GOTTA DANCE

This was a fun and inspiring documentary about a senior hip hop dance team put together to entertain during half time at NBA basketball games. There was only 1 man, Joe, and he was the least rhythmic of the group. He eventually got all the moves right but his body was wooden. However, he and his wife swing dance and jitterbug and he could "cut a fine rug" with that style; Joe was light on his feet and smooth and had lots of rhythm.

All the team members had to be at least 60 and most were in their 70's and several ladies were in their 80's including Fanny, a petite short Phillipino.

The film included not only their performances at the games but their practices and how the dancing and the discipline and the team work changed their lives.

Great show. Its out on video.

NORTH - TUCSON, AZ

I was prepared to dislike this restaurant because it is "hoity-toity", its one of Tucson's "in'' restaurants that serves the 'beautiful' desert dweller people, it's expensive, it proclaims its innovative fusion foods and is advertised as a modern eatery (i  regard this word with much reservation, similar to the words ristorante, bistro, and  caffe.

However, i was pleasantly surprised at the deliciousness of my lunch. I had a chicken salad panini though the sandwich was not served on grilled pressed focaccia bread. Loads of tender and moist chicken was piled on a wonderfully tasty bun which itself was light and didn't overpower the poultry. On top of the chicken was  herbed aioli (another word that i regard dubiously), melted provolone or was it brie? and finely chopped kalamata olives. It was a fantastic combination. My side was crispy potatoes (instead of asparagus) and they were superb; and yes, very crispy with a light dusting of parmesan cheese. Bread was brought to the table with sundried tomato butter. This was $9.

The restaurant is mostly  glass and metal and not much in the way of a themed decoration; unless the cold atmosphere is necessary to coordinate with the name of the restaurant. The tables are very very close together which wasn't a problem for lunch as the place was only 1/3'd full but they were so close i could reach out my hand to easily snatch bread from the next table.

The hostess and waitress, especially the former, were fawning and pretentious and haughtily submissive. The hostess greeted us and led us to our table as if we were being granted an audience with the Queen Mother or Elton John. The waitress also checked in with us asking for any requests and wanting to get our opinion on the food much too frequently.

 i will be going north again, however,  but only for lunch.

REAL STEEL

Even though this movie had thin character development, a predictable plot, hokey sentimental scenes (think father and son re-united after 11 year scenes), a story line that has been told many times before (a heavy metal Rocky film), and so-so music, it was one of the most fun and entertaining and exciting movies i've seen. So a solid 10 from both bill and I.

Hugh Jackman is the lead actor and he has never looked so handsome, lean and mischievous as he did in this movie. The story takes place in the future when robots are the boxers; not humans and these robots are wonderfully inventive. Jackman is Charlie, a ne'er - do - well, always out of money manager for a robot who in the opening scene loses a fight putting Charlie further into debt to the bad ass owner of the show. And naturally, Charlie puts his robots together and repairs them in a gym that is run by a very attractive lady who has the hots for him but is starting to reach her limit of patience with his non-rent paying status.

Charlie gets re-united with his son - a very good actor and charming and smart mouthed without being annoying - after 11 years and the son is the catalyst for Charlie's re-emergence as the manager of a top rated robot called Atom. The fight scenes are incredibly exciting with a lot of humor.

The theater was filled with loudly responsive audience members so there was a lot of cheering, yelling, fist pumping and clapping.

THE IDES OF MARCH

Excellent political true-life thriller starring George Clooney as Gov. Morris who is running for president and his strategist, Stephen, played by Ryan Gosling. The movie spans the time right before the very important democratic Ohio primary.

The film shows the preparation and workload of Morris's staff and also the deals and under the table swaps and trades that accompany politics and running for office. Morris is portrayed as an Obama (Obummer is my latest way of referring to the President) like charismatic speaker - a golden-tongued orator - whose campaign promises include a lot of  liberal-speak about the wars and the economy. Off the podium Morris is also shown as being unwilling to compromise his beliefs; his unwillingness to promise a job to Thompson (played by Jeffrey Wright) to get all his delegates which would seal Morris's win in the primary. Stephen is also proud to work for such a high-idealed man.

However, everything starts unravelling when Stephen agrees to meet with the "other side's" campaign manager; wonderfully and cynically acted by Paul Giamatti who wants Stephen to jump ship and work for the other candidate. I don't want to say anything more about what ensues because there are many twists and consequences and unintended decisions.

The acting in this movie is superb. Philip seymour Hoffman is a member of Morris's staff and is a grizzled veteran of these election 'wars', Evan Rachel Wood is an intern and the daughter of the head of the Democratic National Party and Marisa Tomei plays Ida, a reporter for the New York Times.

Both of us gave this movie a 10+.

