REVIEW - Hello Sailor

Scottish stinginess is legendary, as is the almost impenetrable accent. 

So, what does a Scottish rugby fan do when his friend in Australia says "I've got you a ticket for the game against England in the Rugby World Cup next year, in New Zealand?"

Realizing the ticket would have cost him $50 or more, he SAILS FOR 18 MONTHS FROM SCOTLAND TO NEW ZEALAND! 

A moving story it's true, and one that I hope will be rewarded with a right royal thumping by the England team. 

It's hard to express that sentiment without a few exclamation marks, so! here! you! go!!!!!

RAVE - Killer Elite

Alright, so Jason Statham is about as deep as a single sheet of tissue paper being flattened by Chaz Bono, but somehow this movie had enough depth, enough plot to keep us captivated.

It may be the same plot we've seen a dozen times before, but it's a proper plot nonetheless. Mr. Stubble and his fellow mercenary, played by the virtually-retired has-been Robert De Niro, do Stubble's "last job" in Oman. 

Why this job, and the next one (so it wasn't his last job after all) centered on Oman must mean that either:

a) Oman is now the bull in the dart board of international evil, or

b) The film's producer is getting healthy kick-backs from Hertz in Oman.

Anyhow, Statham is persuaded to return from retirement in Australia to rescue De Niro by finishing off a job Roberto took but failed to complete - which resulted in his being held captive until that job was tidied up by Mr. 5 O'clock Shadow.

It turns out their employer, Sheik YerMoneyMaker, had 3 sons killed by the dastardly SAS and wants revenge.

Statham reluctantly agrees to exact the required punishment in order to free De Niro, and tracks down the SAS killers in their respective hideouts - mostly pubs in England and Wales. He bumps several times into ex-SAS toughie Clive Owen, invents a cure for cancer and turns down the $6m fee from the Sheik.

All in a day's work for JS.

RAVE - Florio

This was our third time visiting, but first time reviewing Florio.

It's an energetic brasserie at the better end of Filmore Street - "better" if you're interested in eating or drinking rather than listening to live music.

My pate de campagne with rabbit and pork, black Jonathan apple and fennel compote was perfect. Pavey's soup - roasted kambucha and french butter pear puree, with creme fraiche - was lavishly named but otherwise un-noteworthy. My hanger steak frites with bearnaise sauce was above average. Pavey's oxtail ravioli, roasted early girl tomato sauce, gremolato, and grana padano, was excellent, if a bit heavy on the sauce.

Those "lavish" names blotted the otherwise great menu. Whoever wrote this menu is pretentious and probably still choking on the "Dictionary of Overblown and Pointless Ingredient Names". For example: "sausalito watercress". What on earth differentiates the watercress - something just a little bit fancier than grass - from Sausalito, from watercress grown in any other damp patch of earth in America?

It sounds like our food was just average, rather than rave-worthy, doesn't it?

However, the frenetic activity - we sat near the front bar, rather than in the quieter back, or in the semi-private room - and people-watching made this an enjoyable Friday night dinner.

RAVE - Moneyball

What perplexed me throughout this great movie was that, despite almost being able to see the Oakland Athletics' stadium across the water from our house, I don't remember a thing about this episode in their recent history. 

Basically, in 2001-2 the A's general manager, Billy Beane had lost his top 3 players - Jason Giambi, Jason Isringhausen, and one other whose name I forget - to higher-spending competitors, and was desperate to build a new team given the money constraints imposed on him by the A's owner. 

On his travels he found Paul DePodesta - played as "Peter Brand" by Jonah Hill in the movie, because real-life DePodesta objected to being portrayed merely as a statistician - a Harvard graduate and mathematics expert working on the Cleveland Indians' staff. 

Beane learned from DePodesta / Brand that every major league baseball team was undervaluing, and not drafting the real talent - people who could make a real contribution to those teams without costing millions of dollars to sign and keep each year. 

Thus was born Moneyball: Beane hired Brand to apply his statistical data to the A's acquisition and deployment of new players. 

After a rocky start to the 2002 season, the Athletics just missed out on the playoffs, but won the same number of games as the mega rich Yankees, at less than one fifth of the cost per win. 

