RAVE - Flame and Citron

Those of you whom I have dragged in to watch a foreign movie know that I like them. Foreign movies that is. [insert lame old smiley here]

Occasionally, we're rewarded with a gem. The Motorcycle Diaries for instance. Or Gomorrah, and The Baader Meinhof Complex.

For a foreign language to grip you, it often has to be better than its English language equivalent.

I have just seen one of those grippers. Flame and Citron, despite sounding like a pair of Las Vegas strippers, were in fact members of the Danish resistance during WWII. Those were not their real names of course. Flame was the code name for the one with the red hair; Citron was perhaps named so because he always had a sour look on his face.

Their squad was allegedly under British orders to kill key members of the Nazi occupying force and its collaborators.

The script was riveting, and would be in any language. The action was perfectly balanced between smokey-roomed intrigue and suburban Copenhagen shootings, and a real Bonney & Clyde-esque ending.

Doesn't sound very high-brow does it? Nevertheless, it's an excellent movie and if you can bear the sub-titles, it's available on Netflix 'watch now'.

RAVE - The Infidel

If you liked East is East, or Bend It Like Beckham, you'll love The Infidel.

Omid Djalili, a British Iranian comic, plays Mahmud Nasir, a relaxed Muslim living in East London with his family. His wife is "modern", in that she wears western clothes and no veil. His 4 year old daughter giggles and runs around the house with a plastic scimitar shouting "death to all infidels". His son is engaged to a Pakistani girl, whose fire-breathing hate cleric father-in-law demands that he meet with her in-laws-to-be so that he can "bless" the partnership.

Cleaning up his recently-deceased mother's house Mahmud finds his birth certificate that - shock, horror! - shows he is Jewish, and adopted by Muslims when he was a baby.

What follows, as Mahmud juggles his new-found Jewishness with his need to impress his son's future father-in-law is a hoot.

Best line: while Mahmud bounces his dilemma off a fellow min-cab driver, who happens to be Jewish, and explains that despite being raised as a Muslim he was born of Jewish parents, and given the name Solly Shimshillewitz. His confidant replies: "They may as well have called you Jew Jew-Jew-Jew".

RAVE - Grand Cafe

This past week has added to my roster of great French restaurants in San Francisco. The list used to be Chez Spencer, Chez Papa, L'Ardoise, and RN74 (but only for the food).

Thursday I went to Grand Cafe with two good friends up from LA. 

The place has a unique vibe. That doesn't mean it's got a better thing going on than any other French or non-French restaurant in the city, just that I don't know of another place with the 40s Ritz experience ... very high ceilings, chandeliers, black-aproned waiters, Le Monty Plein* as it were.

I had (surprise, surprise) the salad with lardons and a poached egg, followed by Cassoulet (basically, a meat paella). 10/10.

My friends dined equally well, aside from George complaining that his salad was "gritty" (preceded by a kerfuffle over his martini having some foreign additive and followed by his coffee tasting "sandy"). David was his usual suave self, and seemed to enjoy his meal as much as I did, and George secretly did.

All in all, not the ideal place for every group, but for at least 33.3% of our party it was fabulous.

* Le Monty Plein = The Full Monty, for our garlic crunching beret wearing brothers

RANT - Vanish, by Tom Pawlick

What did I do to deserve two (count 'em) consecutive books written by faith-based authors? It's not that I'm anti-faith at all, but it's like Christian Rock bands. They're not bad just because they're Christian, but they come from a smaller gene pool, so naturally the best Christian music is unlikely to be the best music one could possibly find.

So far, I'm batting 0 for 3 (as American baseball pundits would put it), meaning I've read 3 and they all sucked.

Apparently, the saying "the Devil makes all the good music" is true for books too.

This one was lamer than a lame dog trying to walk on glass in stiletto heels.

The book started OK if somewhat formulaic, with various people waking up to find that everyone in Chicago had vanished. As they ventured out and met a few other survivors of what they thought was a mass abduction by aliens, the story got repetitive, and early enough in the book to make me want to jump to the end and get it over with.

I didn't, and now I wish I had. I won't give away the horrible, 16-story high monster with huge teeth and bad breath that was responsible for the disappearance ... nah, it wasn't that, just in case you ignore my advice and actually read this tosh.

Boo!

RANT - By Reason of Insanity, by Randy Singer

Whoever described this author as "just as good as John Grisham", must've been on crack. While this is mostly a courtroom story, that's about the only thing Singer has in common with Grisham.

Complex just for the sake of it, and without adding anything to the story, with a ton of "action" crammed into the last chapter in order to try and make sense of the mess that went before.

Twists of Biblical proportions, literally. And I know some people use that analogy incorrectly, as in "It blew my mind, literally", but I meant what I said. I doubt very much whether real lawyers use examples from the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar when searching for precedents, but that was segued in there with a few other stretches of the legal imagination.

It was only after I read it that I learned Mr Singer is a "faith-based" writer, which must mean his readers need faith to believe his far-fetched story lines.

REVIEW - The Trotsky

Another of a slew of "Festival" movies just released, this one is the official selection of the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

It's like a more intelligent but less funny Napoleon Dynamite. 

Leon Bronstein claims and acts like he's the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky. As is his destiny, he sets about trying to unionize the workers at his father's factory, then after enrolling at West Montreal high school and finding out how plain mean the head teacher and principal are, he campaigns for a student union to be set up.

And it's not one of those student unions that primarily plan events where alcohol is freely available - this one exists to bring down the "fascist' school board and give the students a say in their schooling.