POLISH COTTAGE - TUCSON, AZ

Newly opened restaurant on Broadway between Columbus and Swan. They are open till 8pm Tuesday thru' sat. and to 7pm on Sunday. The place is nicely and simply decorated and the colors are fantastic; warm blues and greens and mauve.

Our waitress, Elizabeth, was super. She turned up the heat after we got there probably taking a hint from our hoodies cinched around our heads and the generalized shivering.

The menu is short and simple; pierogis, cabbage rolls, pork, chicken cutlet and hunter's stew. Bill and i ordered pierogi's 2 of each filling - mushroom and sauerkraut, sweet farmer's cheese, potatoes and cheese and beef. They were absolutely delicious; lots of filling and a good size and the dough was not overly thick. The only one i didn't especially care for was the sweet cheese one because it was too sweet. We got sour cream and caramelized onions on top and you can also get bacon.

We also ordered 2 cabbage rolls that came with a hard roll. The  cabbage rolls were huge and the flavor was incredible. They have now taken the first place over the ones at European Market on Speedway.

We will definitely be back. Oh, they also had kielbasa on the menu. and a few desserts.

GHINI'S FRENCH CAFFE - TUCSON, AZ

I haven't been here since moving back to Tucson 2 years ago and it hasn't changed. The food still sounds and looks way better than it tastes; its still overpriced; and the flirtatious wearing way too short and tight skirts  for her age constantly on the phone manager is still there berating her employees.

I ordered a croque madame which was described in flowery beret outdoor cafe style (Ghini's spells it Caffe on their website; why??)  as being an over easy egg on top of baked french bread with thinly sliced ham covered in melted Brie and 2 other cheeses accompanied by "field" greens. (are field greens different than other greens? and what does that mean?) This entree was $9.

The greens are a small handful of plain ole' spring mix thinly and almost invisibly covered in a vinaigrette. And the 'sandwich' was 2 many inches thick pcs. of bread with a semi-runny egg on top although i ordered it over hard and a small amt. of  melty cheese covered ham almost hidden by the bread. Very hard to eat and it tasted of bread with every bite. The ham, however, was cut wafer thin which i prefer.

This restaurant is right next door to a bakery which is one of my favorite repositories of morning buns, croissants, sticky buns, danish, bear claws; on and on. I picked up a loaf of marble rye right before i ate lunch with Carol and it was absolutely delicious with our BLT's that night. I'll keep the bakery and not the caffe.

GOVINDA'S NATURAL FOODS BUFFET - TUCSON, AZ

This vegetarian (on thurs.'s vegan) low fat, low salt, organic, gluten free, and smeared with a faint incense-laden eastern spirituality and inherent goodness (i.e., you wouldn't tell a story about big dicks and say fuck a lot.) is run by a religious organization. They have a great outdoor seating area (too cold for us this night) and a nice garden and koi pond; in fact, the surroundings and landscaping are very soothing.

The seating inside is limited but also decorated Zen Buddha-Tibetan-chakra-like. They have a wonderful gift shop filled with clothes and icons and gods and goddesses.

None of their food is really hot. The very best part is their salad; very fresh ingredients and the salad dressings are really good too; almond, cashew, hemp seed and one other greenish-brackish looking substance.  Lots of veggies to put on the salad. And they had great apricot bread with butter though the only silverware you get is a spoon and fork; no knives.

Most of the dishes i pass on; they look too healthy; eggplant lasagne, and steamed vegetables of an unknown variety and cut in mega pieces and rice and then several soupy and liquidy dishes. They did have a macaroni and cheese dish (which of course was probably not real pasta or cheese; unless it was cheese from their peacocks) which was really tasty but the other stuff i tried was not good at all; either too dry or tasteless (no fat will do that.) I took a samosa which i usually eat too many of cuz they are so delicious; veggie and potato stuffed dough triangles but this one weighed about 4 lbs. and the dough was about 6 inches thick and so endlessly chewy and the inside was terrible.

They had several sweet things for dessert but after our dinner with Kent and Molly we were going back to our house for fudge bottom pie and Florentine cookies with chocolate-orange filling so why would we be interested in a fruit homemade yoghurt salad or raspberry squares which looked like congealed maroon aspic?

The next time we go; i'm just going to order their soup and salad and bread since that's always reliably delicious. However, it might be awhile till we go back; i always have a next-day unusual G.I. reaction. i won't bore you with the details.

THE PERFECT HOST

Very good (surprisingly good) video that just happened to appear on our Netflix instant viewing queue. It stars David Hyde Pierce; the friend of Frazier.

It starts with a bank robbery by an actor who looks exactly like a young Ray Liotta. The cops get his license plate really fast so there's an APB out on him and he takes refuge in this house in an affluent neighborhood by pretending to be a friend of a close friend of the guy (Hyde Pierce) who lives there. The criminal had looted the mailbox and saw a postcard from a gal named Julie so he pretended to be a friend of hers. He concocts a story about his cousin not being home yet and that's where he was going to stay so he was wondering if he could hang out  for awhile till the cousin came home.

