DON'T RUN THROUGH THIS MAZE GETTING TO PREP & PASTRY

Another loser of a movie. This one was even worse than last week's The Drop because the acting was so bad. It was like a high school play gone awry. The name was The Maze Runner. The movie ended in a bald unsophisticated proclamation of sequels yet to come. Mercy!

The "plot" is contained in the title. Its about a group of kids who live in an enclosed by high stone walls area (all boys except toward the end of the film, a female character was introduced.) and to get out you have to go through a maze. Only everyone knows you can't make it through the maze and no one knows why they are there. Until our plucky lead actor decides he wants to try. Yawn. The special effects were so incredibly cheap.

This movie was preceded by a brunch with my friend Chris at Prep & Pastry which inhabits the recently departed Amelia Gray's Tea House or Shop. The food at that incarnation wasn't very good but way better than at P & P.

The place was crowded and noisy but we had a pretty good seat in the corner by the front door. We ordered the same thing; scrambled eggs, country potatoes and toast which came dry! So i had to ask for butter and they only have  black berry jam. Nothing was really hot and nothing was especially tasty.

We also shared a football of a croissant which was filled with raspberry, goat cheese, lime and honey. The croissant was a grenade of heavy dough: no lightness in that pastry heft. The filling was very good but there wasn't enough of it.

The service was good and friendly and efficient but not enough to tempt me to come back.

THE DROP

I was really really bored during this film. Rated it a 3 and Bill gave it a 6 and all the reviews i've read give it almost a 10 hailing it as a gritty and tightly plotted crime drama. I found it to be muddled with poor acting and annoying characters (the detective and Bob played by Tom Hardy who is the main actor) and a predictable plot and accents that went in and out of Brooklyn-speak.

The story is simple. Marv played by James Gandolfini (this was his last film and he should have stopped with the greatly unexpected pleasure movie Enough Said) runs a bar which is an occasional drop spot for gang money. Because Marv used to own the bar, he's harboring a growing resentment against the gang so he decides to rob his own bar and leave town with the money.

and Surprise! Surprise! everything goes awry. Yawn.

However, the night before (out on DVD) we saw Jim Jarmusch's latest film Only Lovers Left Alive. and that was a 10; from both of us. It was a vampire movie but unlike any vampire movie you've ever seen. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston (he played Loki in the Thor movie series) were excellent playing elegant sophisticated witty and talented vampires who kept themselves apart from the zombies (all non-vampires) because their life style and the messes they created in the world were unappealing. They get pure blood from secret sources; never stooping to partake of potentially unclean or tainted  zombie blood.

Lots of 'inside' vampire blood humor and the love between Tilda and Tom was sensual and romantic and deeply affecting. The atmosphere and music was mesmerizing; part of the movie took place in Tangiers and the other part in a rundown part of Detroit.

and the ending was perfect which in my opinion often is not the case nowadays.