CYRUS

I don't know why they advertised this movie as a comedy. Certainly there were funny scenes and humorous dialogue but that was just part of the story of the slice of life that this movie showed. In fact, it was sort of sad and pathetic with touches of dark satire.

John C. Reilly (John) is a depressed and aimless and lonely guy who lacks social graces. John at a party trying to connect with women is one of the movie's funny scenes during which i was simultaneously laughing and squirming with embarrassment at John's ineptness.

But at this party he meets Molly played by Marisa Tomei who really connects with his vulnerability. However, she has her own problems. And John meets that problem in the form of her adult son, Cyrus, who is perfectly played by Jonah Hill. What a great casting job as Cyrus combines babyhood helplessness with suppressed rage and violence. So Cyrus starts his subtle and not so subtle campaign to get rid of John so he can continue with his codependent "is it incestuous?" wierd relationship with his mom, Molly.

The ending is very satisfying as it stays within the entire parameters of the movie; life is not neatly packaged with all problems solved. This film was surprisingly quirky and interesting and both Bill and I liked it equally. It was released in 2010.

GANDHI INDIAN CUISINE - TUCSON, AZ

This restaurant is located in a strip mall which is totally empty. So when we saw all the cars parked in one corner we expected a wait. However, there wasn't one and Kent and Molly had gotten us a great red covered table in a corner against a wall. There are no booths - only tables.

The service was good and all of the waitresses were dressed in sari's with absolutely dazzling jewelry. I love the color that Indians freely use in their environment and their clothes. One lady (maybe the daughter of the owner) had both arms festooned with sparkly blindingly bright bracelets.

The food was delicious and the prices very very reasonable. A basket of thin slightly salty crackers was brought to the table with 3 chutney's; sweet, thick and fruity and a mint one. Bill and i shared 2 different chicken dishes (their menu is vast and i'm looking forward to going back and working my way through it). We had Murgh Makhani which is tandoori chicken in a tomato butter sauce and Shaki Murgh - chicken stuffed with paneer and herbs in a sauce of onions, tomatoes and ground nuts.

I was tempted to bury my head in the sauce (all the food was served on aluminum plates with partitions) lapping up all the richness and mopping up the dribbles on my chin with some of the garlic naan. The chicken was very very tender; the flavors explosive (i don't mean crazy hot.) Each entree came with white rice, dal (lentils), an orange slice, wedge of melon and aromatic slightly fruity yoghurt.

The only fit appropriate ending to this remarkable meal was a Cold Snap original tart frozen yoghurt with a side of dark chocolate sauce. purrrrrrrrrrfectly content was I!!!

JASON'S DELI - TUCSON, AZ

I love this restaurant. The branch near our house closed down last year due to poor money management by the drug dealing owner. But the tucson food scene word is that it will re-open in March. Meanwhile, the one on the other side of town has already re-opened so that's where we ate.

I always have a good meal and a great time at this place. It's a combination of things; the ALWAYS friendly service, the quality of the food, the prices and the atmosphere. Its a comfortable environment to just sit and visit and dawdle.

The menu consists of many many sandwich options, a few pasta dishes and about a dozen soups. There is also a wonderful salad bar which also includes 2 kinds of mini-muffins, garlic bread, homemade hummus with roasted red pepper and several varieties of nut snack mixtures. You can also help yourself to some soft-serve ice cream with chocolate topping.

I had the manager's special which is half of any of their sandwiches and the salad bar. The sandwich i had was turkey (all their meats are shaved wafer thin) on an onion bun. Bill had the pot roast melt on a poorboy roll and he said the meat was extremely tender.

So we started our meal in a jubilant mood and ended in an even more frolic-y mood. Ah, Life is Good!

FROGS ORGANIC BAKERY - TUCSON, AZ

Because this restaurant is French and is owned by a real Frenchman (Jean-Luc Labat), there is a parisian aura of pretentiousness and arrogance. Its located where paradise Bakery and Cafe used to be in the Casas Adobe Plaza and why THAT restaurant went out of business i have no idea.
The set-up is the same in that you order at a counter and help yourself to water and napkins, sugar for your coffee,etc. and find a seat in or out and they bring your food to you.

The prices were moderately high. The waitresses had a small salt and pepper "do you want any?" ceremony. Jelly for your breakfast bread was an extra dollar. No soft drinks were served because the restaurant is organic and highly healthy. but i enjoyed what i ordered and would probably come back.

I got an open-faced sandwich (only it's called a tartine, excusez-moi!) of shrimp on top of a toasted pc. of bread upon which a thin thin almost translucent layer of guacamole was spread (though i thought it tasted like pesto) and topped with chopped tomatoes. The bread was covered with shrimp from end to end. This was accompanied by a salad (just greens) with delicious thick and creamy ranch dressing and a 1/2 slice of what looked like whole wheat bread.

