RANT - The Dark Knight Rises

I wasn't exactly dragged kicking and screaming to see this, but I wasn't enthusiastic at the notion either.

To say I'm not a fan of juvenile comic books, and the overblown films made from them, would be an understatement as big as some of the explosions their directors seem to find unavoidable. 

And my dislike is not the product of a miserable disposition caused by advancing years or gout. Ever since I was 12 years old and my father owned a store that sold, among other things, newspapers and magazines, I used to work and hang out at the store reading every comic available. And even then, the ridiculousness of grown men who manage to render themselves unrecognizable to their closest friends simply by taking their glasses off was not lost on me.

So, with all of that prejudice weighing me down, I went to see The Dark Knight Rises.

With this kind of film, you're not really expecting, or looking for a complex story, or plot twists. Instead, the audience is waiting for pulsating action, cool effects, and sinister villains.

And so it was. So it ever was.

This was a mind-numbingly dull film, played at maximum volume with minimum subtlety. Clearly I'm not the target audience. The numbskull two rows back, who kept gasping at all the effects, and non-shocking turns - he and his pals were the target audience.

And they're welcome to this dud.

RAVE - Headhunters

Named for the lead character's job - a corporate headhunter, not a tribal one - this spins a story that is so original, so full of surprises, and so gripping, that it's bound to get an American remake - this original is in Norwegian.

Roger Brown is a headhunter who helps fund his expensive lifestyle by stealing art. That alone provides grounds for an inventive story. But the trouble he gets into when he tries to steal an alleged Reubens from the former CEO of a Dutch company, and the lengths he goes to in an attempt to get out of that trouble, all add to the depth and color of this film.

I'm nowhere near doing this film justice, but I don't want to give away any those turns and twists.

The fact that this is in Norwegian, with English subtitles, means just one thing - that most people will not see it. And that is a huge shame.

RAVE - Ame

I have to begin this by saying "Despite being a restaurant in a hotel ..." despite it being one of the better restaurants in one of the best hotels in town, The St. Regis. 

Well, I don't absolutely have to, but for many people, being a hotel restaurant would weigh heavily against Ame. 

But if you're in the mood for a date night, and Mrs Page was, this is one of the best places to conduct the required assignation.

Cocktails in the bar of the St. Regis, followed by dinner at Ame, go well with valet parking and the whole service thing going on there. It's good to be pampered every now and then.

Dinner was suitably excellent too.

I had the crudo - sashimi - with extra virgin olive oil, lemon and sea salt. Perhaps a little too simple, but inoffensive. Mrs Page had the raviolo of pheasant with petit ragout of sweetbreads, chanterelles and umbrian summer truffles, which was absolutely gorgeous. Then she had the broiled sake marinated alaskan black cod and shrimp dumplings in shiso broth which she described as "excellent". I tried the grilled NY strip steak with goat cheese and eggplant lasagna, basil scented squash puree and romesco sauce, which was very good if unnecessarily pre-sliced. Why do they do that?

A wonderful way to spend a Saturday evening. 

RAVE - Savages

There were problems with this Oliver Stone film, but all in all it was an enjoyable thriller.

Admittedly, it was no JFK or Wall Street, but the story was interesting, and the action was steady and solid enough to carry the thing.

Two friends living in Southern California grow the finest weed around. Ben's the botanist, Chon's the ex Navy Seal. They share their business and their girlfriend, Ophelia. All is going well until a Mexican drug gang muscles in on their action, kidnapping Ophelia to convince them to keep their side of the "partnership".

There are no surprises, no fast action, just a somewhat typical Oliver Stone measured pace. But the ending was a mess, like Stone couldn't make his mind up how to end the tale.

Benicio del Toro manages to achieve sinister, even with a hairdo like a dead badger, and John Travolta plays a bent cop with a whine and similarly non-Hollywood hair. His made him look like a fatter, older, whiter Tiger Woods.

RAVE - Central Kitchen

For a new place that's almost painfully hip, Central Kitchen is surprisingly good, with a lot of attention paid to the complex, flavorful ingredients rather than just having arty farty descriptions given to the dishes.