See, I said it was less funny than Napoleon Dynamite, but it's a deep cut above the bilge that is The Joneses, Bounty Hunter, et bloody al.

RAVE - Sex & Drugs & Rock 'n Roll

Before you go rushing off to the authorities to report my confession, while I do enjoy the occasional romantic dinner, sometimes take aspirin for a headache, and really understand what New Kids on the Block mean when they sing Grown Man, here I'm applauding the movie based on Ian Dury's rise to fame as the front man for The Blockheads.

Andy Serkis delivers an outstanding performance, and while any number of actors could have been wired up to play Gollum or King Kong, ONLY Serkis could do Ian Dury. The likeness is uncanny, the voice is perfect, the tragic moves of a polio-stricken punk, I even had to double-check that it was Serkis singing and not miming to the original songs.

Maybe these are the musings of a huge fan, but the film is now available on demand, so trim your sideburns into points, apply some dark makeup around your eyes, fill your mouth full of gravel and sing along.

RAVE - The Wedding Present at The Independent

The Wedding Present were a huge favorite of John Peel's (RIP), and are just behind The Smiths and The Fall in terms of most votes ever in Peelie's Festive Fifty.

I worried about dragging Pavey, Felicia and David to last night's show, mainly because even a massive Wedding Present fan like me will admit that their music is heavy on the repetitive driving guitars and the complex stories which were unlikely to be recognizable over those guitars.

To be fair, it's hard to understand David Gedge's Yorkshire accent even when there's relative silence.

"What did he say?" David asked on a number of occasions. We definitely heard him proclaim Manchester as the "home of the greatest football team in the world - Manchester United" when introducing Granadaland.

Thanks to telling Jonny, The Independent's owner, that he was a wonderful human being, we were in the VIP Gallery, and I don't think my glass of Stoli and Tonic would have reached the stage to describe my view of that filthy lie!

Despite Gedge's questionable taste in football, the show was a blast.

Support from Mister Loveless was better than expected, even to the point of separating David from 5 well-earned American dollars for their CD on sale at the show.

Got to bed at 2am, back up at 6.45am hoping to see Liverpool thump Burnley, but it wasn't televised here. Never mind, I have the rest of today to catch up on sleep, and I think I'll zzzzzzz

REVIEW - Calm down ladies, he's already in a relationship

29-year old Chris Shaw, from somewhere dull near Kansas, which is itself dull, has just won TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS (that's 170 million, in real, English money) in the lottery.

Chris wants to pay some bills, take his 3 kids, his girlfriend and her 2 kids, to Disneyland. And he wants to get his teeth fixed.

He doesn't mention keeping his eye out for some hotter action in the "lonely and under-appreciated American wife" department, but it might be worth stalking him. 

At least hook up with him on Facebook girls, AFTER he buys a computer of course.

Happy hunting.

RAVE #2 - Lafitte

I know I've reviewed, and raved about Lafitte before - just 2 weeks ago in fact. I also know that I talked in detail about the food, something I don't always do, because in many cases the food can be good but pretty similar to what you get at other restaurants.

Anyhow, after that pre-amble, we had another fabulous meal at Lafitte last night, this time with David and Felicia. Now, we could be eating turnips in a field with them and it would still make for a great evening out, so the food was a distinct luxury.

We decided to have every dish on the menu, in order to sample the exquisite and inventive fare:

APPETIZERS

• Delta Asparagus Wrapped in Custom Guanciale.
• Beef Spam and Poached Duck Egg - as a poached egg fan, I can honestly say this was the best egg I ever tasted. Chef Russell is a master of the sous vide, and uses it to slow poach an egg to the consistency of cream. The beef tongue spam looked and tasted like a mini burger built for royalty. Perfect.
• SlipJack Crudo. similar to an ahi tuna, but possibly better textured; the fennel and potato accompaniment worked really well.
• Pickled Fennel and Fingerling Salad. I love fennel, and loved this dish.

MID

• Crispy Lamb Sweetbreads, Sweet Onion Marmalad. Delicious.
• Saute Quail and Braised Teparay Bean. I'd have preferred the Quail as crispy as the Sweetbreads, but that's just me.

ENTREE

• Dry Age New York, Pomme Frite and Béarnaise Sauce. What looks like a same-old same-old dish, in Chef Russell's hands turned into a standout marvel.
• 18 Hour Braised Lamb Shoulder, Saute of Field Chard. Not sure where else you'd be able to enjoy this. Another treat from Lafitte.
• Northern Halibut, Braised Fennel and Citrus Anise Sauce.
• Grilled Calf's Liver, Spring Onions and Green Garlic Cream. A rarely-seen dish on American tables, and an acquired taste for The Yanqui, but I loved it.
• Zitoni Taglaiati with Wild Radish Flowers, Green Garlic and Spicy Watercress.

DESSERT

• Fuji Apple Gallette
• Napoleon of Chocolate
• "New York" Style Chevre Cheese Cake. We were FULL by this time, so elected to have just this one dessert, and we picked a good'un.

2 bottles of Ridge Pagani Zinfandel capped off a perfect meal in perfect company, at what may be the perfect restaurant.

REVIEW - The Soft Pack at Bottom Of The Hill

Having heard "Answer to Yourself" on the radio and not known which band it was, we saw them on Letterman, and then eagerly got tickets to their show.

While I think even Country Bill (yes, that Bill) will admit it's a great song, the trouble is that's their only great song.