Those are the facts. The movie tells them with great atmosphere, lots of excitement, and plenty of laughs (although this is not a comedy). 

Of course, with the memory of their neighbors' (the SF Giants) World Series win last year, where absolutely everyone, and his or her dog, was a rabid baseball fan, I'm unlikely to miss another Moneyball-type episode here on the best coast.

REVIEW - Catch

Not much to say about this place - it's a middle-of-the-road, seafood-oriented spot in The Castro, but it was only a quick dinner spot between an afternoon at the Folsom Street Fair and a few drinks while trying to look straighter than straight in a couple of bars on Castro Street. 

My crispy duck dumplings (no double entendre intended here!) were good and tasty, while my braised chicken was unadventurous - although I hadn't planned for an adventure with the chicken, so shouldn't have been surprised by this dish.

All in all, it was a very sedate affair, with neither Reggie nor me attempting to push the conversation far from work-related gossip. 

I guess I'll get a tee-shirt that says "nothing particular to drag me back to Catch".

REVIEW - Folsom Street Fair

I've never been to Rio for Carnival, and only seen the New Orleans version on HBO's excellent Treme series. With that disclaimer, I can say that Folsom Street Fair, here in San Francisco is one of the most eye-popping spectacles on the calendar.
Targeted at the leather-wearers among you, it attracts guys and gals, hunks and grrrls, bears and cubs, fetishists and freaks from far and wide.

Despite the yuppie lofts that have appeared on and around Folsom Street over the past 10 years, the area is still gritty. Realtors might describe it as bohemian ("boho"), but that's putting a typically over-bright label on a neighborhood full of bars, night clubs, workshops, automobile fixer-uppers and smut-peddlers.

The Fair supercharges Folsom and the connecting streets with hundreds of stalls, music stages and side-shows for the weekend.

I don't have the body for tank tops and leather shorts (maybe I never did), but the photographer and voyeur in me is thankful that many people do. So, along with my trusty cub buddy - Reggie - I gawped the length of Folsom Street on an overcast Sunday, trying not to peer into every mini tent (afraid of what I might see), glugged beer and margherita, and generally had a whale of a time.

REVIEW - The Moss Room

It's stylish, good-looking, in an interesting location, but the lousy service lost this place its Rave rating for me. 

Our weekend guest and I arrived at The Moss Room at 1.15pm Saturday, sat down and chatted with our lunch partner for one hour fifteen minutes before we got our first course - pate and a couple of salads. Not exactly demanding or time-consuming for the kitchen.

It started badly, when we were there for 20 minutes before anyone came to our table to ask us what we wanted to drink!

After getting and eating our appetizers, our server came to me and said that chef was "not happy" with the Pork Sugo he'd prepared for me, and it would take too long to make it again. Would I care to order something else? I did, and the Fennel Sausage (another trivial dish to prepare) added another 20 minutes' wait for our main courses.

Everything tasted good, but thank heavens for the cocktails and company, because it took a total of 3 and 3/4 hours for our lunch!

RANT - Facebook updates

As one who is thoroughly sick of Facebook and related mania, and therefore more than normally p****d off with the enforced changes this week, I particularly enjoyed this arty rant.

RAVE - Living in San Francisco

Don't you just hate it when someone crows about their new car, new house, new girlfriend, ad nauseum? 

Right. Therefore, I'll try not to bang on about how great it is to live here in SF, where the weather never gets too hot or too cold or too humid; where the violence hasn't reached Baghdad proportions; where there may be transients and beggars, but you know where they mostly hang out and you can have money ready, or avoid them; where (isn't this where I break out into The Lumberjack Song, a la Monty Python?)

As an Englishman I  -  a) always craved a life in the California sun, b) have enjoyed every minute of the 14 years I've spent so far in San Francisco, and c) still check bbc.com before any other site, for news.

So ... I loved today's BBC review of life in SF.

REVIEW - Detective Dee

The full title: Detective Dee and The Mystery of The Phantom Flame, is both too long to use in my review title, and too Harry Potterish to properly categorize the film.