In fact, the menu was missing any arty or farty items. Instead, plain English was all that was needed to describe each of our tasty, carefully composed courses.

My adorable partner chose the squid, avocado, celery, and pine nut mousse. I went for the plain sounding, but fabulously rich ham, greens, herbs, marinated bread, and white cheddar. Then we shared an in-between course of lamb belly, cumin, eggplant, basil, and salsa verde, and each had the hen, roasted and confit, nettle puree, and crispy potatoes. Just because it was our first time there, and we wanted to see what else they could do, we had the excellent lemon cake, nectarine, yogurt mousse, and almonds.

Central Kitchen almost made us wish we still lived on that block, because the locals now have that plus Universal Cafe, Blowfish Sushi, and Flour and Water within just a few yards.

Despite its Mission location, Central Kitchen doesn't appear to be aiming for a budget-conscious crowd. An eighty dollar bottle of Vouvray pushed dinner up to $250 for the two of us, but I'll be itching to return there nonetheless.

REVIEW - Shopping for clothes in an Indian store

Summer is time for the annual Indian wedding clothes Mrs Page needs to buy for her cousins' weddings in England.

This warrants a post for many reasons:

1. To an Indian girl - and Mrs P is Indian born in the UK, living in the USA, that most complicated of women - if someone is not an actual sister, they're a cousin, or an aunt. I've tried to explain that someone's not really your cousin unless they're your parent's siblings' kids, but apparently the family tree works differently for Indians.

2. An Indian wedding, even - or maybe especially - one in England, calls for several days of celebrations, with several parties and naturally, several changes of loud clothes. Maybe that should be .. several loud changes of clothes, but either way if you live in San Francisco it requires traipsing down University Avenue in Berkeley to see what's available.

3. To a white, adult male, married or not, every store looks like an explosion in a paint factory, caused by glitter grenades. And it's downright impossible to tell one outfit from the rest when it's folded among hundreds of clear, plastic bags on a shelf. 

4. There's no such thing as a sticker price. Or at least, nothing that anyone takes a blind bit of notice of. I was given my warning as we pulled up at the first store. "Don't you get involved in any discussion about price. I'll do that", I was told. Therefore, in full knowledge that she was going to spend several hundred dollars per outfit, she explained to the first assistant "I'm looking for something around two hundred dollars; something bright, something modern". Now, having already admitted to suffering the dual curse of being white and male, I have to say that EVERYTHING in the store was BRIGHT, and EVERYTHING looked to be the same style. I know I'll lose that part of the argument, but I may as well start out with that position. Regarding the alleged sticker price, or absence thereof, she was shown a saree with a price tag of seventeen hundred dollars, and the shop assistant said "that one will be seven hundred and ninety five". What's the point in wasting money on price tags if everyone immediately quotes a lower price. I'm not fooled by that, and I hope that Mrs P - oh, wait, she's fallen for it.

5. When the assistants - for no shopper in these parts gets just one assistant - start tearing open the plastic bags, only to be met with stares and shakes of the head from her ladyship, and words like "No, I want something for the evening reception", they all respond with "Oh, you want something NICE?" I thought "nice" was one of those unspoken prerequisites, but clearly it signaled "Oh, you intend spending more than two hundred dollars".

6. Anyhow, cutting to the chase - which wasn't much of a chase seeing as it lasted nearly four hours, and was punctuated after two hours by me returning to our car for a well earned rest -  madame exited the store with two lavish outfits, suitably modified to fit in all the right places.

All I can say is, it's a bloody good job she looks so good in them.

REVIEW - Lockout

I like Guy Pearce. Mrs Page does not. And the reason is the same. He makes edgy (Mrs P calls them "weird") movies.

There you have it.

But I could have made my case more easily if this was a standout film, weird or otherwise.

Set in 2075, Pearce is a prisoner framed for espionage against the USA, but offered the opportunity for freedom if he rescues the president's daughter who is being held hostage at a prison in space.

As I typed that sentence, I realized the plot sounded far-fetched, even stupid.

