today I caught the chicken, the fish and the king crab at the film festival. I made sure I ate before catching it because I figured I’d be bombarded with shots of food that would encompass my entire field of vision.

this film follows one spanish chef, jesús almagro, and his quest to compete at the bocuse d’or, an olympics-like culinary competition between 24 top chefs from around the world.

chefs train years to compete in this, not to mention spending over $100,000 in materials to practice with.

but you know what? the type of miniscule, surgically crafted miniature square morsels did little to fuel my appetite. it was much like a fashion show where everything looks pretty but you wouldn’t really see yourself wearing anything coming down the runway. same thing here — I can’t imagine eating the kind of foods they were judging.

it just wasn’t that exciting to me.

the final scene was of the spanish chef helping his mother prepare a big pan of paella while talking to the camera about his experiences at the bocuse d’or. the paella looked good. really, really good. and it made me wonder, was there a message that this was REAL cooking — preparing meals for your family and friends? the paella, with big chunks of chicken and shrimp tumbling around in the big metal pan, couldn’t have been farther from the intricately delicate sculpture-foods at the bocuse d’or.

not to run this message into the ground, but to me, the shot of the paella was much more appetizing than anything else I saw in the film.

it would have been nice had the final message in the film been a big fuck you to the competition.

the film itself was very enjoyable as jesús almagro is a lovable underdog who you really want to do well. is this the karate kid of the culinary world? you’ll just have to watch and see if jesús delivers a crane kick to the french chef at the end of the competition.

for those of us who don’t speak swedish, that translates to “let the right one in” and it’s the title of a fantastic film I just saw at the tribeca film festival. it’s a tender tale of a young bullied boy who falls in love with the girl next door, who happens to be a vampire.

as much as I strongly urge you to go see it, I just as strongly urge you not to watch the trailer online because it doesn’t come close to doing justice to the beauty of this film. in fact I feel it can be misleading, not to mention it giving away key scenes that’s best left for you to see for the first time on the big screen.

is it a coming of age story? is it a horror movie? there’s no categorizing this film.

the two leads appear to be in their early teens, and according to the director’s q&a after the screening they had little to no prior acting experience. that to me was mind blowing. to get such performances out of these actors must require so much skill and patience by the director. wow.

I don’t know what kind of u.s. distribution they have lined up but it needs to be seen by many people. in the meantime, if you’re in the nyc area you need to get off your ass and see it before it’s too late.

if you’re jewish: happy passover.

if you’re a pot smoker: happy 420.

…kansas really handed it to memphis. even when they were down they pretty much had control of the game

this is what happens when:

- I go out on a limb and pick my hated teams to do well (duke, I’m looking at you)
- this year being an exceptionally weak year for kentucky, my interest in the tournament was equally as weak
- my brackets got shot all to hell by the time the sweet sixteen rolled around

so tonight is the championship game between kansas and memphis. the only thing I’m looking forward to is the two boots pizza we’re ordering.

holler.