This is an LSD trip of a movie, and not in an altogether good way. It's well made, well shot, and well intentioned. I think. I can't say that it's well acted though, as there are too many unintentionally funny (i.e. silly) sequences, as so often appear in this genre.

The dialog drags on a bit. I'm not saying I only enjoy these pseudo martial arts movies for the action, but this one just had too much pointless talking and not enough action.

Whoever described it as Crouching Tiger Meets Sherlock Holmes got it close in some respects, but inflates Detective Dee way too much.

So, one for the enthusiasts, rather than Joe Public.

RAVE - Red State

A genuinely original storyline: 3 teenage boys lured to a trailer by the offer of sex with an older woman are drugged, then dragged to a local Fundamentalist church led by a crackpot Pastor wanting to punish "wrongdoers" on behalf of God.

Things quickly get out of hand, and this develops into a great horror flick.

James Parks as the crackpot Pastor, and John Goodman as the ATF commander play outstanding characters as church and state battle it out at their most unhinged.

There are some fabulous twists and turns in the story, which is told at a perfect pace throughout.

A really scary movie, and even more so when you realize rural America is riddled with these nutcases.

REVIEW - 54 Mint

It's always tricky when the votes are mixed.

Tonight, Mrs. Page really liked her meal at 54 Mint. I was satisfied, but underwhelmed.

She loved the place. I thought it was way too noisy.

She was OK with our waiter. I thought he was a clumsy dork, constantly knocking into me, or our table, whenever he went past.

So, what coulda shoulda woulda been a RAVE if it was her blog, and a RANT if mine was the only vote, averaged out to a REVIEW between the two of us.

Her Prosciutto di Parma and cheese appetizer was "the best I've ever had", and her Gnocchi with ground beef and port ragu earned similar praises. My Polpette (veal meatballs in a chunky tomato sauce) were not as good as those we had at Piccino earlier in the week, and my Costata di Maiale (pork chop with cannellini beans and sauteed mustard greens) had great texture and color, but lacked punch in the taste department.

Her newly-patented phrase "plenty of ooh, but not enough aaahh" was a well-placed critique on the evening.

There are plenty of better Italian restaurants in the City, so it's unlikely we'll be shouting across the table again at 54 Mint.

RAVE - Contagion

The 'rave' is in recognition of the quality of the movie, not because it's great - it's not particularly exciting, or thrilling; it's not even that suspenseful. 

It's a perfectly made account of the spread of a deadly virus - there's no romance angle, no chase, no explosions, no big star performances, and even the closing sequence - where the source of the virus is revealed - is just a "so what?" moment. 

Strange that with all those negatives, or non-events, the overall product was so good and tight. 

I have to call out Jude Law. While his acting was solid as usual, why oh why pick an Englishman to play an Australian? Heaven knows there are enough Australian actors available - they're usually playing the English roles in every 'historic' movie. He played a pseudo journalist who drew this criticism from Elliot Gould's character: "Blogging is not writing. It's graffiti with punctuation". 

;?";;!!

RAVE - Innuendo Bingo

Facebook is generally a less-than-stellar experience now - full of tired old drivel that should be kept to personal emails, and only slapped on Facebook because people are too lazy to use other forms of baby picture distribution systems. 

There, I've got that off my chest. 

However, occasionally I learn things from my friends' and family's postings. Like BBC Radio 1's Innuendo Bingo podcast.

It's not particularly highbrow, but it IS very funny if you're that way inclined.

RAVE - The Debt

A tightly-wound thriller about 3 Israeli agents who re-live a mission 30 years ago where they captured The Surgeon of Birkenau, a mad Nazi doctor who performed human experiments at the German concentration camp.

The mission was in 1969, and the doctor is now working at a maternity clinic in Germany. The story unwinds in flashback, with the 3 agents hooking up in 1999 and having to recount the events.

The whole thing was marvelous - a great cast, great script, and great action (although I wouldn't say it's an action film). 

The huge constraint put upon the film - and the only real negative in my view - was that none of the three main characters, maybe none of the four, if you count the doctor - looked anything like their former selves from 30 years earlier.