Anyhow, in an all too familiar example of racial stereotyping, the first two prisoners broken out of suspended animation just happen to be nutters, and Glaswegians!!

Meanwhile, Pearce is whisked via space shuttle - that's handily already gunning its engines on the launchpad - to the most expensive prison in the universe.

Aside from the many, many questions raised during this film, most of which concerned the illogicality of much of the story, one that stood out for me was "how can they have so much shooting, and so many explosions, on a spacecraft?"

And another, general observation: this film uses other lapses in physics not seen since the Flash Gordon TV episodes from the 1950s.

RAVE - Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, by Michael Lewis

Another recommendation, this one from Peter Weston, and another vacation read, was this thoroughly enjoyable review of just how far up the creek we are in the financial canoe.

Peter is one of those friends who manages to have an intelligent and often violently funny opinion on virtually any topic. This leads to hugely enjoyable, but all too rare (he lives in the UK) face to face meetings, and occasional trading of observations, gossip, and jokes by text.

This book covers many of those news items that, if you're like me, just prove that first reactions like "how on earth did someone with that little experience get catapulted into a position where they could influence the spending of billions of dollars on worthless junk?" are so often proved worryingly accurate.

Topics include:

Wall Street on The Tundra. The stock market rennaisance, and bomb, in Iceland, by a nation of fishermen who were absolutely convinced they were ideally placed, and possessed of divine right to set up a market, and sell slices of what proved to be suicidally bad investments in futures, derivatives, and other toxic financial instruments.

And They Invented Math. The similarly ill-advised positions taken by a nation of tax dodgers - i.e. Greece - and the swift plunge they consequently experienced into the European financial toilet.

Ireland's Original Sin. On the back of newly-minted European Community investment in what became the largest road network in the most pointless of locations - Ireland, this nation of hod carriers have built a countryside full of housing estates, office blocks, and pubic buildings that no-one wants or can afford to buy. Includes reference to that fabulous quote from Bertie Ahern, Irish prime minister: "Lehmans was a world investment bank. They had testicles everywhere".

The Secret Lives of Germans. The curious case of the Germans, who despite their financial probity and - maybe because of - their predilection for fecal rather than fiscal debate, now find themselves having to fund the mistakes of other EC members.

Too Fat To Fly. An examination of the parlous state of the State - and City - finances in the USA. The fact that I live in the number one financially buggered State, California, fills me with nothing but dread.

Ah well, it was fun being able to laugh at this excellently written situation report.

REVIEW - For The Win, by Cory Doctorow

Recommended to me by good friend, fellow music fan and ardent but - as this book revealed - not entirely reliable book recommender, Jon Larner, this was one of my vacation reads. 

The recommendation came when we discussed the great Makers, another Doctorow title I'd read. That book was a genuinely great story, about technology and invention within the context of a smelly economy.

Jon enthused about Doctorow's other books, particularly For The Win, which used a story about the mechanics, participants, and economics of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplasyer Online Role Playing Games). As Doctorow himself describes the book, "For the Win connects the dots between the way we shop, the way we organize, and the way we play, and why some people are rich, some are poor, and how we seemed to get stuck there".

What I didn't know was that Doctorow pitched this at "young adults", which epithet covers a wide audience, not exactly perfectly describing yours truly.

While I learned a lot about the dynamics and politics of these games, most of that was arguably useless, and certainly un-interesting, at least to me. I thought it would have been more relevant, as I like and play most games, but somehow the level of detail Doctorow covered proved tedious.

Whatever, I look forward to a discussion with Jon, armed with a +10 demon drencher, and a bagful of rocks, runes, and rubies.

RAVE - John Mayall at Yoshi's Oakland

A night of bliss, as I worshiped at the feet of one of my all time idols. Even Pavey's non-attendance - some BS corporate event apparently - didn't dampen my enthusiasm, nor did it stop me getting goose-bumps for most of the show.

For those of you who've never heard of him - i.e. pretty much all of my family and friends - John Mayall is generally regarded as the Godfather of British blues music. Throughout his fifty-plus year career, Mayall has been known for introducing some of the best musicians around. 