Last night's show at the wonderfully handy Bottom Of The Hill, which is just four blocks away at the bottom of our hill, was unfortunately dull. While Matt Lamkin's vocals are crystal clear (or at least they were once the sound guy woke up and did some much needed twiddling), there's not much range there. And have you ever heard a drummer perform as well standing up, as sitting down? No, neither have I.

If they're to be anything but a one hit wonder, they'd better write some new material, with notes that go up and down a bit.

Support from London's (well, Dalston's) Male Bonding was more lively, although they're unlikely to qualify as Indie's most whistle-able band.

REVIEW - 24 hours with my new iPad SLEEVE

Such are the vagaries of supply and demand, or in Apple's case, Demand outstripping Supply, that I received my iPad sleeve today and still have to wait another week or so (allegedly) before my 3G iPad arrives.

But still, in the spirit of all those excitable and excited Mac fanboys and girls, I thought I'd spill the beans on the iPad cover (which, to be honest, is what the protective cover is intended for).

First impressions:

It's light and rubbery. $39 for something you'd get free with any other electrical item costing north of $800. Shabby. And it's not as elegant as the felt-like cover Mrs Page got for me with my Kindle.

It's got a big Apple logo on the front, advertising that you're carrying around $800 of eminently pilferable electronics. Not good. I'm one of those people who, the first day I get a new laptop, lift off the annoying Intel Inside, and Windows stickers. I do the same with new cars: why would I want to drive around advertising the dealer who sold me the car?

The ID holder / thing that holds the cover back on itself for angled viewing, isn't big enough to hold a business card. I guess I'll go to the Maybach store and get a platinum ID card made to measure.

It doesn't do anything apart from cover the iPad. Forget what the Apple site says about the sleeve: "It folds in just the right places to act as a stand that holds the iPad at an ideal angle for watching videos and slide-shows or for typing on the onscreen keyboard". The sleeve does little more than fold in the same way a book does. What an opportunity this is for some enterprising Chinese manufacturer to produce a sleeve with a little adjustable stand attached to the back (like every single photo frame has). Even better if it could have a slim power dock set into the back of the sleeve. This would make the iPad more useable, and save everyone from buying a freaking $29 dock! And if the cover had a slim keyboard option, those Chinese manufacturers would be shoveling the money into their wheelbarrows. Oh, they already are?

I can't wait for the real thing to arrive so that I can test the sleeve fully loaded.

RANT - Capannina

Outside of North Beach, San Francisco's Italian restaurants are under-represented. Or at least that's my impression, because I was hard-pressed to think of a good Italian restaurant elsewhere in the City.

Therefore, after Capannina was highly-recommended by Joe Public on Check Please, Bay Area, we booked a table immediately.

All I can say is that Joe Public doesn't get around much.

It's a small place, and Saturday night it was heaving in there. I don't know if it's normally that noisy, but last night it really got on my nerves.

What I want noise-wise in a restaurant is something compatible with the noise my group is making. That means: if it's just Mrs Page and me, I want the noise level to be compatible with us, enabling us to talk without shouting. If I'm with a group of 6 or 8, I'm happy for the ambient noise to be boisterous, as no doubt my group will be.

With Capannina it was all topsy turvy, with waiters barking in thick Italian accents, and adjacent tables deciding to bellow their opinions so that everyone could here, whether they wanted to or not.

Of course, all of that would have been acceptable if the food was above par, but it wasn't. The signore's choice of Crab Cakes ("much smaller than they looked on the TV program") and Squid Ink Risotto with Mussels, Clams, Crab etc ("dried out and under-flavored") was a little more disappointing than my Papardelle with Wild Boar Ragu (very good) and Veal Scaloppine with Lemon-Caper Sauce, Spinach & Parmesan Risotto (also lacking in the flavor department).

Funnily enough, we did go to North Beach afterward, looking for after-dinner coffee in more salubrious surroundings. But not-so-little Italy let us down by being particularly stingy on the parking opportunities.

"Sapristi Mon Bole" as my schoolfriend Chris James was wont to say. Neither of us knew what it meant, but it summed up last night perfectly.

RANT - TV Coverage of The Masters

Do the networks have to pay extra for showing golfers hitting actual shots?

I'm sick of suits talking about golf when there's real live golf being played!

I'm sick of Tiger "The Adulterer" Woods featuring in every preview, review and more than his fair share of coverage.

I'm sick of the plaudits he's getting, despite the fact that he's a serial abuser of his marriage vows, and consequently a poor excuse for a father.

I'm sick of the re-upping of his sponsorships, starting with the hypocrites at Nike. 

Compared to the TV coverage, the live webcast is way better, with hi-def video, at least 4 views selectable, and even picture-in-picture. And NO advertising!

That way, I don't have to have Tiger Woods rammed down my throat. (Notice how I mostly resisted a double entendre there).

Marvelous.

RAVE - Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area

Michael Bauer's restaurant reviewing is the best job in the best city in the world for this kind of job. I'm not saying San Francisco has the best restaurants in the world, but doing this in New York, London or Paris would be impossible. At least in San Francisco there's a somewhat manageable number of restaurants, and one can have a decent stab at making a Top 100.

All restaurants are in San Francisco, unless otherwise stated.

