A near-perfect Saturday
Mar. 18th, 2007 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjYesterday was my NLT (not less than) monthly not-a-date with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scotica and after ruminating on the inadvisability of planning any activities directly partaking of an Irish theme for St. Patrick's day I pointed out that there was currently a movie in the theaters starring Ioan Gruffudd that we hadn't seen yet, and she pointed out that St. Patrick was, after all, originally Welsh, just like Ioan Gruffudd, so this removed any need to come up with any other thematically-connected activity.
Movie Review: Let me begin by saying that, although my sexual orientation is not in jeopardy, I would pay to watch Ioan Gruffudd reading a phone book. I would seriously contemplate crawling through broken glass to watch him reading a phone book wearing historic costume. (And it's best not to think of what I might be willing to do to watch him read a phone book in historic costume in Welsh, but thanks to my DVD copy of Solomon a Gaenor the question is not left entirely to my unaided imagination.) So I can't exactly be taken as an unbiased reviewer of Amazing Grace, where he portrays late 18th c. British anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce.
Although the NPR review of the movie that I heard before seeing it complained of the usual Hollywood tendency to inaccurately distill down complex historic events into single charismatic figures, I felt that -- within the constraints of the genre -- the movie gave a realistic sense of the complexity and diversity of the social/political movement. And the flash-back structure seemed to make it easier to give a sense of the slow wearing down of youthful ideals against the rock of realpolitik while enabling the framing story to span the lowest and highest points of his struggle.
While the setting isn't a period I have specific expertise in, as a viewer with serious general interest in costume history I found the costuming and set-dressing to be enjoyably accurate. The one historical clinker was an inexplicable (and unexplained) conflation of certain elements of the British political system. (Or, "What's that duke doing in the House of Commons?") But overall the presentation of the political machinations and maneuvering "felt" true-to-life. In an odd way, the references to the song Amazing Grace also clinked a bit. The song's author is a minor character in the story -- serving as something of a spiritual mentor to the protagonist. But this movie isn't about how the song came to be written. The song shows up twice during the main action serving as something of a metaphor for Wilberforce finding and then re-finding his "voice" in the struggle. And then it's played at the end in what seems intended to be a vaguely delineated "funeral scene" but stands out more as a moment of: "Hey, wait a minute -- everybody thinks of Amazing Grace as a bagpipe tune so we have to find an excuse to show a bagpipe band playing it."
Overall, I give this an outstanding recommendation for fans of costume drama or of Ioan Gruffudd and a "you probably won't be sorry" recommendation for the general public.
It still being a brilliantly sunny day after the movie, we swung by the county park that heads up the hills west of Los Altos for as brisk a walk as can be managed without proper walking shoes. It turned out to be very productive because we started brainstorming ideas for a new "skins" story for me to submit for the new Sword and Sorceress volume and in the course of me reviewing the underpinnings of the magical and social structures of the stories so far, a Question and a Concept emerged that rapidly spawned a Puzzle and a Conflict with an intriguing Guest Character Appearance and an as-yet vague Method of Resolution. So in the space of a hour I went from "I need to come up with an idea for a new story" to "I need to start getting this down on paper!" Having started the brainstorming process by tossing around ideas for titles -- since the titles so far all have some sort of "skin" reference that ends up being a twist on the usual meaning of the reference -- I'm still debating a title.scotica leans toward Skinned Alive but I'm doubtful because the usual sense is too close to what it would mean in the context of the story. I'm leaning towards Skin and Bones although we'd originally brainstormed that for an entirely different storyline.
Edited to add: I have been reminded that I'd later moved on to prefering the title 'Under My Skin'. Clearly the question is still under consideration in my back-brain.
