LA SALSA - TUCSON, AZ

I love this restaurant; great food, reasonable prices (even without a coupon), clean eating area, friendly service and an awesome salsa bar.

We used to go to the one at Grant and Swan but they now close at 8pm (which sometimes makes it tough for us to get there in plenty of time to leisurely eat; since we often don't have our afternoon coffee till 5:45 pm.) and the food seemed to slip a bit in quality. so now our favorite location is at Speedway and Country Club.

I had the 3 pepper fajitas platter with carnitas. There was so much tender and flavorful pork that Bill now has a left-over lunch from what i couldn't eat. With this platter, I got black beans, rice, sour cream, guacamole and tortillas. Delicious. Bill got the firebowl which is a combo of rice, beans, chicken and loads of vegetables; corn, broccoli, peppers, onions and tomatoes.

And the restaurant is big enough so that its never crowded. a real winner.!

THE PAPERBOY

What a messed up and muddled and confusing movie. As fantastic as the performances were, it did not make up for the lack of a good narrative.

John Cusack portrayed a monster of a man; no morals, always sweating and open-mouthed, gross and crude and cruel. It is such a non-Cusack type role that he was mesmerizing and he did it so well. He is on Death Row accused of murdering a sheriff and he has become engaged to Charlotte who is a perpetually horny, white trash talking, sleazy and sexy and dumb  lady played  by Nicole Kidman. Another acting job which was unbelievably superb and a role that i would never have imagined Kidman to be even OK in; she shined as Charlotte.

So into this situation comes a reporter from the Miami Times to find evidence that John Cusack (Hillary in the movie) is not guilty. Why he would want to do that - its never made clear. The reporter is excellently played by Matthew McConaughey. His brother  Jack who lives in the small Florida town is acted by Zac Efron who is a dull- at best- actor.  Naturally, Jack gets a big crush on Charlotte.

The scenes become more and more bizarre with hog-tying and male rape and blow jobs in the prison visiting room and romping through alligator swamps looking for witnesses to the killing of the sheriff and additional murders and throat slicings and inane scenes between Jack and the black maid who works at his house. This role is acted by Macy Gray and her annoying voice. Plus she narrates the film and i find this technique highly distracting.

This movie was a 2 according to Bill and I gave it a 3; only because Cusack and Kidman were so fantastic.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

What a terrific, unique,beautiful, tragic and fun movie. The actors were NOT trained actors and i think this led to the believability of the film and the relationships.

It takes place at the time of Hurricane Katrina and in a community called the Bathtub. In an area of extreme poverty, this was one step below that. The events take place right before and after the hurricane and is mainly the friendship and mentoring and relationship between a small girl called Hush Puppy (she is about 7 or 8) and her alcoholic father. But its also about the Bathtub's response to the hurricane and the community and fellowship they had. Its also about the physical changes to their way of life and about their reaction when they were forcibly removed from their shacks to live in shelters (this didn't last long).

and it was also - very mesmerizingly and gently and magically presented- about Hush Puppy's survival and her adaptation to the changes in her life situation.

A fabulous movie; both of us rated it a 10. The movie is only about 100 minutes but by the time i could quit sobbing and drooling and blowing my nose and searching for my kleenix and chortling through my snot, it approached 115 minutes. These weren't just tears of sorrow either which is why the movie was so grand.