First, a list of places not in the Top 100 but ought to be:

5&5 Steak Lounge
L'Ardoise
Lafitte
Salt House
Sociale

And now, that Top 100 list, with links to my own humble postings where available:

A16 link to RAVE posting
Acquarello
Ad Hoc (Yountville)
Adesso (Oakland)
Amber India (Mountain View)
Amber India
Amber India (San Jose)
Ame
Aziza
Baker & Banker  RAVE
Bar Bambino  RAVE
Bar Jules
Bay Wolf (Oakland)
Beretta   REVIEW
Betelnut
Bistro Don Giovanni (Napa)  RAVE
Bix  RAVE
Bocadillos
Bottega Napa Valley (Yountville)
Bouchon (Yountville)  RAVE
Boulevard  RANT
Cafe La Haye (Sonoma)
Camino (Oakland)
Canteen
Chapeau
Chez Panisse (Berkeley)
Chez Papa Resto  RAVE
Chow (Danville)
Chow (Lafayette)
Chow
Coco500
Coi  RAVE
Corso Trattorio (Berkeley)
Cyrus (Healdsburg)  RAVE
Delfina  RAVE
Dopo (Oakland)
Dosa on Valencia  REVIEW
Dosa on Fillmore  REVIEW
Etoile (Yountville)
Farmhouse Inn and Restaurant (Forestville)  RAVE
Firefly
Flora (Oakland)
Flour + Water  REVIEW
Foreign Cinema  RAVE
Frances
Frascati
French Laundry (Yountville)
Gary Danko  RANT
Gialani
Greens  RANT
Hog Island Oyster Co.
House of Prime Rib
Incanto  RAVE
Jardiniere  RAVE
Kaygetsu (Menlo Park)
Koi Palace (Daly City)
La Folie  REVIEW
Limon   RANT
Madrona Manor (Healdsburg)
Manresa (Los Gatos)
Masa's
Michael Mina  REVIEW
Murray Circle (Sausalito)
Neela's (Napa)
Nombe
Nopa
Nopalito
O Chame (Berkeley)
One Market RAVE
Osteria Stellina (Point Reyes Station)
Park Chow
Perbacco  REVIEW
Pesce
Picco (Larkspur)
Piperade
Pizzaiola (Oakland)
Pizzeria Picco (Larkspur)
Poggio (Sausalito)
Press (St. Helena)
Quince  RAVE
Range
Redd (Yountville)
Restaurant At Middlewood (St. Helena)
Rivoli (Berkeley)
RN74  REVIEW
Rosso Pizzeria and Wine Bar (Santa Rosa)
Sante (Boyes Hot Springs)
Scopa (Healdsburg)
Slanted Door   RAVE
Solbar (Calistoga)
SPQR   RAVE
Spruce   RAVE
Sushi Ran (Sausalito)
Swan Oyster Depot
Terra (St. Helena)
The Dining Room At The Ritz-Carlton
Tipsy Pig
Town Hall  RANT
Va De Vi (Walnut Creek)
Vik's Chaat Corner (Berkeley)
Wexler's
Willi's Wine Bar (Santa Rosa)
Wood Tavern (Oakland)
Yank Sing  RAVE
Yoshi's
Zarzuela
Zuni Cafe   REVIEW

RAVE - Public House

Despite the name, it's no English Pub.

Nevertheless, Public House is likely to be more popular and more relevant to its location right outside the SF Giants' stadium than its Acme Chop House predecessor.

Classier than Toronado; more accessible (on non game days) than Monks Kettle, but perhaps lacking the atmosphere of either of those places.

A great beer list would be even greater with Newcastle Brown, Theakstons or other REAL English beers, but that's just my palate speaking.

The food was pretty darned good, with the pulled pork sliders excelling.

The eagle-eyed among you will notice the picture is of an empty Acme, with the PH signs still to go up. This place is so new, I could find no pictures online.

Take your camera and enjoy the pub grub.

RAVE - Clash of The Titans

This could have gone either way, what with a cast of mostly "where have I seen them before?" types, plus Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes camping it up like a pair of aging bearded drag queens - and that contradiction kind of sums up the movie.

On the one hand it was sillier than an ancient Greek Monty Python sketch. On the other, it was an exciting adventure with fabulous special effects.

My toes curled every time I saw the trailer with Zeus / Neeson proclaiming "release the Kraken", but thankfully he got that melodramatic command out of the way and the Krah-ken (as Hades / Fiennes gaily pronounced it) was duly released.

Mayhem naturally ensued, in a wonderfully violent swirling of teeth and tentacles. Reviewers who described the monsters as "static" must be thinking of the 1970s original, because each badass encounter, with giant scorpions, bat-like demons, snake-infested Medusa and the [titter] Krah-ken was genuinely gripping. The intervening dialog was a bit dull, but hell (er, Hades), what do you expect?

Having grown up on the originals (the English translations, not the original originals) of Aesop's Fables, The Iliad and The Aenid (or was that a prog rock band from the 80s?) I kind of new the basic stories, and this was mish-mash of some choice cuts.

All in all, a playful romp through a sea of utter hogwash. Immense fun. Honest.

RAVE - Lafitte

Do all great restaurants take this much blood, sweat and tears to get off the ground?

Having been a neighbor of Russel Jackson's for a couple years, we saw the planning, the years, the heavy lifting that went into this fabulous new place, and it reminded us how lucky we are to be on the consuming end of this ride from Dissident Chef, through Subculture Dining to this perfect location on the Embarcadero.

Two rooms - one promenade French bistro, the other a natural wood beamed dining room with a proper open kitchen (not something where you can just see the culinary artistes' heads).

