RAVE - Gravity

Sadly, my votes were uncounted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. If they were, then American Hustle wouldn't have appeared anywhere. Instead, Gravity would have been at the top of the list, equal perhaps with Captain Phillips and Dallas Buyers Club.

Gravity was breathtaking - from start to finish. And that came as somewhat of a surprise because there were only two actors, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney - alright, there were a couple of other voices but they were the only two on screen. They played a medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, and an astronaut in command of his last flight before retiring.

On an otherwise routine spacewalk, disaster struck. The shuttle was destroyed, leaving the two floating in space.

In many respects it was a similar predicament facing Robert Redford in All Is Lost, but Gravity outshone that film in every respect.

RAVE - Captain Phillips

Tom Hanks is an extremely reliable actor. I've pretty much raved everything he's been part of. And Captain Phillips was certainly no exception.

It's based on the real-life hijacking of the US container ship Maersk Alabama by a group of Somali pirates. It highlights the exposure of unarmed cargo ships and their crew that have to traverse the Suez Canal and down the east coast of Africa. But it also shows the pressures on the criminals from extreme poverty on the one hand, and their crime lords on the other.

The film is a real thrill ride, and at the same time rounds out the stories we've heard of this and other hijackings in the area.

RANT - The Butler

You would think the story of a man who was the butler at The White House for 8 Presidents would at least be interesting. How wrong you'd be.

This is dull as ditch water. And it's made duller by that dreariest of actors Forest Whitaker, who shuffles around speaking in a monotone, as he always does. It's not saved by the many actors - Maria Carey, Vanessa Redgrave, Terrance Howard, Cuba Gooding, Robin Williams, John Cusack, Liev Schriber, and Alan Rickman - who play the bit parts of the various presidents and dignitaries.

This was like watching a three hour edition of The View, with all of the interesting bits taken out. I apologize to any of you who don't live in the USA for using that analogy, as you haven't had the dubious pleasure of watching a sofa laden with overweight, middle-aged women blather on about whatever passes their low to no radar.

Needless to say, 1000 lbs of female review team though this film was great. Bah!

RANT - 2 Guns

Who would have thought that a movie starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg would have turned out to be such a dud.

The contrived plot concerns two agents - one from the DEA, the other from Naval Intelligence - with neither knowing the other was undercover, somehow getting involved in a bank robbery, that somehow manages to steal money from an, er, undercover gang.

That contrivance is married to a series of improbable shootouts, ridiculous action, and lame dialog. What a waste.

RAVE - World War Z

My love of Zombie movies basically starts and ends with The Walking Dead. It's certainly not

original - Zombie movies rarely stray far from the basic plot.

World War Z does however. It starts with a rabies-like virus that spreads around the world like wildfire. Our hero, Brad Pitt is sent off by his old bosses in the Army to look into the earliest victims and the potential source of the virus in South Korea. That's the first step in a whirlwind hunt for a vaccine.

What's different in this telling of the familiar Zombie story is that these critters move fast. Rather than lumbering around in a threatening but too slow to be really dangerous fashion, these Zombies are energized by their disease. They swarm like ants along streets, over walls and buildings.

There's one section of the movie that's a bit far-fetched, which considering it's a freaking Zombie movie is saying something. Alright, it's all far-fetched, but one bit - and I can't tell you which bit it is, as that would be revealing a major part of the action - is totally unrealistic. You'll just have to see World War Z and decide for yourself.

It's well worth a visit to your local blockbuster-plex.

REVIEW - Boyz II Men in Vegas

Where do I begin?

First, readers will know I'm not the world's greatest fan of R&B - at least not the kind churned out by the vocalists who litter the charts, and my wife's playlists. They can keep their mostly unmemorable and often manufactured, auto-tuned and repetitive oohs and gasps.

Second - or third if you're counting - I've never liked their proponents. From 70s Motown, through standing around dance floors waiting through an interminable procession of Philly tunes in the vain hope - often unrealized - that something truly danceable from the Clash got played. By which time of course everyone else had sat down for a breather and yours truly was left to Rock The Casbah all on his own.

So, there we were last weekend in sunny Vegas, with two second row seats for a show by a crew I couldn't pick out of a police line up and with a catalog of songs I knew not a note to whistle.

That would all have the makings of a disaster but for Mrs P's excitement and her determination to have a blast. I therefore basked in the glory of that blast, standing up whenever our artistes said "everybody stand up" or clapping my hands whenever they commanded.

Sure enough, I barely recognized one chorus - aside from the medley of Motown hits they covered. The audience was deeply into the show, which must have made me stand out like a vegan at a pork roast.

I couldn't help but think of all the shows I'd been to where I would have killed to be at the front.

All in all though, I was very, very happy that my darling wife had such a good time in my company, even if I do owe the Boyz for most of that.

RAVE - The Iceman

After persuading Mrs. P this was not an overly-violent, "all doom and gloom like your usual picks" type of film, we trundled off to see The Iceman.

Well, once again I lied - about it not being overly-violent. After all, it's the true story of Richard Kuklinski, a mafia hit-man who claimed to have killed over 100 people before he was arrested in 1986.

And not to be found lying just the once - I also fibbed about it not being all doom and gloom. It was necessarily bleak, not at all happy-go-lucky.

Having said that, it was a good, strong movie, with great characters and acting to go with those characters.