Restaurant Review: Another custom we've developed has been to find a culinary tie-in for dinner on movie-viewing days. (I still feel the high point of this custom was the truly excellent fried calamari we consumed after viewing the last Pirates of the Carribean movie.) But not being overly hungry, I voted to have another go at the small-plates menu at Aldo's in downtown Los Altos. It started off with ... hmm, what was that first plate? I'll remember in a minute. Second we had the green olives stuffed with chicken and fried in a bread-crumb coating. Interesting and very solidly crisp but a bit heavy. The bed of arugula helped cut the heaviness a little, but I'm not sure I'd choose this one again. Third was the puff pastry filled with chopped mushrooms and goat cheese drizzled with a balsamic reduction. Ohmighod, this was melt-in-your-mouth time. Absolutely delicious.scotica had tried this once before with someone else and proclaimed it excellent last time and significantly better this time. We'd saved for last the sliced pears with prosciutto and gorgonzola that we'd raved over the last time we'd been there and it didn't disappoint but somehow wasn't quite the outstanding experience we remembered. We thought that part of it was the pears being sliced a little thicker (and hence being a bit crisper) this time and perhaps the dish having gotten cold since we'd left it for last. (I seem to recall that the contrast of cold pear and warm sauce was part of the enjoyment the first time.) So the verdict was "the dishes are somewhat uneven in quality between visits -- varying between "excellent" and "my mouth has died and gone to heaven", which will be more than sufficient to bring us back. Hmm, I still haven't remembered what the first plate was. Oh, right -- the movie tie-in. There was a battered cod with rosemary-flavored chips and lemon aioli, which fulfilled the need for a British connection. Very enjoyable although there was a little cognitive dissonance because the "chips" of the fish-and-chips were American style potato chips (fresh out of the fryer) rather than French-fry style chips.
For dessert we chose the shortbread with lemon curd which also seemed good as a British-setting movie tie-in. It came out almost like a crumb-crust lemon cheesecake sort of arrangement, with drizzles of caramel and raspberry sauces on the plate and fresh raspberries and puffs of whipped cream to garnish. For me, the ultimate test of a dish is the "eyes closed" test. If it's so good that I reflexively close my eyes in order to focus purely on what's going on in my mouth, it passes the test. I didn't see much while eating dessert. 'Nuff said.
scotica and after ruminating on the inadvisability of planning any activities directly partaking of an Irish theme for St. Patrick's day I pointed out that there was currently a movie in the theaters starring Ioan Gruffudd that we hadn't seen yet, and she pointed out that St. Patrick was, after all, originally Welsh, just like Ioan Gruffudd, so this removed any need to come up with any other thematically-connected activity.Movie Review: Let me begin by saying that, although my sexual orientation is not in jeopardy, I would pay to watch Ioan Gruffudd reading a phone book. I would seriously contemplate crawling through broken glass to watch him reading a phone book wearing historic costume. (And it's best not to think of what I might be willing to do to watch him read a phone book in historic costume in Welsh, but thanks to my DVD copy of Solomon a Gaenor the question is not left entirely to my unaided imagination.) So I can't exactly be taken as an unbiased reviewer of Amazing Grace, where he portrays late 18th c. British anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce.
Although the NPR review of the movie that I heard before seeing it complained of the usual Hollywood tendency to inaccurately distill down complex historic events into single charismatic figures, I felt that -- within the constraints of the genre -- the movie gave a realistic sense of the complexity and diversity of the social/political movement. And the flash-back structure seemed to make it easier to give a sense of the slow wearing down of youthful ideals against the rock of realpolitik while enabling the framing story to span the lowest and highest points of his struggle.
While the setting isn't a period I have specific expertise in, as a viewer with serious general interest in costume history I found the costuming and set-dressing to be enjoyably accurate. The one historical clinker was an inexplicable (and unexplained) conflation of certain elements of the British political system. (Or, "What's that duke doing in the House of Commons?") But overall the presentation of the political machinations and maneuvering "felt" true-to-life. In an odd way, the references to the song Amazing Grace also clinked a bit. The song's author is a minor character in the story -- serving as something of a spiritual mentor to the protagonist. But this movie isn't about how the song came to be written. The song shows up twice during the main action serving as something of a metaphor for Wilberforce finding and then re-finding his "voice" in the struggle. And then it's played at the end in what seems intended to be a vaguely delineated "funeral scene" but stands out more as a moment of: "Hey, wait a minute -- everybody thinks of Amazing Grace as a bagpipe tune so we have to find an excuse to show a bagpipe band playing it."