A friendly, not-at-all-haughty-or-pretentious staff, a healthy but not overpoweringly noisy vibe, and that means nothing gets in the way of the food.

Russel is one of the most creative chefs you could wish for. There's no Ahi Tuna, Niman Ranch Rib-eye or Sonoma chicken here. That might've sounded appetizing 10 years ago, but every man and his dog is serving that fare in San Francisco now.

At Lafitte's third opening night yesterday we experienced:

Guanciale with Emergo Bean Puree on Crostini. Guanciale is an unsmoked Italian bacon prepared with pig's cheeks. I could've eaten a lot more than this amuse-sized tasting.

Root Vegetable soup with Wheat Berry salad. With the berries soaked in the broth, this was a standout dish. What amazed me was that without any sensationally weird ingredients, it tasted like no other soup I could remember.

Fried Artichoke with Boqerones Bagna Cauda. Everyone knows how hard it is to render artichoke edible. Frying it was a new one on me, and it worked. The anchovy paste (Bagna Caude) took some getting used to, but it definitely was original.

Cod and Pork Sausage Stew with Carrot Viche and Green Garlic Broth. The sausage exploded with taste.

Roasted Alaskan Halibut with Dandelion Rabe and Mustard Flower Sauce. I didn't taste this, but Pavey said it was another exciting mix of flavors.

Fuji Apple and Almond Cake with Creme Fraiche Ice Cream. At another table in another restaurant this could've tasted ordinary, but at Lafitte it was delicate and different. A great dessert to cap off a great dinner.

I really hope Lafitte proves to be the success Russel deserves.

RAVE - The Large Hadron Collider Explained

RAVE - Sign Jamie Oliver's Petition

When the cheeky chappy first came along he - in my opinion - completely changed the face of cooking. Not only was his attitude and demeanor a refreshing change from the rest of the TV Chefs, but his bish-bosh-bash approach to cooking, and the food he made, definitely changed the way I cook.

We have several of his cook books, and even though they sit between Nigella Lawson in the comfortable corner of the market, Raymond Blanc in the posh French corner, and Heston Blumenthal in the super techno corner, you just have to look at their sauce-spattered pages to see which ones get the most usage in our kitchen.

Our Jamie stood the restaurant world on its end when he took disadvantaged teenagers from British streets, put them through basic training and then narrowed them down to fifteen, the core staff for a new restaurant, also named Fifteen.

A recent venture of his is described at his web site like this: Jamie has made a new series for American TV about food – how families eat, what kids get at school and why, like the UK, the diet of processed food and snacks is causing so many health and obesity problems. The series was filmed in Huntington, West Virginia.

Jamie's challenge was to see if he can get a whole community cooking again. He worked with the school lunch ladies and local families to get everyone back in the kitchen and making tasty meals with fresh ingredients – no packets, no cheating. He's started a Food Revolution: to get people all over America to reconnect with their food and change the way they eat.

When this was featured on The Late Show With David Letterman a few weeks ago,  the host joked that it was unlikely Americans would take to this. However, just last week it was revealed that schools where Jame Oliver's diet was implemented not only saw healthy improvements, but academic test results improved too!

Now, there's a petition to sign at Jamie's web site. You can sign the petition to SAVE COOKING SKILLS AND IMPROVE SCHOOL MEALS here in the USA.

Pork Pie-tastic!

REVIEW - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

I read this at the recommendation of our friends Jen and Sue. They were having dinner with us, talking about the books we were reading, and Jen suggested I read this. I ordered it right there at the dinner table, on my Kindle, and finished it today.

I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a great read. It's an intriguing story, just not written in a particularly exciting way.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor African American living on a small, family tobacco farm in the 50s, when the family started migrating to find work in the steel mills around Baltimore. It was there that she was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer, and during one examination doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital routinely removed tissue samples for analysis.

The practice at the time was not to get the patient's permission to remove a tissue sample. Normal cells last a couple days outside of the body, then die. But Henrietta's cells continued living and multiplying. Very quickly, doctors at Johns Hopkins realized that Henrietta Lack's cells (called HeLa, for medical shorthand), could be used as a consistent and renewable platform for testing drugs, and a multi-million dollar business was born from culturing, storing and selling HeLa cells.

The fact that Henrietta's family never benefited financially from this business is neither unlawful nor unique. So, while it's an interesting slice of medical history, it's hard become animated about the issue.

REVIEW - District 13 - The Ultimatum

I remember trying to convince Amo and Gareth to come see this with me a few weeks ago when it was briefly showing at one tiny theater in San Francisco, mainly because I had enjoyed the first film (the one where there was no "ultimatum").

I loved that first film - although curiously hadn't posted a review here - because it was the first movie to focus on parkour, l'art du déplacement (English: the art of moving).

Parkour basically involves using objects: buildings, vehicles, or other obstacles in ingenious ways to get around.

I'm glad they didn't listen to me, because this sequel has a lame (i.e. no) plot, made lamer by a ridiculous threat by the French president to launch an air assault on District 13 to raze it to the ground, thereby disposing of all the criminals using that part of Paris as its base of operations.

The parkour itself was interesting, albeit somewhat ridiculous - requiring far too many conveniently placed railings, buttresses, poles and assorted detritus to a) enable the vagabonds to dodge les flics and b) help them do it in an exciting and apparently impossible manner.

This second film will probably appeal to those who like martial arts movies. Perhaps un-surprisingly, I'm not one of them.

RAVE - Green Zone

I know I'm in a minority of those (one or two) who thought Hurt Locker sucked liked a turbocharged Dyson.