It starred the excellently cold Michael "Dexter" Shannon as The Iceman, so called because of his habit of freezing his victims so that when they were found, police could not calculate their time of death. He learned the cold storage practice from his partner Chris "Captain America" Evans, who played Mr. Freezy, a name he got from his less lucrative side business of running an ice cream van.

Also the ever-dismal Ray Liotta - the mafioso who hired The Iceman, Wynona Rider as Kuklinski's wife, who managed to stay unaware of her husband's murderous proclivities until the day of his arrest.

David (I don't need to put "Friends" in here do I?) Schwimmer, James Franco and Stephen Dorff rounded out the excellent cast.

It's not a wham bam action flick, but real life - even mafia life - is seldom like that.

REVIEW - Amber India

I guess I could've written this review without actually eating at Amber India, such is my aversion to the smells and tastes that go with every Indian restaurant I've ever eaten at.

But, thanks to my devotion to my gorgeous Indian (English, but from Indian parents who immigrated to England before either of us were born) wife, I took one for the team and went with her to what turned out to be a somewhat elegant and pleasing restaurant.

With that good news out of the way, I didn't care that much for the food. My Aloo Peas Samosa was good enough, but the flavors didn't really jump out. The Tandoori Sampler - Baluchi chicken, Achari Jheenga, and Lamb Seekh Kebab - was altogether too dry, and I managed to down it all mostly out of politeness.

Her Royal Highness' selections were better: Palak Chaat - flash fried Bloomsdale Baby Spinach, Yogurt, Tamarind Relish, and Cranberry was delightful, and not at all spicy. Which is more than I can say for her Butter Chicken - Amber's signature shredded chicken, with tomato sauce (and, er, tons of butter in that sauce no doubt).

All in all, I was happy to do a good deed by going there but, unlike my wife, I won't be hurrying back. That's in no way a poor reflection of Amber India, but more of my personal, ingrained biases.

REVIEW - 42

The true story of Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player recruited to play in the major leagues, by Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey.

Robinson is played by Chadwick Boseman, a name you're unlikely to have heard of before unless you're an astute watcher of such TV programs as Fringe, Justified, Castle, Cold Case and bunch more of the same ilk. I must admit to rarely, if ever watching them. Whatever, he played the role without too much apparent verve, something I thought was lacking throughout the movie.

Rickey was played with much more charisma by Harrison Ford, who looked and sounded every bit the gnarly, old man that owned the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In 1946, Jackie Robinson played in the Negro League, before becoming part of Rickey's bold idea to start bringing in the more exciting African American players. Until that time, Major League baseball had been a whites only sport, and that factor barely hid the rampant racism that pervaded the sport - players, managers, and fans alike.

Robinson's entry into the Major Leagues was fraught with challenges for him, his family and his team.

Harrison Ford aside, the movie struck me as a bit too straightforward - not to belittle for one minute the pressures on the player and owner for undertaking this move. But I'm sorry to say the film just wasn't exciting enough.

It was interesting though to see in detail the way the game was played back then - no helmets, no batting gloves. And the way the teams motored around - particularly those in the Negro League - in beaten up old buses - to beaten up, dusty playing fields.

I was thinking about my great friend Bill - the world's biggest baseball fan - throughout this film, wondering what he'd think of it all.

RANT - Terracotta "Army" at Asian Art Museum

We finally got around to seeing the Chinese Terracotta warriors at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, just a few days before the exhibit closes.

However, rather than marveling at their alleged beauty and majesty. we were left thoroughly disappointed by what turned out to be a lackluster handful of concrete replicas and long lines of shuffling onlookers.

According to the Museum's web page, the first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shihuang - who lived from 259-210 BCE - conquered much in this life, but his driving purpose was even greater: He sought to conquer death. In order to achieve immortality, he built himself a tomb—a vast underground city guarded by a life-size terracotta army including warriors, infantrymen, horses, chariots and all their attendant armor and weaponry.

That was no doubt the case, but what was on display was certainly not worth all the fuss. Yes, there were half a dozen of the life-sized figures, but it was hard to get a sense of what the actual tomb full of hundreds of warriors was like from the randomly positioned examples on display in the museum - for that we had to rely on the image projected on the wall.

So it turned out to be a quick 15-minute forced march around the exhibit room, and then another 30 minutes wandering around the same old examples of Indian mostly religious icons and we went off seeking lunch. So much for history eh?

RAVE - Luis Suarez

I finally got my pair of Luis Suarez tee-shirts, which I managed to order days before - as if to spite me - he bit the arm of opposing Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic during Liverpool's 2-2 draw a couple of weeks ago.

Whether the shirts are now collector's items, desperately sought by Suarez and Liverpool fans the world over,  proud and defiant statements of support for the much-maligned superstar, or he, and the shirts will move on and fade from the limelight remains to be seen.

If you would like to order your own Luis Suarez shirts, they can be found at luissuarezshop.co.uk/shop

For my part, I will hope for his rehabilitation and return to the Liverpool team from his subsequent 10 game ban, while at the same time recognizing the jinx my tee-shirt purchase put on the player. 

Consequently, I will therefore be buying some Manchester United tee-shirts in the hope that it has the same effect on that team.

RAVE - Blackstreet, at Yoshi's

Today I'm proudly sporting my new Best Husband In The World tee-shirt.

The reason I was presented with this future heirloom - or is it all in my imagination - was because I got tickets to see Blackstreet at Yoshi's here in San Francisco.

Now, the last time I sat close to five guys dressed all in white I - well, I've never sat close to five guys dressed like that. But their dress sense was irrelevant to Pavey and Simi, who jumped to their feet the moment their R&B heroes took the stage, and never stopped dancing until the final "Where my ladies at?" rang out.

