlon Brando made his parental appearance). Quite fun to watch, although it's really an adult movie dressed up like a kids' movie.
The Social Network
The "story of Facebook". Backstabbing, a dislikable protagonist, $, all the makings of a good story. I'm not convinced the story is very accurate, given what I've seen of what the media tends to say about things that I have been familiar with. But it was entertaining, nonetheless. And it reminds me of why I don't have a Facebook account too...
I'm not quite clear on why Jesse Eisenberg deserved an Oscar nomination for best actor. I liked him better in Zombieland and Adventureland. Facebook-land?
I'm not quite clear on why Jesse Eisenberg deserved an Oscar nomination for best actor. I liked him better in Zombieland and Adventureland. Facebook-land?
Rick Santorum's problem
Boy, pissing off the wrong people will sure cause one problems these days...
Prime Suspect 5
Another Helen Mirren-as-hard-boiled-detective-fighting-in-a-man's-world tale. These Prime Suspect episodes are always fun to watch!
The Checklist Manifesto
I finally managed to finish a book! While Penelope was sleeping, of course, and I was on vacation. And on my Kindle. This book is well worth reading: it is all about how professions need to be systematized, because only well-run systems can cope with the complexity of modern life (be it engineering, flying airplanes, or practicing medicine). It reminded me what I dislike most about libertarianism: which is that it focuses much more on the individual than on the systems/groups of individuals that exhibit emergent behavior due to the interactions of the individuals. But that's a topic for another post. This book focuses on why the medical "system" fails in the particular subfield of surgery, which is that modern surgery is too complex to avoid errors, without systematizing how surgery is run (which Dr. Gawande argues implicitly is best done by a team, and not by one doctor). His recent New Yorker article on reducing health-care costs reinforces that latter point (and you should read that article if you haven't already).
Wolfsonian
This fascinating little museum had an interesting exhibition on the concept of "speed" in the 20th century titled Speed Limits. Pretty interesting, including the bit about kitchen design and efficiency.
Snow in Syosset
Here's a photo (taken from my iphone) of the big pile of snow in the Syosset LIRR parking lot. It's as high as some of the buildings in the area!
LIRR absurdity
Talk about lousy customer service. Tickets are only good within 14 days of purchase. Fine, you say, if I changed my plans I'll just return the tickets. Well, there is a $10 return fee for tickets: so if you buy a round-trip ticket for $10, you effectively can't return it! No wonder everyone complains about the MTA.
Snow!
Record snow this January, and it's not yet over! I'll try and post a picture if I can get a good one. 90 minutes of shoveling this morning to get our 2 cars cleared.
Salt
Wow. What a bad movie. Before watching it, I thought it wouldn't be a brilliant work of art, but at least I had hoped it would be entertaining. But the movie was disjointed and broken into about 3 different parts, with little interesting action. And it became obvious who the real villain was just by the pacing of the movie.
Liev Schreiber was so much better on Broadway when I saw him there...
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