Green Zone is what Hurt Locker coulda, shoulda been - fast, exciting, intense and insightful.

The film tells us what we already know - "intelligence" that stated Weapons of Mass Destruction were hidden in Iraq was fabricated in order to justify the invasion of Iraq by the US and its allies.

The story imagines how close Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) came to bringing in the alleged source of that faked intelligence, and exposing the invasion for the sham it was.

Aside from the non-stop hand-held camera judder, the film was very watchable; not quite up to Bourne standards, but definitely worth seeing, and definitely definitely better than Hurt Locker.

RAVE - Health Care Reform

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the Public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water authority.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be, using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 

I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institutes of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, State and Federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. 

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop off the kids at the public school.

After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of the State and Local building codes and Fire Marshall's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local Police Department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA) and post on freepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the Government can't do anything right!

Thanks to 'anonymous' for posting this. I couldn't work out how to resize the image to show the posting in its native form, so had to re-type the excellent rant.

REVIEW - Tut Tut, Tutankhamun

First of all, this is a beauty of an exhibit.

There's no denying that the Egyptians knew how to whittle.

But - and this is a big "but" - if you've been looking forward to seeing the King Tut exhibit at the de Young Museum, THERE'S NO KING TUT THERE!

The images you see in all the ads, of a golden masque from his famous coffin, suggest that what you'll see at the de Young is, er, the famous sarcophagous. What you see instead, is a selection of artefacts removed from the burial chamber, and projected images of the coffin.

It's like going to NASA and seeing moon rocks and spacesuits, but only slide shows of rockets and landing craft.

I have to be careful because my lovely cousin-in-law bought me the ticket, and sometimes when she's not shopping or having coffee with her friends she looks at this blog, and I don't want her to think I'm not grateful for the ticket and company. I was and I am.

To be honest, I think the 3 of us felt a little let down by the non-appearance of the coffin.

That curse must be true.

RAVE - 32GB storage, Then and Now

We've all heard about Moore's Law - the notion that certain areas of technology double in power, or halve in cost every 2 years.

We've seen processor speeds, bandwidth and digital camera resolution increase exponentially, or the cost of new technologies like flat screen TV, drop dramatically.

This has certainly happened with computer storage, but like most things it's not until you see it expressed in pictures that you genuinely grasp what's happening.

RAVE - Blending Party at Turnbull Winery

Mrs. Page and I have been members of Turnbull Winery in Oakville, Napa, ever since stopping by there after arriving an hour early for a lunch reservation at Bouchon, in nearby Yountville.

Bouchon was fabulous, by the way.

Today's outing was for a members only blending.  With my lady en route to India for a 10-day visit with her pops, Gareth was my hunky companion for the day.

There were around 50 guests, each of whom was given an apparently inexhaustible supply of 2008 Turnbull Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, plus a ton of pipettes, measuring tubes, glasses and plastic jugs.

We each then tried out varying percentages of the wines, until we were happy with our blends.

The Cabernet Sauvignon boasted red fruits - strawberry and raspberry; the Merlot blackberry and cherry; the Cabernet Franc had a curious black tea aroma, and was definitely the edgiest of the three. Most people therefore led with Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, with just a hint of Cabernet Franc.

There was plenty of time to experiment with a number of blends - I tried at least 5, and ended up with my favorite - 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc. Gareth's favorite was 35% / 50% / 15%.

Everyone then got to bottle their blends, and design a label.

Cue an excellent lunch outside in the shade (it was very sunny today), and a prize-giving for the best labels. Neither of our efforts impressed the judges - I'm certain Gareth won't be offended if I reveal that his label might make a podium finish at a kindergarten art class) - but they will definitely be the talking point of whatever dinner party we serve them at.

I bought a selection of Turnbull's excellent reds and shipped them to Bill and Margaret in Houston - it works best if I send Napa wines to them, rather than them send Texas wines to me - and then we scooted further north to Calistoga, picking up several bottles of Zinfandel from Laura Zahtila's tiny vineyard there. These will add to the fun at next weekend's Zin tasting and pulled-pork BBQ at my good friend Will's in San Jose.

Looks like I'll be swapping marital bliss for booze over the next couple of weeks. If today's blend tastes good enough, maybe I'll not notice.

RANT - The Fourth Kind

Like most of the episodes of the X-Files, and virtually every movie M. Night Shamyalan has delivered, this was a monumental let down.

The trick of blending alleged 'actual footage' and 'actual recordings' made you think, for a while at least, that something was actually happening. When you realize nothing has happened, and nothing is likely to happen, you start thinking about filing this along with The Day The Earth Stood Still and The Happening (possibly the least accurately named film of all time, seeing as absolutely nothing happened).

(Close Encounters of the) Fourth Kind refer to alien abductions, so the complete absence of Aliens, or Abductions somewhat invalidates the entire movie.

The fact that this is set in Nome, one of the bleakest and dullest parts of the USA, goes some way in explaining the movie.

RAVE - Baker and Banker

1701 Octavia Street has had a charmed life.

When we moved to San Francisco 12 years ago, we were wowed by the Elisabeth Daniel restaurant that occupied that address. 

Then came Quince, which we also loved. Quince has moved to a larger space near Jackson Square, making way for Baker and Banker (like Elisabeth Daniel, the restaurant gets its name from the 2 partners).

David and Felicia (another partnership, sadly yet to open a successful restaurant) treated us to dinner there last night, and it was sensational.