Overall, I give this an outstanding recommendation for fans of costume drama or of Ioan Gruffudd and a "you probably won't be sorry" recommendation for the general public.
It still being a brilliantly sunny day after the movie, we swung by the county park that heads up the hills west of Los Altos for as brisk a walk as can be managed without proper walking shoes. It turned out to be very productive because we started brainstorming ideas for a new "skins" story for me to submit for the new Sword and Sorceress volume and in the course of me reviewing the underpinnings of the magical and social structures of the stories so far, a Question and a Concept emerged that rapidly spawned a Puzzle and a Conflict with an intriguing Guest Character Appearance and an as-yet vague Method of Resolution. So in the space of a hour I went from "I need to come up with an idea for a new story" to "I need to start getting this down on paper!" Having started the brainstorming process by tossing around ideas for titles -- since the titles so far all have some sort of "skin" reference that ends up being a twist on the usual meaning of the reference -- I'm still debating a title.
scotica leans toward Skinned Alive but I'm doubtful because the usual sense is too close to what it would mean in the context of the story. I'm leaning towards Skin and Bones although we'd originally brainstormed that for an entirely different storyline.Edited to add: I have been reminded that I'd later moved on to prefering the title 'Under My Skin'. Clearly the question is still under consideration in my back-brain.
Restaurant Review: Another custom we've developed has been to find a culinary tie-in for dinner on movie-viewing days. (I still feel the high point of this custom was the truly excellent fried calamari we consumed after viewing the last Pirates of the Carribean movie.) But not being overly hungry, I voted to have another go at the small-plates menu at Aldo's in downtown Los Altos. It started off with ... hmm, what was that first plate? I'll remember in a minute. Second we had the green olives stuffed with chicken and fried in a bread-crumb coating. Interesting and very solidly crisp but a bit heavy. The bed of arugula helped cut the heaviness a little, but I'm not sure I'd choose this one again. Third was the puff pastry filled with chopped mushrooms and goat cheese drizzled with a balsamic reduction. Ohmighod, this was melt-in-your-mouth time. Absolutely delicious.
scotica had tried this once before with someone else and proclaimed it excellent last time and significantly better this time. We'd saved for last the sliced pears with prosciutto and gorgonzola that we'd raved over the last time we'd been there and it didn't disappoint but somehow wasn't quite the outstanding experience we remembered. We thought that part of it was the pears being sliced a little thicker (and hence being a bit crisper) this time and perhaps the dish having gotten cold since we'd left it for last. (I seem to recall that the contrast of cold pear and warm sauce was part of the enjoyment the first time.) So the verdict was "the dishes are somewhat uneven in quality between visits -- varying between "excellent" and "my mouth has died and gone to heaven", which will be more than sufficient to bring us back. Hmm, I still haven't remembered what the first plate was. Oh, right -- the movie tie-in. There was a battered cod with rosemary-flavored chips and lemon aioli, which fulfilled the need for a British connection. Very enjoyable although there was a little cognitive dissonance because the "chips" of the fish-and-chips were American style potato chips (fresh out of the fryer) rather than French-fry style chips.For dessert we chose the shortbread with lemon curd which also seemed good as a British-setting movie tie-in. It came out almost like a crumb-crust lemon cheesecake sort of arrangement, with drizzles of caramel and raspberry sauces on the plate and fresh raspberries and puffs of whipped cream to garnish. For me, the ultimate test of a dish is the "eyes closed" test. If it's so good that I reflexively close my eyes in order to focus purely on what's going on in my mouth, it passes the test. I didn't see much while eating dessert. 'Nuff said.