Kay, my dining friend, didn't get anything as she wanted soup and both offerings were cream-based and she doesn't eat dairy.

Merci for reading my review du jour, s'il vous plait, merde, rsvp, bonjour amigo.

BLUE VALENTINE

Ryan Gosling is an amazing actor in addition to being very good-looking with a lean muscled body.

This is a story (told in seamless flashbacks) of the beginning and the crumbling of a relationship. I was going to say
ending but the movie's last scene is ambiguous and because i didn't want him to be rejected/divorced by Michelle Williams (who plays his wife) i interpreted the ending as more of a rough patch in the relationship.

I read that the director had Gosling and Williams live together (during the day) so they could relate to each other more naturally and it worked. All the dialogue, the looks, the touches felt totally un-Hollywood - movie. The conversations between them were not splotches of glib clever dialogue but real talk.

I wasn't very clear, though, about why she was so unhappy with him. After much thought and discussion with Bill, i think it was because he was not very motivated or ambitious. (plus he liked to drink beer quite a bit). He was quite content to make enough money (he was a house painter) to support the household (she was a nurse or aide or medical technician) and to just be able to be with her and their daughter.

He was a great wonderful affectionate father. but he would play games with the daughter (who loved him to death) and sip on his beer while his wife would be packing lunches and getting her dressed for school and cleaning up the house.

OK, the more i'm thinking about this again the clearer their marital troubles are appearing.

If she doesn't want him, I'll take Ryan on.

MAMA'S HAWAIIAN BBQ - TUCSON, AZ

This restaurant recently opened on Speedway between Euclid and Park. Its a very big and plain building with a few surfboards on the walls and a shelf of bamboo and out of focus and poorly colored pictures of some of their food. If i relied on these pictures to inform me as to the quality of their food, i'd have walked right out of the place. The photos are singularly unappealing.

but fortunately, i didn't look at them. and the food is really good. You go up to the counter and order. For $7 i got their Hawaiian pork which is really pulled pork with an enticing and aromatic flavor and 2 volcano sized mounds of white rice which i doused with their slightly sweet teriyaki sauce and a serving of macaroni salad which i enjoyed more than A.J.'s (which i had just bought a few days before and its way way too mayonaise-y.) The portion of meat was large.

bill had some special beef short ribs; 3 or 4 slabs. He loved them. and his entree was $8 and also was accompanied by white rice and macaroni salad. We certainly will be back; just the perfect place for after a hike when i don't want to sit in a restaurant for a long time. I think on our next visit i'll try their chicken katsu.

BURLESQUE

This movie is a 10 for the singing and dancing and acrobatic moves and the costumes and sparklies and colors. This movie is a minus 1 for story, rationality, suspense or acting skills. Probably the lowest believability level in this film was when Christine Aguilera, trying to help her surrogate mother, Cher, save the burlesque club from re-possession starts discussing business plans with a developer and explaining "air-rights".

Aguilera has a fantasticly piercingly beautiful voice and even Cher still sounds good especially in her solo number where she sings a variation of "i am woman, I am strong" style of song. However, its disconcerting to watch the lyrics and melody torturously make their way past her frozen botox lower face.

LOVELY, STILL

This is a wonderful movie. The acting was superb (Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn), the story was thought-provoking and timely and tender and sad and romantic, and there were many surprises in the film.

It starts out slooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwly and seemingly predictable but please, stay with it. (bill and i were ready several times to suggest just turning it off because we were getting bored and i am so glad we didn't do that.) It's a lovely film and i can't say any more about it except its about senior love.

PANDA EXPRESS - TUCSON, AZ

We ate here because a) i had a coupon, b) i couldn't remember if we had ever tried this fast food chinese place, and c) it was late (past 7:30) and we wanted a place really close to home. and it was late because we went out to lunch and had a delicious and big meal at El Guero. Bill had a sonoran hot dog and i had a chicken torta.

both of us on the morning after this oriental confucian-plotted gastrointestinal assault deeply regretted eating at this restaurant.

I was confused from the start because the explanations on the board of how and what you could order for what price was not clear: i almost needed to throw the I Ching to figure it all out. The ladies behind the counter serving you the food all speak in tiny squeaky rapid fire voices uttering words i could not understand. So i did a lot of nodding and pointing.

I got vegetables, fried rice, black pepper chicken, cream cheese wontons and sweet chili chicken. The only dish that came ever so close to resembling food was the sweet chili chicken; it was spicy and all the meat was white. But everything else was a visual mystery and the vegetables were bland and not really cooked and the rice (though Bill's white rice was worse than mine ten-fold) was a glutinous ball of starch which is - at this moment- causing some interesting sounds and belly shapes.