John Mayall's Bluesbreakers have at one time or another featured Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, who went on to form Cream, Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood who became Fleetwood Mac, Andy Fraser formed Free, and Mick Taylor joined the Rolling Stones.

There was no chance of doing any stage diving last night, as anyone who attempted it would have been impaled on the walking sticks half the audience seemed to be sporting. I felt sprightly and youthful with all the sixty and seventy year old grey pony tails on display, and all of those must have felt similarly sprightly at Mayall's eighty year old rocker antics.

RANT - Assassin's Bullet

The best thing about watching movies on demand, is not that you often get to see stuff you wouldn't normally find at your local multiplex, or that you can stop and start it to view it around your schedule. No, the best thing about watching movies on demand is that you can congratulate yourself on not wasting your time traipsing downtown to see something that's best fast-forwarded. 

Like this dismal offering.

Christian Slater - I should've guessed - is a semi-retired CIA operative lazing around in Sofia, Bulgaria. Donald Sutherland is the useless local CIA station chief. Timothy Spall is a boring psychiatrist. 

Somehow, the three bumble around with a night-club dancer who moonlights as an assassin. 

That's about it. There's no plot worth explaining, no action worth describing, and no art worth reviewing.

It's all a bit like Slater's movie career. Never amounted to much, and this perfectly illustrates that.

RAVE - Bora Bora and Taha'a

Well, what else am I likely to post than a RAVE review of our ten days in Tahiti?

But I'll stop short of calling it Paradise, like so many other vacation reviews I've seen.

True, Paradise would have to feature many of the basic elements of these islands: gorgeous weather, outstanding views in every direction, and the water (especially the crystal clear, warm sea water). 

It would also have to present plenty of laying around in the sun, reading opportunities. The blissful peace, with Tahiti being so far from anything likely to interrupt that laying-around-and-reading time, chalked another mark on the plus side.

The main cost of all that privacy is the time and effort involved in getting there. A flight to LA, then eight hours overnight to Tahiti, followed by a forty-five minute flight to Bora Bora, left us with a half hour boat ride to The Sofitel resort on the other side of Bora Bora. Most of the first day of five at The Sofitel was spent with me barely opening my eyes, let alone my Kindle. After that first day though, each horizontal minute by the pool, or on the pristine beach, or even on the deck of our overwater bungalow was not a minute mis-spent.

On day six, we had the half hour boat trip back to the airport (the most relaxing airport experience I've ever had, with the airstrip occupying a tiny sticky-out piece of the island), then a fifteen minute flight to Raiatea - the second largest island after Tahiti itself - and another half hour boat ride to the island of Le Taha'a. This was our home for the next five days, and was perfect in almost every way. Almost.

For being part of French Polynesia, it's a shame the islanders only got the French language as part of the deal, and not the cooking skills to go with the words they inherited. The lackluster meals could only be forgiven by remembering everything needs to get to the kitchen from somewhere far away. 

It would be churlish - consistent, but still churlish - of me to hold that against a place that otherwise would be right up there at the top of my list of places to spend one week out of every three or four for the rest of my days.

RAVE - Chez Spencer

I had two things to celebrate last night.

First, my oldest friend from the UK - who has been living in Atlanta for the past 17 years or so - was visiting SF and we celebrated over dinner at this favorite haunt of mine. Which brings me to the second thing, which is more of an event than a celebration.

California's ban on foie gras comes into effect on Sunday. Say what you will about the cruelty, or otherwise, of force-feeding geese to engorge their livers, but a number of restaurants - Chez Spencer among them - has an Au Revoir Foie Gras tasting menu, featuring the dastardly but delectable meat in each of its 5 courses, including Foie Gras Ice Cream!

Paul had the truffled mushroom veloute parmesan crisp, the foie gras ‘Torchon’, with red berry compote and pain de compagne, the wood roasted Sturgeon Maitake, Honjemeji (Japanese mushroom), chanterelle and sauce béarnaise, and then some cheeses for good measure.