The "perfect host" says sure, though he's having a dinner party in about 30 minutes. Well, here's where the fun begins because Hyde Pierce is a crazy man and his dinner party guests are maybe not real people and he drugs the robber and ties him up and then regales him with images of other unwanted guests and what he did to them; he keeps a picture album of them.

This movie does not turn into a SAW part 32 but gets really psychologically twisted with the robber turning the tables on the host; or does he? and the real identity of Hyde Pierce is a super surprise and the twist about the bank robbery and ending are all done very well and everything is unexpected.

I gave it an 8.

A GREAT HIKE AND A GREAT MEAL

We hiked on the Upper Bug Springs trail. The weather was perfect; sun warm but the breeze was cool. The last time we did this trail, we scouted out a great area of boulders in a wash/canyon to explore so this is what we did. As we approached the end of that approximately mile long section by the creek (very mysterious and so un-desert like; lots of trees and no fire damage) we cross country'd on our left and soon came to the wash.

It was very steep in places but we never felt unsafe. At our age, we don't take climbing/scrambling risks anymore just to catch that superb view. After winding our way around stupendous rock formations (lots of hidey-holes's and great lunch and break spots) and walking up up up; we finally got to the top of the ridge and it was perfect. Not all our explorations end so well. There were several flat large areas, fantastic view, no bugs and both dappled and sunny spots.

After the hike, we stopped at Beyond Bread. They were having their Octoberfest special: a bratwurst on a pretzel bun with German potato salad for only $7. They only had a little over one serving of potato salad left so asked if we wanted a substitute, so we picked a small garden salad with their fantastic thousand island dressing. Well, the portion was huge. There was more than enough potato salad for bill and i to share; we didnt' even need the green salad and the bratwurst was a foot long  (i'm not kidding). There was some sauerkraut on it and spicy dijon mustard and the bun was absolutely delicious. crusty and crunchy on the outside (and luckily not too crusty because of my continuing pain when biting down hard in my newly placed crown area) and the inside was soft and pillowy. the sausage was excellent; mild and flavorful.

They are having this special for the whole month so we'll be sure to come back before 10/31.

MONEYBALL

This movie is the story of Billy Beane, a 'failed' major league baseball player and General Manager of the Oakland A's. After once again losing players to teams with much more money, he hires a computer whiz (played by Jonah Hill, who i think has lost a lot of weight since this picture was filmed.) who groups together players for a winning team based on numbers and averages and the times the player gets on base.

This was beyond radical at the time and the scouts (all grizzled veterans of 'how the game is played') grumble and rebel. Brad Pitt plays Billy and i think this was his best role. He has weathered a bit (cuz of all those children and being the husband of angelina?) and has lost that pretty boy look.

The story was just mesmerizing and fast paced and it was very very interesting to see how a team is constructed and the interaction of the players and managers and how players are traded. One thing that was really clear is that the team is NOT a family; its just a random grouping of individuals; being placed at the whim of the management.

The only females in the film were Billy's ex (played by Robin Wright - formerly Sean Penn's wife; very short on film time) and Billy's daughter.

We gave the movie a 9; i would have given it a 10 but the ending dragged on; showing in too slow paced sequences the dilemma Billy was faced with re: his position in baseball. This was a true story. I got very emotionally involved at the baseball playoff games; exciting.

TRUST

This movie was never released in theaters and i don't know why. It was excellent; both Bill and I gave it a 9.

Clive Owen plays the dad and Catherine Keener the mom of a 14 year old girl who gets involved chatting on-line with another high school kid who lives out of state. As they become friendlier and start sharing confidences, he tells her that he is really 20. Well, she is shocked but still computer chats, texts and phone talks with him because he is giving her all the support and validation she needs as an adolescent who is trying to fit in yet be different, who is testing the waters of boyfriend and girlfriend, who is awakening sexually, who is starting to rebel against her parents, etc.etc.

Then he reveals that he is really 25. but again by this time she is even more emotionally dependent on him. They eventually meet and he's in his late 30's - at least. but gently and persuasively he is able to get her to be less angry and to trust him again and by this time he's telling her he loves her and yes, you guessed it; they have sex in a motel room.

From here to the end of the movie, it continued to surprise us and take turns that we weren't expecting. Eventually, the relationship is discovered and the film shows how dependent she has become on him; shows how the mom reacts differently than the dad and how it effects their relationship; highlights her peers' response and how the law enforcement people and counselors handle all this. It does NOT become a mel gibson-harrison ford-revenge at all costs- shoot em up movie.

The ending is not tidy or neat and just hints at healing in the family. and the predator scene at the finish of the movie (as the credits are rolling) is superb and perfect.