The group was big in the 90s, and apparently made life-long fans out of my wife and her cousin, although the group's performance last night left us boys unmoved, and mostly with arms folded.

Fortunately, I'd at least heard of some of their songs, like No Diggity, but I was too busy listening to Pulp or Morrissey while Teddy Riley and Dave Hollister were doing their Blackstreet thing back in the day.

RAVE - Blackwood

It's true what's said about San Francisco night-lifers - you're either a Marina person, or a Mission person. 

 

We're the latter, so we rarely venture into the Marina district: it's the other side of the city, almost always cooler and damper than The Mission, and full of, well, Marina people.

 

Despite that, we had a fun night of dinner at Blackwood, with drinks at a nearby bar - I forget the name.

 

It's strange that a Thai fusion place should prepare arguably the best bacon we've had in years, but it does.

 

Three of us shared Millionaire's Bacon, with grilled organic asparagus and homemade smoky Maple syrup sauce. All four shared the Samosas: yellow curry puffs stuffed with creamy red potato, caramelized onion, and carrot served with cucumber avocado salad. I started with Marina Strips: grilled Wagyu strips wrapped around baby hearts of palm, with a spicy lime beetroot sauce that I mostly left on the plate. Amo had the Marina Tower: tuna ceviche. roasted rice, kaffir lime, lemongrass, mango, and avocado with crispy chips.

 

For our main course, we had East Feeds West: crispy pork shank slow cooked in Asian five spices, Indian vanilla stick, served with broccolini, Thai vinaigrette, and coconut sticky rice. The ladies had Green Curry, with chicken and rice.

 

All in all it was a great meal at a comfortable, modern restaurant that distance, weather, and social bias will mean we rarely visit.

REVIEW - Graceland

A chauffeur is ambushed while picking up his boss's daughter and his own daughter from school. The intended target of the kidnapping was the other man's daughter. However, the kidnappers get mixed up, taking the chauffeur's daughter instead.

What follows is a mildly interesting, but poorly-made, low-budget film that is not helped by being set in a seedy part of The Philippines, with subtitles for us non-Filipino speakers.

The story isn't bad. It's just not directed, shot, or acted very well. 

Shame. But that's what iTunes, an iPad, and a dull flight to St. Louis gets you.

REVIEW - The Promised Land

Representatives of Global Crosspower Solutions, played by Matt Damon and Frances McDormand, breeze into small towns in the US Mid-West offering to buy land from local farmers.

They're looking for land atop natural gas deposits, for which their company intends drilling through shale, a process we all know as fracking.

Most of their targets are farmers who are poor and beleaguered, who view the power company purchases as their only way out. But there are also opponents to fracking, who campaign against the planned purchases.

I must say I've had more excitement out of back to back episodes of The Waltons. This movie is tired, predictable, and we've seen all of it before. 

The topic of fracking, albeit current, is just one example of putting lipstick on a pig.

RANT - Errors of The Human Body

Although it sounds like a useful title for my autobiography, this film deals with the potential risks of gene manipulation.

Set in a laboratory in Dresden, a new researcher joins a team of scientists looking for the next big thing in medicine - specifically ways of testing how mice infected with a disease respond to treatment. The fact that the new researcher's baby son died some time earlier with a similar disease fuels the team's interest in finding a cure.

Somewhat similar to the recent Antiviral in its starkness, this is also a thoroughly miserable film, as are many sci-fi horror/thrillers.

The heart-stoppingest moment for me however was when I saw Rik Mayall - he of the seminal early 80s British TV comedies The Young Ones, Bottom, and a regular character in Blackadder. Boy, has he aged. And he's fat. And grey. Receding. He plays the professor running the laboratory.

"Errors" did have some kind of plot, although not interesting enough to rescue it from being duller than a tub-full of plankton.

RAVE - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This movie was a real find. Not that it was hidden anywhere, but you'll have to look for it at smaller theaters rather than your local blockbuster-wielding multiplexes - which will all be playing Iron Man 3, so they're worth avoiding like the plague anyhow.

This is about a Pakistani guy who graduates from an ivy-league university and joins a prestigious Wall Street firm that values, then winds down companies on behalf of its hedge fund investors.

After focusing for a couple of years on the fundamentals that make their corporate valuations tick, and then experiencing first hand how the US authorities treated "suspicious" foreigners after 9/11, he returns home to his sister's wedding in Pakistan.

There he becomes embroiled in fundamentalist circles of another kind, and a tense and rewarding story ensues.

It doesn't do anything stupid, like painting terrorists as persecuted individuals just looking looking to protect their rights, but nevertheless it does cover a well-trodden path from a different perspective than most films on similar subjects.

REVIEW - St Vincent

A good example of a restaurant in the Mission district: dark walls, interesting lighting and artifacts, and packed on a Tuesday night.

The food was good, while not being spectacular.

We had the Kale and Green Oak lettuce, with peanuts, sardines 'n stuff - crispy and tasty, but perhaps a little bit too much greenery.

Vinegar braised Pork, mop sauce, potato chips, mustard and radish trimmings - this was excellent, and I could have done with seconds.

Salinas Asparagus, steak tartare, green garlic, cress and alyssum. This was good, but the miniscule serving of steak tartare meant that Mrs Page ordered another dish in addition the moment she saw it. That dish was: Chicken liver mousse, mustard, and lovely, lovely bread.