Meanwhile, I had the aforementioned foie gras tasting menu that, believe me, tasted pretty good. What a way to spend three and half hours of dinner.

Now I'll have to wait too long to see Paul again, and perhaps even longer until that foie gras ban is repealed.

RAVE - Starbelly

Starbelly vies with Bar Bambino - and maybe a couple others - for the best classy / casual food in San Francisco.

It attracts a younger, attractive crowd - your writer of course, excluded. Its location - on the edge of Castro - means that crowd is also a healthy mixture of SF sociables. And the food draws everyone and anyone who likes comfort food done good.

My hot date (again) had Starbelly salumi - prosciutto to be precise, butternut squash dumplings with garlic, sage, browned butter, and shaved bucheret. Her hot date had the house-made, chicken liver pate, buttered bread, sweet onion marmalade, and grain mustard. We shared the pizza: bacon, jalapeno, arugula, and green goddess dressing. It was over-greened, with too much arugula, but we were having too much fun with it to object.

I can't say Starbelly was a real find, because it's not hidden at all, right on the junction of 16th and Market, but we'll definitely go again - and maybe again.

REVIEW - The Divide

Ten survivors of a nuclear attack on New York bolt into the bomb shelter / basement of their apartment block.

They make up a typical cross-section of the building's residents - a blowhard, chain-smoking superintendent, three loudmouths with attitudes, a wife and her wimpy husband, a woman and daughter - one or the other seems always to be sobbing or screaming, and so on.

Conditions and morale deteriorate way too fast, and yet the film seems to drag.

Tensions mount between the all-too-fractious refugees; bickering over needing to stay locked in underground, the rules established by the self-appointed leaders, about the shortage of food - yet there seems to be an almost inexhaustible supply of cigarettes. It made me wonder whether they wouldn't actually be safer above ground, even if there was nuclear fallout.

Maybe this is what New York, and its denizens are really like. Scratch the surface and they're all ready to tear each other apart.

REVIEW - The Killing

I wouldn't normally bother with a review of a TV series, but this double-series was made with an intensity rarely seen in this format.

It concerns the murder of a teenage girl, Rosie Larsen, daughter of gruff building contractor Stan Larsen, and his wife Mitch.

The first season wove in a long cast of seemingly unrelated characters: builders, politicians, native American casino developers, and sinister associates of all three. But many people - me included - were disappointed to find that first season ending with no answer to the question "who killed Rosie Larsen?"

Patiently we waited for the second season, and that just ended with an answer, but no real satisfaction. The show burned and eventually bored its viewers with long-winded, rain-soaked side stories whose purpose seemed mainly to use up air time rather than propel the investigative team toward solving the case.

The cast was excellent, but the weather was foul. Normally, that wouldn't feature in a post-series review, but this drama was set in Seattle, and mostly filmed in nearby Vancouver. Wherever it was, whatever time of day, it was raining incessantly. Cold, miserable rain. If this series did nothing else, it ruined for me the notion of spending any quality time in either city.

REVIEW - Black Hogg, LA

Having flown to LA for a quick visit with friends, I was looking forward to the usual opportunity to try something new. That came with the newly-opened Black Hogg, in the Silverlake district.

It's so new it doesn't have it's alcohol license yet, which was the only negative. 

Our host George, friend David and I made up for that before the meal, with a bottle of Champagne and some pate and cheese in quite possibly the least salubrious picnic spot imaginable - a patch of grass near the side (I'd call it the "bank" if there really was a river there) of the currently dry as a bone LA River. 

Picnic done, we retired to the Black Hogg for a trendy-ish meal of the fattest oysters I've ever eaten. Heaven knows where they were caught - the restaurant called them Naked Cowboy Oysters for some inexplicable reason. But they were juicy and er, fat.

David and George shared the roast brussel sprouts with anchovy citronette and gremolata. Then we tore into pork belly tacos, with Fuji apple slaw and jalapeño relish. David snacked on the  ale-battered cod and ruffled chips, and George the buttery lamb burger, with Onetik Bleu (what?), and fries. I had a great meat (I forget which) hash, with peppers and mint, and an egg on top. Like breakfast for dinner.