This is a final word on how bad the food was: i was not even hungry 10 minutes after finishing it.

SWENSON'S - TUCSON, AZ

I think this is the first time we've eaten here since moving back to Tucson. It's an ice cream parlor and casual dining restaurant. Always crowded and noisy with amp'd-up toddlers and other assorted small ones due to all the sugar.

I think most people order hamburgers which is the only thing we've ever eaten here. For $7.30 (with coupon) we got a burger (they use Dickman's meat- an excellent butcher shop in the same mall; we used to get all our meat here during Tucson #1 because we lived so close.), fries (shoestring or wedge cut and they always serve a small side of ranch dressing), a drink, and a small dessert sundae (i've always gotten a hot fudge; they serve it with nuts, a cherry and whipped cream.)

A thoroughly satisfying meal experience. We came here after a hike and placed our order during the height of their peak busyness so we had to wait about 20 minutes for our food but the service was efficient and friendly and our waitress always came by to check on us and refill our coffee (me) and Coke (bill).

EXTRACT

This movie was directed by the same creative mind who was responsible for Office Space and it was a sad weak endeavor. It had funny moments and scenes and i didn't get bored or restless but it lacked momentum and recognizability of situations that might realistically occur in one's work or personal life (which is what made Office Space such a deliciously funny movie.)

It was the story of the owner of a company that produces flavoring extracts for baking and the hassles of being in charge of a bunch of people with a subplot of the owner not getting any sex after 8pm from his wife.

The movie's saving grace throughout was Jason Bateman as the company owner. He was wonderful. His wife was played by Kristin Wiig from SNL.

It was released about a year ago. Bill's opinion and Jean and Tim's (if i may be so presumptuous as to speak for them; i can, of course, being a spouse of long duration speak for Bill) was the same as mine.

THE FIGHTER

This was an absolutely wonderful movie. I was totally transported to Lowell, Massachusetts and the world of the Ward brothers. I cried and cheered during fight scenes and laughed during some of the confrontations between Micky's mom and his girlfriend. The dialogue was great; witty and real sounding - like 'normal' people would talk.
And all the actors kept their Massachusetts accent throughout the movie.

This is the story of Micky Ward, a boxer who won several welter weight titles and his half-brother, Dicky, who was his trainer and who had also been a boxer. Dicky is also a crack addict. Christian Bale played Dicky perfectly. He combined the edgy, tweaky, jittery aspect of an addict along with his innate charm and glibness with the discipline and strength of a former boxer. Bale was mesmerizing in all his scenes. Because Dicky is usually always stoned, when a documentary crew from HBO starts filming him; he thinks its because he's going to stage a come-back. Dicky still partially inhabits the time when he knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard in the ring (or did Sugar Ray just trip?) But the filming crew is making a docu about crack addiction. The scene where Dicky realizes the intent of the movie is really heartbreaking; one of several scenes that was really emotional and poignant.

Micky was played by Mark Wahlberg who i think is a wooden actor; not as bad as keanu reeves but in that category. But because his role in this film was as the brother who lacked confidence, who was dependent on other people's opinions and who lacked the assertiveness and brouhaha of Dicky, Wahlberg did a fine job.

Melissa Leo played their mom; a bossy, manipulative, loudmouth who quite obviously favored Dicky over all her children; she also had 6 or 7 daughters.

The music was excellent and fit each scene.

Its a story about boxing (the fight scenes were very realistic), family, codependent relationships, loyalty, drug addiction, relationships - romantic and relative and expectations. It was not a Rocky-remake that's for sure.

Both bill and i rated it a 10.

LITTLE ANTHONY'S DINER - TUCSON, AZ

This diner is right next to the Gaslight Theater, Tucson's venue for slapstick satires, magic shows and sing-a-longs. The decor is 50's rock and roll and all the waitresses are dressed in poodle skirts and loafers.

We loved it here; great place for New Years' Eve. We shared 2 sandwiches (one accompanied by fries and the other by cottage cheese!!! That was Bill's choice; not mine.) The chicken salad was pretty good but the egg salad was bland and dry.

But the chocolate malted shake we shared was AWESOME. The best we've ever had - creamy and thick. So thick you either had to use a spoon or suck so hard your stomach would rise into your esophagus region.

We will be back. Ostensibly, it would be for dinner, but the real reason will be for another milkshake. (oh, they do have a lot of salads, pizza, burgers, sandwiches and even a few dinners like chicken fried steak or spaghetti. But those pale and fade away next to the supreme delight of their milkshakes.)