St Vincent's main claim to fame is their sommelier - David Lynch, late of Quince - and his wine selection. At least 100 of their wines are available for under $100 a bottle, and also can be had by the half bottle. This feature seemed to be going down well with last night's diners, as there were open bottles strewn near every table.

REVIEW - Erased

Demoted and drummed out of his job as a CIA black ops guy (haven't we heard this before? See Numbers Station), Aaron Eckhart gets a job in Belgium (see, I said he was demoted) for a security firm.

The trouble is, that security firm is a front for something or other, and one day Eckhart shows up for work to find out the company has not only closed down his office, but has erased all record of him, or any other employee working there.

Now that kind of retirement is one that many of us long for, but in this case it turns nasty, when all of his ex co-workers are killed.

So starts a story that has been done a million times better by one Jason Bourne, and maybe a hundred times better by Liam Neeson and a few others.

Eckhart has his moves, and plays them well enough, but one just watches and waits as he gets roughed up, then roughs up someone else, then there's a car crash, then an explosion, and so on until the scheming business mogul is permanently silenced, and everything's back to normal in sleepy Belgium.

RANT - Oblivion

What should have been an ordinary REVIEW was pushed down to a RANT by the presence of the annoying Tom Cruise, who manages to turn everything into a wooden exercise in non-acting.

To be fair, he doesn't single-handedly ruin the movie; he's helped in that department by a lackluster plot - one with twists and turns that:

a) were more like slight curves rather than out and out twists and 

b) with an ending that was telegraphed in the trailer. 

Cruise exclaims "we've been tricked" or something to that effect, and any fool could see their mission to extract earth's natural resources - as much water as they could suck into various space tankers - before hightailing it to the human colony on Titan, is all a deceit.

The other problem is that their time is spent - just the two of them (Tom and some babe in a space uniform) - marking time in a lonely, sterile existence. 

One that I keenly felt watching this dull film. 

REVIEW - Antiviral

A slow, ugly but great-looking film about a clinic that deals in viral infections from famous stars and celebrities which are then sold to their fans.

The notion is ugly enough, and the way the film shows in excruciating detail the extraction and transfer of the much-prized viruses, and the effects on the central character - who works at the clinic and injects himself in order to harvest and sell some of those viruses on the black market - makes it uglier still.

Directed by Brandon, son of David Cronenberg, who directed such vivid horror classics as Scanners, Videodrome, and The Fly, Antiviral has that Cronenberg air, that sense that something's off, or something horrible's always about to happen.

While being low budget, it still manages to look classy, in a mostly white, antiseptic way that gives that underlying horror a stark, vivid feel.

But its lethargic pace stops Antiviral from truly breaking out.

REVIEW - The Numbers Station

Not quite the thriller it tries to be, mostly because it all takes place in and around a secret underground bunker. These bunkers have existed since the cold war, and still operate as a means of distributing coded messages to the shady agents of equally shady government departments around the world.

This particular bunker is in South-East England, where John Cusack and Malin Akerman show up every day for their shift - Cusack as an ex black ops guy now relegated to protecting the numbers station and its operator, Akerman. 

Their humdrum working lives are disrupted one day when their bunker is attacked by operatives looking to send orders to US agents directing them to assassinate key executives within their own organization. Sounds exciting? Well, it isn't really.

I wanted to like it more, but perhaps it needed a bigger screen - rather than my iPad - and a seat more comfortable than my Delta flight could provide. Whatever, it was still way better than watching reruns of reruns of Friends, or first runs that feel as tired as reruns of How I Met Your Mother.

RAVE - Beware of Mr Baker

First of all - a Warning. I am a huge fan of Ginger Baker, former drummer with Cream, Blind Faith, Baker Gurvitz Army, Ginger Baker's Air Force, and a number of other bands that bravely allowed him in, until they couldn't stand him any longer.

Therefore, this film will either be for you a wonderful story of the world's best rock drummer - if you're like me - or the tale of a walking disaster area, who proved to be impossible for most people to work with.

The film revolves around interviews conducted by Rolling Stone journalist Jay Bulger with the sour, spiteful, emotionally and physically scarred, once ginger but now grey-haired greatest living percussionist in his current home in South Africa. Baker lives there with his fourth wife, and his string of 30 polo horses. The scars come mostly from his decades long addiction, to heroin and a variety of other drugs, but one can't help feeling the basic curmudgeonly ingredients must have been there in the first place.

The effects from working with him were described in a 2009 interview with Jack Bruce - Cream's bass player and vocalist: "It's a knife-edge thing between me and Ginger. Nowadays, we're happily co-existing in different continents [Bruce lives in Britain, Baker in South Africa]...although I was thinking of asking him to move. He's still a bit too close".

There's enough electrifying action from Baker to provide heavy relief from his griping about Bruce - who Ginger claims took credit for all the great arrangements he engineered for Cream; about other, "lesser" drummers like Led Zeppelin's John Bonham "Oh, he had good technique, but he wasn't in the same league as me" or Keith Moon "No way was he as good as me!"; and about his various business and musical alliances.

It's hard to escape the fact that Baker is now, and may have been for his entire career, a bitter and essentially unpleasant character. But boy, could he play the drums.

RAVE - Sociale

This is the first time in a few years we've dined at Sociale, and I don't know why we've left it so long.

It's an Italian restaurant that's a world away from the tourist traps of North Beach. It's romantic, stylish, and stylishly comfortable.