Nothing highbrow about the meal, but as David said "you suffer from Northern Californian snobbery". Possibly the nicest thing anyone's ever said of me!

And yes, I know that's a sheep.

RAVE - Prometheus

With Mrs P out of town, I was able to enjoy this film (she hates sci-fi) with Amo and Gareth. 

We were all wowed by Ridley Scott's latest - and best - Alien movie. At least, I think the others were wowed. We left a bit sharp-ish afterward, and didn't get much of a chance to discuss it. 

The story was perfectly set up - an engrossing first twenty minutes explained why Prometheus and it's crew were flying through space in search of our creators. Surprise, surprise, they wanted to be found, but for all the wrong reasons. 

This had everything you're looking for in a kick-ass sci-fi movie: atmosphere, visuals, excitement, and great, great monster aliens. 

What annoyed me throughout - aside from the pointless and distracting 3D glasses - was the stupidity of the crew. For example, they'd spent over two years in cryogenic suspension traveling to planet X, and no sooner do they land than they're hopping into space suits, racing off to the strange dome in the distance, entering that dome without a moment's planning, and before you know it they're up to their visors in alien goop.

RAVE - Nihon Whisky Lounge

I'm not sure about the name of this restaurant. Well, I'm sure it's called Nihon Whisky Lounge, but I'm not sure if that's an appropriate name for it.

The whisky list was impressive, but the "lounge" wasn't particularly inviting, being full of cell-phone wielding bores typical of a night out in San Francisco.

It's reminiscent of The Tardis, Dr. Who's transport, in that it looks tiny on the outside, but larger inside.

But the food is what brought us here, not the whisky or the intergalactic travel possibilities. And that aspect was good.

Nihon serves Izakaya, the Japanese version of tapas, so there's less focus on rolls than you'd find in most sushi restaurants. 

We had the Kaiso, a seaweed salad mixed with greens and sesame soy dessing, Kobe beef thigh wrapped in asparagus with yuzu sweet soy sauce and scallion, Hamachi ceviche yellow tail, cucumber, gobo, shiso, kaiware and yuzu ponzu, served with home made tortilla chips, and Nihon Burger: kobe beef with shitake mushrooms, cucumber and gobo, with Japanese BBQ sauce.

Definitely somewhere to savor mid-week, when the lounge might be less crushed and more comfortable for a bit of whisky-sipping.

RAVE - GBH at The Independent

I guess you could say I'm an executive Punk fan. In the same way that Eddie Izzard describes himself an executive transvestite. Or maybe nothing like that at all.

What I mean is that I like punk royalty. I've seen the Sex Pistols, Clash, and the Stranglers, even Rezillos (or Revillos, as they were by the time I saw them). And I've seen Pseudo Punks, like Green Day.

Last night was the first time I'd seen a genuine, still working class grunt band, and after nearly thirty years of touring.

Lets not pretend they were anything more than that. There was no new direction, no discovery of transcendental meditation. Not even any fresh drugs to spark a new line of inspiration.

With most of their original line-up, they played the same old stuff, in the comparatively up-market surroundings (for them, or any non-royal punk outfit) of The Independent.

It reminds me of that wonderful line from British comedian Peter Kay, who tells his kids to "go on, put on something your mother likes. Stick that Smack My Bitch Up on, watch her dance".

REVIEW - Beast and the Hare

A strangely-named place, especially if - like me - you thought Beast and the Hare was an elegant restaurant with an edge. But no. This is a neighborhood cafe with a decent chef and little else to make it a destination.

I was pretty disappointed to arrive at Beast. First, the area - Guerrero and 22nd streets - must be one of the worst places in San Francisco to find a parking space. Eventually, we parked 4 blocks away. 

When we entered the restaurant, I was thoroughly under-whelmed by the place. It looked grubby and unwelcoming.

Then, the staff seemed only mildly interested in the fact that we were there. And that interest hardly rose much above that until we paid our bill.

The food was nothing to write home about. We shared the charcuterie plate which comprised (look away, vegetarians) smoked duck breast; coppa, calabrian salami, mortadella, anisette salami and fabulous pate de campagne. So far so good.

