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.

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

…the end of december. since my last post I got around to checking out juno and I am legend.

thoughts?

I am legend:
the cgi mutants (after all those months of casting for extras they went with cgi mutants?) looked a little weird to me, but I can see how having real live mutant extras might look like all the trendy zombie movies that’s come out recently. but still, recreating human-like movement with cgi is HARD. guess it’s a lose-lose situation there. there is a major hole in the story but I won’t ruin it for ya. I still enjoyed it though (mmm, dilapidated nyc).

juno:
when it wasn’t trying to be cheeky (believe me, some of the key dialogue must have been written by a crotchety hollywood exec who watched one episode of TRL) it was a very good movie. but there were just far too many scenes of it trying to be “quirky” or “edgy” that it was lost on me (I can almost see the company memo using those words). it’s like the studios had a huge board meeting with out-of-touch execs and twisted a writer’s arm to re-create the charm of napoleon dynamite. some parts I really liked, some parts really grated on my nerves. juno gets my vote as this year’s science of sleep.

final fantasy. what in theeee fuck? and it’s not an accident either, evidently the brains behind FF is a fan of the video game franchise.

COME ON!

though I am really liking these song of theirs/his right now.

yep, I moved and I’m back in brooklyn. park slope to be exact. and hey I’m going solo again! it hasn’t been since 2002 that I lived by myself. I hated it on my last go around, so let’s hope things will be different this time.

I’m trying to figure out what I’m gonna do with all this space. I did, however, buy a new tv today. hooray for labor day sales.

so it’s looking like I’m going to be at a new address come oct 1. thing is I don’t know what that address will be, and we all know how much I loooooove moving.

at least I have close to 2 months to look for a place. actually it’s less than 2 months because I have to figure out how I’m gonna move my shit (which isn’t much) and what I’m gonna take with me. guh.

in other news, I’ve had two songs on repeat the past few days. I thought I’d share with you.

I haven’t listened to or thought about dinosaur jr, and yet the album title just popped in my mind when I was trying to think of a title for this entry.

so yeah, where’ve I been?

1. (up through 4th of july week) being somewhat underwhelmed by the selection at this year’s ny asian film festival.

2. (the entire week after the 4th) went on an awesome trip to new england; hitting providence, boston and maine.

3. (upon my return) started jogging.

4. (last night) saw sunshine at sunshine cinema. not to worry, the irony was NOT lost.

that about does ‘er!

I’ve been behind on my bravo programming lately, mainly because other than project runway and inside the actors studio I’m not particularly interested in anything else on the network.

then I saw an ad for some new show called shear genius. it’s a competition-based reality show that’s probably by the creators of project runway.

I dunno. I wasn’t crazy about top chef, I didn’t bother watching top design, and I probably won’t watch this show either.

but tell me this: how can the elimination one-liner be anything other than “you’re cut”?

I decided to cut myself off sweets during the week. I gotta do something about all this winterfat.

there were three films this season that I desperately counted on to deliver, those films being science of sleep, for your consideration, and flannel pajamas.

I felt science of sleep fell short because gael garcia bernal’s character, although very well played, was simply unlikeable. I couldn’t sympathize with him.

I felt for your consideration fell short because all of the characters, although expertly played, were too over the top and unconvincing. it would have been a so-so film made by anyone else but from christopher guest you expect a lot more.

I felt flannel pajamas had all the right pieces but just wasn’t put together as well as it could have. the performances were great, especially from julianne nicholson. maybe I’ll go see this again, though I’ll have to do it quick because it’ll be gone by the end of the week.