After ordering a bottle of Brunello di Montalino, I set about persuading my wife that it was absolutely essential we have a 'proper' Italian dinner of three courses - Cominciare, Continuare, and Concentrare in Sociale-speak. 

We luxuriated in the White Bean Crostino (a wonderful hummus-like paste on crostino, with arugula salad and shaved parmigiano-reggiano), and Duck Meatballs (taste bombs with dried cherry sugo) to start; English Pea Tortelloni (lovely pasta, but I never know why restaurants refer to 'English' pea - is there any other kind?) and Pork Belly Ravioli (with whole grain mustard parmigiano cream, spinach and shallots) to continue; and we both had the Roasted Quail (together with potato, cauliflower, and bacon in a tasty sauce) for our third course. 

My date insists - as I write this rave - the wine didn't open up in the way she wanted, or the price implied that it would. But that's the only negative that remains after a night of sleeping off all that beautiful food.

REVIEW - The Place Beyond The Pines

Not a great film, despite what you may have heard. And I guess that all depends upon what you're expecting.

It's not an out and out thriller. Nor is it an out and out romantic story. 

True, it has elements of both, but for me it was a bit of a mess, spoiled - or made, depending on your view - by the two major jumps in the story, which turned it into three stories. 

Each element is connected by the children of Ryan Gosling, who plays a motorcycle stunt rider traveling around with a circus; Eva Mendes, a struggling single mother; and Bradley Cooper, a rookie cop who halts Gosling's side career as a Bank robber. Ray Liotta shows up to do his usual 'bad cop' routine, a role that he must be as tired of performing as I am of watching.

The abruptness by which that story jumps from Gosling, to Cooper, and then by fifteen years to their children meeting via weed, ecstasy and OxyContin to an "every son follows his destiny" type of ending broke the whole thing up a little too much for me, especially when each time I felt the story was just getting into its stride.

My wife didn't like the story jumps either, but for a completely different reason. She said she only really enjoyed the first third - basically any scene that featured Ryan Gosling. 

I doubt she'll be taking over from Roger Ebert as the nation's premier film critic now that he has sadly passed.

RANT - Idiotic Advertisements

Is advertising getting more stupid as each year passes, or am I becoming the grumpy old man I've been threatening to turn into?

It's probably a bit of both, and while getting older and grumpier is natural, there's no excuse for some of the stupidest ads we get on TV.

Short-listed for my award for the brain-deadliest ads of this month are:

1. WaxVac ear wax vacuum device

You've got to applaud their doctor spokesperson, who manages to say these paid-for words without laughing: "Don't use a cotton swab in your ears because it could cause significant damage". And the way their actors scream in pain as they accidentally plunge cotton swabs in their ears and presumably pierce their brains. About as likely as killing yourself through sloppy use of a toothbrush, or lopping off your leg through overly vigorous use of your toenail clipper.

2. Accutech Nano blood sugar test meter

I had planned an entire diatribe on this stupid ad, but have opted for brevity and plagiarism: 
"The Accutech Nano commercial makes having diabetes look cool" tweeted one jokester. 
That a device that checks how close you are to death or organ failure needs a BLOODY JINGLE
beggars belief.

3. Car insurance

It's statistically and commercially impossible for every auto insurance advertiser to be able to undercut their competitors, and yet, that's exactly what they tell us .... Save 15% by switching to us, save $650 or more by switching from your current insurer, ad nauseum.

4. "New" car ads

... that claim this year's model is "all new" when clearly it would be impossible, illogical, and economically suicidal for an automaker to change absolutely every nut, bolt, rivet, and body panel on their "new" car. Right? Yet they all lie the same.

5. Beds

I don't know if it's an annoying feature of our local radio stations and how they're so reliant on the few companies that do use radio advertising, but I guarantee every time I turn on the radio in my car, at least one - sometimes two - of the pre-set stations will be playing a Mancini's Sleep World ad. "Don't listen to those stations" I hear you say. Well, I could go on about the lame selection of indie-rock stations we have among the mix of dried up hippie rubbish, tired old re-tread rawk stations, and heard-it-all-before RnB but that would be blending my rants into coronary territory.

RAVE - Serpentine (again)

I shouldn't let this umpteenth visit to Serpentine to pass without mentioning that it has now become our go to cocktail and bar meal venue of choice. 

Whether it's the fifteen minute walk down the hill to Third Street - with the less pleasant walk back - or the lazy drive down that same slope, each visit is met with the same very agreeable result: grab the couple of remaining stools at the bar, relish in a Monice's Shrine for the lady and a Perfect Rye Manhattan or Whiskey Smash for me, and decide what to eat.

Our favorite dishes include the Marinated Gaeta and Castelvetrano Olives, and the Spiced Lupini Beans to nibble at, the Serpentine Meat Board (duck prosciutto, speck, rosette de lyon, wild boar salami, duck liver mousse, cornichons and caper berries with pineapple and pear mostarda and grilled levain toasts) to gnaw at, or a selection of the day's Cheese (detroit street brick, mount townsend cirrus, and kinderhook creek, with kumquat marmalade and cranberry walnut bread) to munch on. Not forgetting to leave space for Pan Seared Petaluma Chicken Livers (with fenugreek spice, thai bird chili, and cilantro with mizuna and hears of palm salad), and I could go on - and on.

On this last visit, her ladyship had the House Made Potato Gnocchi with Wild Mushrooms (with leeks, baby rapini, grana padano cheese, oregano, creme fraiche, and bread crumbs in mushroom stock), while I revelled in the delightful Fava Bean & Ricotta Agnolotti (with smoked ham hocks, fava beans, rana padano, ham hock broth, and micro licorice greens).