I can't remember what everyone had, but the tempura asparagus and pate appetizers I tried to get all to myself, and the Rib-eye was perfection. A couple of glasses of medicinal vino and yours truly was a very happy camper.

Thank you David. Thank you Felicia. 

RAVE - 360 degree view of Paris

Paris 26 Gigapixels is a stitching of 2,346 single photos showing a very high esolution panoramic view of the French capital (354,159 x 75,570 pixels).

It's not just a panoramic view of Paris, but one that allows you to zoom in on any street, building, vehicle or person!

I should shut up and just let you look at it.

REVIEW - RN74

RN74 (Route Nationale 74) will take you and your Bentley through Burgundy, admiring villages like Morey-St-Denis, Nuit St Georges, Pommard, Gevrey-Chambertin and more.

You get tipsy just reading the map!

RN74 the restaurant is Michael Mina's "bargain" at the foot of the Millenium Tower. See my review of our meal at his main restaurant in town.

I had been led to believe that RN74 was a hip and happening place, but it fell way short of that. The clientele - albeit on a Saturday night - averaged 60 years old; a real blazer and blue rinse crew. At first I described it as cougar central, but Pavey reckoned none of the women was trying hard enough to warrant that label.

The food was perfect, more approachable and perhaps even better than the main Michael Mina place. My cauliflower, prosciutto, pecorino and potato appetizer was crisp and very tasty, while my Confit de Canard was straight outta Concorde (Paris); Pavey's Pork Belly and Clams were perfect, and her Sturgeon was meaty and marvelous. This all came as a pleasant surprise, because when you first look at the menu all you think is "where's the rest?" Compared with the wine selection, the food menu is strikingly gaunt.

If the food hadn't been perfect, I would've been really annoyed at the place.

First of all, it's overpoweringly and distractingly noisy. Immediately inside the door you're pitched into a melee of loud-mouthed drinkers; the bar area covers as much space as the restaurant. The shape of the room - long and kinda narrow - means the noise from the bar hammers along through the restaurant, making diners shout to get heard. Maybe this was RN74 at its Saturday night worst, but I can't see the place ever being described as romantic or relaxing. Or happening.

The strangest, and most annoying detail of all were the burly waiters. The regular staff wear blue shirts and white aprons. The "senior" staff manage the wine, and for some inexplicable reason they're all fat and wear their own ill-fitting semi-casual jackets, jeans or shabby pants, and sneakers. I could care less what they wear, but with these porkers milling around in the middle of the restaurant, constantly squeezing past the staff delivering food, the back of my chair was repeatedly knocked by one fat fart or another.

In one comical but out-of-place-for-an-allegedly-classy-restaurant episode, the waiter clearing our table stepped on my left foot, and one of the aforementioned corpulent sommeliers stepped on my right foot.

Maybe "sports bar sans TV" is what Mina is aiming for, but he'd better start advertising it as such in order to avoid disappointing his customers.

RAVE - SXSW Music Downloads

While the SXSW (South By Southwest) festival may not be the best known music event in the world, it's probably the single best source for cutting edge live music in one event.

Next best thing to being there in Austin, Texas, and certainly easier than attempting to see every one of the 1,200 + bands performing during the 4 days, is downloading the thousands of featured tunes from those bands.

That can be achieved, legally and free of charge, by going to the unofficial home of the SXSW torrents.

In the main frame you'll see just over 1,000 songs - 5.43gb - to download as torrents. In the left hand frame you'll see torrents for 2005-2009. Torrents are sets of pointers to peer-to-peer network locations from which the actual MP3s are downloaded.

In order to manage the Torrent content download, I use Vuze.

Having installed Vuze, you can click on each Torrent name in your download folder, and Vuze will fetch each song from the network into your download folder. Once there, you will need to move the thousands of MP3s into your regular music folder, and then into iTunes.

I'm what's colloquially known as a "leech", in that I download then move and delete the originally downloaded files, so as not to keep them around as a "seed" to other people trying to download the same music. Shoot me, but I don't trust leaving music on my machine for just anyone to access.

"And how good is the music?", I hear you ask.

Schmoozing through the 2010 showcase tunes, most of the artists are currently little-known (Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly anyone?) Therefore, you'll need to sample the entire selection in order to get to the jewels.

What's more interesting, in some respects, is looking back at previous years' showcased tunes, spotting bands that you now know and love. The Octopus Project, The Pigeon Detectives, Gossip (for heaven's sakes!) from 2009; The Von Bondies, Noah and The Whale, from 2008; Voxtrot, Scissors For Lefty, MuteMath, from 2007; The Magic Numbers, The Duke Spirit, Noisettes, OK Go, Nine Black Alps, Drive By Truckers, Corinne Bailey Rae, We Are Scientists, Silversun Pickups, Okkervil River, Of Montreal, from 2006; Wolfmother, Kaiser Chiefs, from 2005.

And if you don't like that lot, well, the music's free.

REVIEW - Marlowe (nee South)

One of those SF restaurants that has undergone a "re-imagining" (see my Who'd Want to be a Restauranter? posting in January).

It's changed from an Antipodean theme (that's Australia and New Zealand, for you non-colonials) to an east coast Butcher theme.

I'm not sure it worked before (and clearly its early closure testifies to that), and I'm not sure the new theme is any better.

When I think of "butcher-themed", I think of places like Harris' or McCormick & Schmick's, places where example cuts of meat are displayed in a butcher's display cabinet near reception.