In real life, you can look at a photo of a group of people taken 30 years ago, and pick out the people you know from today. They will have aged of course, their hair will be grey now, their bodies heavier, their skin less perky, but you'll still recognize eyes, or lips, or a jaw. Something. But with Helen Mirren the older Jessica Chastain, Tom Wilkinson the older Sam Worthington, and Cieran Hinds the older Martin Csokas, there was not a shred of likeness. I found myself having to think of something else, rather than how much each of them had changed in the intervening years.

Annoying though that was, we still enjoyed the movie immensely.

RAVE - Drink Psychology

I love these amateurish-but-literate generalizations.

I can just imagine the writer and his or her assistant coming up with the list in their cubicle at the Cosmo or GQ office. This one - "What Your Drink Says About You On A Date" - comes from The Daily Meal today.

Martini: If you're a guy, you're trying to impress (and it's probably working). If you're a girl drinking a dirty martini, you're a hot mess: the dirtier, the messier, the hotter.

Vodka on the Rocks: Too self-conscious to actually order a martini.

White Russian: Obsessed with The Big Lebowski, and probably The Daily Show. Or, you just like to drink dessert.

Bud Light: You're easy going, laid back, and at home at a sports bar. If you're a girl, you know how to hang with the guys.

Stella Artois: You have no particular knowledge or affinity towards beer so you just order "Stella" cause it's familiar.

Lillet/Campari/Aperol: You're twee, and possibly like to throw around words like "mixology."

Vodka Cranberry: When in doubt, you stick to what you drank in college.

White wine: You're definitely a woman. You're possibly a little uptight.

Prosecco: You're often a little uptight, but tonight you're looking to party.

Whiskey, neat: You're hot. Regardless of gender.

Jäger: Secretly wishing you were hanging out with your buddies.

Vodka Gimlet: You're a huge dork, but you hope sort of in a cool way?

Appletini: You've left the kids with a sitter and you're ready to have fun!

Pimm's Cup: You're an Anglophile.

Old-Fashioned: Mad Men is your favorite show — you either want to be, or sleep with, Don Draper.

Margarita, on the rocks: You've decided to have a good time tonight.

Margarita, frozen: You're in Cabo.

PBR: You're drinking quickly on your way to a non-profit fundraiser, followed by a poetry reading in a former industrial warehouse.

Tequila Shots: You're either getting laid, or just getting through it.

Long Island Iced Tea: You have a drinking problem.

A beer, while at a cocktail bar: Overprotective of your manhood or unadventurous.

A cocktail, while at a dive bar: Insufferable.

I'm pretty sure that, at one time or another, I've had all of these except for the Vodka Cranberry. So heaven knows what signals I've been sending out.

REVIEW - River's End

If you haven't heard of this gem of a restaurant, it's because it's perched on the coast at Jenner, north of Bodega Bay, which is itself north of San Francisco - a total of 2 hours' drive.

While the Labor Day weekend, seafood-centric lunch was excellent, it wasn't quite worth that drive. Our oft-visited Redd, in Yountville, Napa IS definitely worth the 1.5 hour drive for lunch, but River's End is not.

The place was built in the 20s, and has a clientele that mostly looks like it was born around the same time.

It has a rustic, park-rangerish feel about it (the restaurant, not the clientele) and today's weather (sun absolutely everywhere, except the 2 miles of coast around River's End) did it no favors at all.

Still, her ladyship enjoyed her day out immensely, and as the great accountant in the sky will tell you, that's all that matters.

REVIEW - Brighton Rock

A claustrophobic remake of a 1940s original, which was based on a classic Graham Greene novel.

"Claustrophobic" because, while set in mid-60s Brighton, on England's south coast, there's very little to show what the life and times were really like. 

One or two scenes of Mods and Rockers tearing up the seaside resort don't hide the fact that this felt like a play rather than a movie.

Maybe the whole point was to tone it down, but it lacked what could and should've been kick-ass musical references, and a ton of other things I'd like to have seen to break the monotony.

It seemed to lurch from scene to scene without building story or tension, featured clunky performances from everyone, including Helen Mirren, Andy Serkis, and John Hurt, and therefore was definitely not "a masterpiece", "thrilling", or "spellbinding" as the poster advertizes.