We always leave marvelously satisfied and in great spirits, whatever method of transport takes us home.

RAVE - Dobbs Ferry

This new-ish restaurant - at least it is to us - epitomizes comfort food; the place itself is comfortable, even the neighborhood is comfortable. 

Sometimes when I hear a restaurant described as serving "comfort food", I think it's a term that's often used in a somewhat denigrating way, almost as though the reviewer is saying "well, they don't serve top of the line food here, but at least it's pleasant, even comforting."

Dobbs Ferry serves food that is, yes, comfortable, but top notch too.

The dishes were pitched squarely in the middle of the road, cuisine-wise rather than at the haute end, but were nevertheless tasty and perfectly-prepared.

Olives, pate, ravioli, rigatoni, lamb loin, lamb shank - the four of us were treated to wonderful food and outstanding service.

I'd had a couple of Manhattans by the time the appetizers arrived, so I may be a little fulsome in my praise for Dobbs Ferry - at least Mrs Page thinks so, as she believes it was just an OK place.

REVIEW - Olympus Has Fallen

Strange that in all the tiresome, repetitive TV advertising for this movie they never once mention that it "stars" the even more tiresome and repetitive Gerard Butler.

I guess it was my own fault - doing no research before buying our tickets - but when the opening scenes featured McButler's cheesy grin I groaned.

At least we didn't have to dwell too long on that grin. The film wasted no time at all before plunging into the action: a heavily tricked out aircraft piloted by two North Korean terrorists manage to fly within a few minutes of the White House before being noticed by anyone. Thus starts two hours of mostly implausible activity which do little more than paint the president's home as a marshmallow-soft target and the various arms of the US military as toothless, inept buffoons.

All except for our sporren-wielding hero, who single-handedly manages to avoid the barrage of bullets from a small army of terrorists that appear from every truck in DC, makes his way into the now enemy-controlled White House, and rescues the occupants all while achieving that most important objective: putting a bit of much-needed pep back into his marriage.

With all the current talk of North Korean military posturing, this film is at least somewhat relevant, although its message is unnecessarily full of patriotic BS.

And doesn't anyone see the irony in the film's tagline: "When our flag falls, our nation will rise" - when the lead role, the one person who does "rise to the occasion" is a bloody Scotsman?

RAVE - Epic Roasthouse

Epic has all the ingredients for a great night out: an ideal position with a view of the Bay Bridge light show, valet parking, great bar and superb food.

Shame about the two blondes on the front desk, who couldn't organize a party in a brewery. But once past them, we were indundated with service - not all of it effective mind you, but they made up for it in numbers. We counted 9 people who served us!

Jan Beerbaum - owner and all around crusty host and head chef - got us off to a great start by helping us with our meat plate appetizer - pork rillettes, duck proscuitto, country pate, and so on, and then our lobster and artichoke salad and endive, treviso, apple, and walnut vinaigrette salad. Too much salad? Nah, it was just right.

I don't think we've been here for four or five years, when last time our friend Bill declared Epic as having the most expensive burger - $50, and not worth it - he'd ever had.

RAVE - The Sweeney

Rhyming Slang for The Flying Squad, The Sweeney (Todd) is at least the third movie remake of the classic 70s and 80s British TV series of the same name.

Starring the perennial hard-case Ray Winstone as the gravelly voiced Inspector Jack Reagen - a role performed by the comparatively erudite John Thaw (who more recently played the even more polished Inspector Morse) - this was a particularly brutish portrayal of London's Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police.

With the team pursuing an equally brutish gang of diamond thieves, and Reagan having an affair with the wife of one of his superiors, the action is intense and nonstop. The old style squad features Ben Drew - UK rapper Plan B (according to Mrs Page) - as Reagan's second-in-command George Carter. 

It's all good, old-fashioned police work that reminds the viewer of all the stuff that happens in our city's underbellies that we'd rather not know too much about.

I'm not sure if it's a prerequisite that all members of the real-life Sweeney are hard-boiled cockneys, but I hope I never learn first-hand the phrase "Oi, on your face you ****ing slag, now!"

RAVE - Barbacco

Another place that I've eaten at a number of times, and one that on this occasion got the thumbs up from my co-worker and me.

We had lunch - perhaps the best way to enjoy Perbacco - and the food was just the ticket.

The lasagne bolognese met with grunts of approval from Alan, while my Rigatoni - dusted with herbs and filled with something meaty - was similarly grunt-worthy.

Complemented by Apple Polenta Cake, marmalade and creme fraiche - something I normally eschew at lunch-time but which I heartily recommend to non-eschewers - lunch was a tasty indulgence for both of us. 

And we discussed work projects while we ate, so it wasn't a complete goof-off.

REVIEW - MY China

This was our second visit to Martin Yang's showy restaurant inside the Westfield Mall, and it yet again annoyingly delighted and underwhelmed us at the same time.

Our last meal there was around the New Year, after which I bemoaned the mall setting, the diner / shoppers and their shopping detritus, all of which subtracted from an otherwise great meal.

To counter that criticism, my brother Lawrence declared it "the best Chinese meal I've ever had", while at the same time dissing the bathrooms that were shared between men and women. I can't disagree with his assessment of the food - after all, perception is reality - but I wonder about whether he actually went into the right bathroom.