Marlowe (aside from having an eminently forgettable name) shouldn't boast a butcher's affiliation when there's no meat dish you can't find on the menu of most restaurants in town.

My Poulet Vert (chicken with herbs, olive and potato salad) tasted strange - not spicy, not savory - and I didn't feel like finishing it; Pavey's Lamb Mixed Grill tasted good, but for me, lamb chop and lamb sausage doesn't deserve the "mixed grill" nomenclature.

The real problem was the overpowering heat - there's just no air in the place, and for me that made it a thoroughly unpleasant 90 minutes.

Nevertheless, I won't give it a RANT, because Mrs. Page liked it so much.

REVIEW - Formosa Betrayed

This could've gone either way. It was one of those cases where we just wanted to go to the movies, and I'd rather have white hot needles inserted under my fingernails than go and see Alice in Wonderland (does Tim Burton have a problem with making "proper" movies?)

Japan originally acquired Taiwan (aka Formosa) from the Qing Empire in 1895, but was ordered to renounce all claims to sovereignty over its colonial possessions after World War II.

In 1945, governance of Formosa / Taiwan was therefore taken over by the Republic of China. Four years later Chiang Kai Shek's Republic lost the Chinese Civil War to the Chairman Mao-led Communist Party and retreated from mainland China to Taiwan.

The political status of Taiwan is complex because it's claimed by the People's Republic of China which was established in 1949 on mainland China and considers itself the successor state to the Republic.

Them's the basic facts. Now, why was Formosa "betrayed"?

Accepting that the film is honorably biased, it shows how Formosans have been screwed by their proximity to China, whether it was when 80 million native Taiwanese were repressed by 2 million Chinese immigrants, or how their own government, paranoid about spies from mainland China, developed into a police state.

Political science aside, was it a good movie? Kinda. It was more of a rousing history lesson than a thriller - even though it aspired to the latter.

The evening was capped by dinner at Straits Cafe, with Dave Chappelle sat alone at the next table. He didn't laugh at any of my jokes!

RAVE - Daemon, by Daniel Suarez

If the notion of a Cyber novel doesn't leave you cold, you'll find this book downright exciting.

Even though I've worked with cyber wotsits for most of my career, I'm the first person to cry foul when fiction goes too far in claiming what can be done with computers.

Of course, as time goes on and things we once thought impossible are now commonplace, I have to be more careful with those cries.

Matthew Sobol is founder and CEO of a wildly successful online games company, but he's dying of cancer. So, he uses his fabulous wealth and intellect to design a daemon - a computer program that runs in the background - to infect computer networks after he dies.

It's not really explained why he did this, but the results are mind-blowing.

I kept on wishing someone would make this into a movie, Matrix meets Terminator.

RAVE - Red Riding Trilogy, 1983

The third in the trilogy of films covering the UK's most prolific serial killer, The Yorkshire Ripper.

This story features some of the nastiest and crookedest cops you could imagine, some of the biggest twists, some of the most depressing characters to poison any plot.

I know it's a cliche, but if you'd made this story up, no-one would believe it.

I also know I'm in danger of trivializing the whole thing by wondering how crimes were ever solved without computers, how teams that traveled across the country ever achieved anything without cell-phones, and how anyone survived when everyone smoked all the time in every location.

RAVE - Red Riding Trilogy, 1980

It's awkward having to admit that "this is just the kind of film I love" when it's about a serial killer in gloomiest Yorkshire, but you know what I mean.

It's gritty, honest, dripping in local atmosphere, and despite its subject matter and almost impenetrable accents (even for an Englishman), very accessible.

This is the second in the Red Riding Trilogy. I'm planning on seeing the third tomorrow night, thereby going to the movies 3 nights running, celebrating having no kids and an understanding wife.

Anyhow, back to the plot ...

The film starts with the drafting in of a new team to investigate the work already done by the local force. Since 1974, the Ripper has murdered 13 women (at least 4 children were killed by the same evil bastard up to and including 1974), and police have no idea who they're looking for.

There's animosity toward the new team, either because the existing team doesn't like being spied upon, or because certain "bent" officers have ulterior motives.

For example: "If someone kicks down your door, kills the dog and rapes your wife, who're you gonna call?" asks Assistant Chief Constable Hunter. "Definitely not the West Yorkshire Police", replies Reverend Laws, "they'd already be in there, wouldn't they?"

 

This film is moodier and less frenetic than 1974, allowing the investigative process to be more carefully examined.

 

And twist-wise, it puts Shutter Island to shame.

RAVE - Red Riding Trilogy, 1974

An ultra-tense, ultra-bleak trio of films covering what became known as the Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer operating in the equally bleak north-east of England.

The title, Red Riding is a twist of the Yorkshire Ridings (North, West and East Riding being the geographical divisions of the county of Yorkshire, since the 8th Century), and the story of Red Riding Hood, where young girls are accosted by the Big Bad Wolf in the forest.

Each film covers a particular period in the Ripper's spree, 1974, 1980 and 1983. Each film has a different director and camera crew, and were shot on 16mm, 35mm and digital respectively.

1974 deals mainly with the young reporter for The Yorkshire Post, who believes there's a connection between the disappearance of 3 young girls from towns around Yorkshire, but suffers at the brutal hands of the local police, who are in cahoots with a property developer who has promised to cut them in on the profits from his projects.

Red Riding belongs up there with Traffik, The State Within and many other British made-for-TV but given theatrical release movies that regularly out-do mainstream fare.