Well, none of that's changed. Last night we started at around 8pm surrounded by the same subtractions.

We ate at the excellent bar with the uncomfortable seats - at least I found them so, with no back support making the couple of hours hard for my ancient back.

We had dim sum, and selected the first 5 dishes on the menu:

Shui Mai - pork, shrimp and wild seasonal mushroom

Whole Wheat Potstickers - pork, cabbage, spicy soy sauce
Har Gow - shrimp, spicy soy

Wild Boar Juciy Dumplings - ginger, garlic

Pork & Crab Juicy Dumplings - fresh crab meat, garlic, pork

They were all made well - perhaps an understatement. They were all made very well. All firm, with a pleasing texture. 

The fact that they were all served up together made it somewhat of a challenge of steady-stream eating, but one that we managed admirably.

With one or two standouts - the Shui Mai and the Har Gow - the others tended to taste too similar. Maybe it was our fault for ordering five adjacent items from the menu, but I think not.

RAVE - La Siccia

A charming, somewhat traditional rather than trendy Italian restaurant that looks much better when you get inside.

As always is the case with Mikki and Jonny, the conversation eclipsed the meal.

I can only remember a couple of the several dishes we shared between the four of us - the proscuitto and the semolina gnocetti with pork and pecorino cheese - the latter of which was sensational.

I found the Pork Loin with olive tapenade a little heavy on the olive - curious for me seeing as I normally crave everything olive, but Jonny wolfed his down without a frown.

An exquisite Sardinian Pinot Noir "on steroids", recommended by our excellent waiter, was a delight.

RAVE - Chocolate Lab

This little place is unusual - in a good way.

It was opened by chocolatier extraodinaire Michael Recchuiti as an extension to his main business of manufacturing and selling elegant and inventive chocolate products.

I should first say that Michael is a friend of ours, so it's a shameful oversight on our part that it's taken us so long to dine here, rather than just buy chocolates at Little Nib, his tiny retail store a few doors away from Chocolate Lab.

We were first of all surprised at how busy it was. Admittedly, it's quite small, with seating for around around twenty people looking not just to silence their chocolate demons, but experience the savory items on offer.

While more than just a cafe, the menu is brief and full of tasty dishes.

We had two of that day's specials - a gorgeous lamb casserole for Mrs. P, and a less-than stellar chicken pie for me. Both dishes - maybe everything on the menu - seemed to be heated up for us rather prepared on the spot. Nevertheless, they were very good.

Naturally, when it came for dessert, we were spoiled for choice.

REVIEW - Emperor

As WWII in the Pacific came to an end - post-Hiroshima and post-Nagasaki - General Douglas MacArthur, played by Tommy Lee Jones, is placed in charge of rebuilding Japan. 

In a country devastated by heavy bombing, he gives General Fellers, played by Matthew Fox, the job of determining whether Japanese ruler Emperor Hirohito should be given the death sentence for his part in taking Japan to war.

The fact that this was making Fellers a potential scapegoat for a decision that was either going to be unpopular with the Americans back home, or even more unpopular with the Japanese - because they considered Hirohito to be a God - was not lost on Fellers.

Alongside this main, true to the facts story, Fellers was also looking for a Japanese woman he had fallen in love with when he lived in Japan prior to the war.

This was a well-made, involving film, that wasn't quite the thriller the trailers would have one believe. Nevertheless, if you enjoy your history told big, you'll enjoy this film.

RAVE - Le Garage

Seafarers eat well. Or at least that would be the verdict if you considered the eateries that surround the marinas at Sausalito. I know it's not likely to produce an exact cross section of the seafaring community, what with the dollar-laden and be-jeweled residents and visitors to that particular enclave of mostly fairweather mariners.

But not to put it down, we were there for lunch after our seaplane ride on Sunday, and rather than go to  our usual hangout at Fish, we stopped at the next marina and ate at Le Garage, a cute half-open air, half indoor hangout that serves cafe fare with a French flair.

That meant Duck Confit for milady, with kumquat jus served, rosemary garlic and roasted potato, and pour moi les Oeufs a la Coque -  Soft-boiled eggs and black truffle butter mouillettes served with La Quercia prosciutto, roasted potatoes and chanterelle mushrooms.

The glass of chilled Chardonnay was icing on the cake. And the sunny day helped tremendously.

RAVE - Seaplane Adventure

One of the benefits of having a birthday, at whatever age, is the chance of a great surprise, whether it takes the form of a meal with your loved one, or - as was true today - it appears seaplane-shaped. 

Pavey organized for us to get a tour of the skies above San Francisco, in a seaplane flown by our pilot Dave, from Seaplane Adventures of Marin.

This wasn't our first flight in a seaplane, but it certainly was the most dramatic. 

We took off from beside a wharf in Marin, to the North of Golden Gate Bridge, flew out over Stinson Beach and South into the bay. 

We flew right over the Golden Gate, then around Alcatraz and in over the Palace of Fine Arts and the northern end of GG Park. Then we had a fabulous view of the City - the sky was perfectly clear and blue - buzzed our house on Potrero Hill and then back up to Marin.

It was - despite the previous night's special dinner - the high spot of the birthday weekend - in more ways than one. 

Sheesh. That line's right out of a travelog.

 

Despite the flowery language, this trip was a real treat, and one that I can thoroughly recommend.

"Thank you, thank you" to my lovely wife.

RAVE - Campton Place

I thought the point of ordering a Black Car with Uber Taxi was that you got a cool ride to your birthday dinner, and that ride happened to be black. The service was convenient, but the "black" car was a Prius. Not even a tired, old Town Car.

Ah well, Campton Place was definitely not a let-down. Everything about this restaurant - from the luxurious vibe, the sumptuous booths, the Chichuly chandelier (I think it was real Chichuly), the gracious and intelligent staff, and the fact that our waiter first asked if we'd like the white napkins exchanged for black ones (that wouldn't leave white fluff on our black clothes) - spoke to its high standard.

The two and a half hours at the table began with a surprise when our waiter said our great friends George, Cecille and Perry had ordered champagne to get us going. The crafty trio had found out where we were eating and phoned the restaurant with the order. Thank you friends, and well done.

The food - Mrs Page had the Chef's Spice Route Menu, while I had the Market Menu - was exquisite and comprised:

Dungeness Crab "Potli" - Puffed Black Rice, Soybeans, Coconut Curry and Hearts of Palm
Dorade - Malabar Chutney, Buttermild and Shallots
East Indian Duck Bun - Saffron & Game Broth, Sprouted Mung Lentils and Deghi Chili Oil
Slow Cooked Lamb Rack - Panch Poran, Pine Nut Pilaf, Spiced Pineapple Nage and Spinach
Winter Citrus - Meyer Lemon, Chestnut and White Chocolate 

- and -

"Winter Taste" - Sweet Potatoes, Hosui Pear, Serrano Ham, Mustard and Sherry
Main Lobster - Roasted Garlic, Pea Top, Carrot Tagliatelle and Brown Butter
Squab - Spring Garlic, Roasted Meyer Lemon and Arugula
Angus Beef Tenderloin - Root Vegetable Croquette, Rainbow Chard, Celeriac and Bone Marrow
Chocolate Carmelia Mousse, Dark Chocolate Ice Cream and Almond Praline Tuile.

Add in at least three amuses bouches and you're talking serious volumes of good stuff.

Without boring you with the minutae, Her Hotness thought the chef prepared genuine East Indian dishes, but thought the lamb was mis-advertised as "Rack" seeing as it was de-boned and tiny. And her Winter Citrus could have been billed as "Lemon Ice".

My menu was perfect - even the Lobster, which is never an easy choice for me. If I was pushed, I'd say the Beef Tenderloin and Squab could each have done with another minute or two on the old burner, but I was in too good a mood to let it dampen my enthusiasm.

Shame I'll probably have to wait until my next birthday to experience Campton Place again.

REVIEW - Side Effects

Directed by the normally-reliable Steven Soderbergh (Contagion, The Informant, Traffic, Oceans 11, 12 and 13 etc etc) this one seemed as though he was determined to stay in second gear. It felt like a "made for Lifetime TV" movie, rather than a "blockbuster" starring Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

And the audience - which revealed it's true colors when the all-too-predictable husband-stabbing incident was met with gasps and screams of shock and horror - made up of Lifetime TV movie officianados was clearly the target of this Dr. Oz-paced, middle-of-the-road mush.

The story - which could and should have been so much more - concerned a wife who took a series of prescribed medications to fix her professed depression and sleep-walking. When she stabs and kills her husband the ensuing court case pits doctor Jude Law against her former doctor Zeta-Jones, and the drug company with which both were partnered.

Much hand-wringing and ass-covering ensues, all with little suspense, until the dastardly plot is uncovered. Yawn.

At least it proved that:

- Channing Tatum is talent-less

- Rooney Mara is virtually un-recognizable with her eyebrows attached (she appeared eyebrow-less in Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)

- Catherine Zeta-Jones is turning into an ice-maiden

- Jude Law does a good impression of Tim Nice-but-Dim

REVIEW - No

Mrs Page is taking nearly two weeks - she says it's only a week and a bit - to visit her family in the UK. While for most guys this would mean a punishing review of the house to-do list of fixing, painting and refurbishment, for me it presents an opportunity to remind the cats that it still requires a human to keep them fed and watered - even if that means the normally-avoided man of the house - and an even more important opportunity to watch all the TV and movies that are better enjoyed without the woman of the house around (and I don't mean smut).

With that in mind, I went to see a movie that her ladyship would avoid like the plague, because it's a) in Spanish and b) covers political history.

First of all, I felt a real outsider making my way to the front row of a theater packed to the rafters with Chileans. A Chilean speaker was introducing the film, and it was clear everyone else was there, not because their respective other halves were out of town, but because they had a personal stake in Chilean life and politics.

Augusto Pinochet was an army general and dictator of Chile from 1973 until transferring power to a democratically elected president in 1990. This film was a dramatization of creation and delivery of the advertising surrounding the respective campaigns.

It was decided that both sides - those who will vote "Yes" to extending Pinochet's rule, and those who will vote "No" to Pinochet in favor of freedom and a new direction - will be treated to nightly campaign communications created by mainstream advertising companies.

Gael García Bernal plays the left-leaning but otherwise non-political director of the "No" campaign, while his business partner is eventually picked to lead the "Yes" advertising.

There follows some mildly interesting slices of media life and the way the two sides play their angles. For the "Yes" team, that means heavy, officious content, while the "No" team creates advertising content the same way they normally produced their Coca Cola ads - all happy, smiley people and jingle-laden scenes of how happy Chile will be if they vote "No".

At the end of the day - and bearing in mind my level of interest: everyone already knows the "No" vote triumphed and Pinochet was ousted - the movie necessarily (I guess) looked like a bad 80s TV program, and played out with little drama.