But then I had possibly the most ordinary burger outside of a McNasty's. It wasn't cooked medium, as I'd ordered - it was over-done. It didn't have the egg I'd ordered. And it was tiny.

Pavey enjoyed her fettuccini with cured lemon, asparagus, basil and coho salmon, but as I find the thought of fish and pasta abhorrent (my loss, I know), I couldn't steal any of hers.

All in all, a place I wouldn't mind avoiding for the next few years.

RAVE - Range

Range is one of many, many places on Valencia Street that vies for custom, and yet it was packed even for 8pm on a Monday night. I can see why.

It's a warm, welcoming place with a great atmosphere. The menu, while not in the least bit adventurous, has plenty worth trying.

Mrs P vacillated over the cauliflower soup and soft shelled crabs - as I would have - then plumped for the asparagus appetizer and oven roasted chicken with potatoes, trumpet mushroom, chard, pancetta and green garlic vinaigrette.

I had the chicken liver mousse - which was a bit runny - and the roasted chicken too.

All in all, a pleasant if not earth-shattering experience. We'll probably go back, although I think tonight we might have picked the best items on the menu.

REVIEW - John Carter

If you find it hard to believe that Mars was once full of warring tribes, various types and color of creature, and the oxygen they all required to breathe, then this film will be a stretch.

If the film-makers didn't want to explore the likelihood or not of this situation, it shouldn't have jumped back and forth between Mars and late nineteenth century America. 

Then I remembered it's based on a book by Edgar Rice Burroughs, writer of Tarzan, The Land That Time Forgot, and many other stories involving life on Mars and Venus.

So, with those humbug credentials accepted, this could've been an Avatar.

Could've been, but wasn't. 

Just how Disney managed to turn this isn't a mammoth box-office loss is probably down to it being a bit juvenile. Sheesh, how can I say that, knowing that's just how 90% of super-hero movies are pitched. But there has to be some reason like that - the plot, and the script just weren't clever enough. 

All that money, all those effects, all that scope. Blown. Another Dune.

I wanted to like this - as did, I'd bet, most of the audience.

RAVE - Coriolanus

A modern re-telling of a Shakespeare tragedy: Rome is a starving city.

Ralph Fiennes plays Caius Martius Corialanus, a Roman military governer hated by the people for his hard-lined approach.

Gerard Butler plays Tullus Aufidius, a Vorascian rebel.

Together they lead their forces to fight over Rome.

I usually find pure Shakespeare, in his original words, tiresome and ungainly.

For example, when Martius is rallying his men he says:

"Those are they
That most are willing. If any such be here -
As it were sin to doubt - that love this painting
Wherein you see me smear'd; if any fear
Lesser his person than an ill report;
If any thing brave death outweighs bad life
And that his country's dearer than himself;
Let him alone, or so many so minded,
Wave this, to express his disposition,
And follow Martius."

.. instead of ...

"Come on lads, let's 'ave it at 'em".

Where would we be if I'd written all of Shakespeare's works, instead of that bloke in Anonymous?

Maybe because it was an action-centric story, this worked. Forsooth!

RAVE - Get The Gringo

Mel Gibson's new film, also known as "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" is a rough, dusty prison movie, that starts with him driving a car through the wall on the border into Mexico. 

There he's arrested by corrupt Mexican police, and he and his unconscious passenger in the clown's costume part ways.

The rest of the movie follows Gibson as he finds his feet in La Pueblito, the tough Tijuana prison, where he's helped by a young boy who hangs around the prison looking for the man who killed the boy's father.

A combination of Gibson's ongoing real-life rantings and his reduced box office pull have resulted in this film getting a low-key, art-house plus DirecTV release, so you may not find it.

If you do, you'll see that Gringo is a bit of a mess, but is still a decent Mel Gibson film. 

It's no Apocalypto, I'll warn you that, but it's worth seeing nonetheless.

REVIEW - Straw Dogs

A remake of the 1971 movie that starred a youthful Dustin Hoffman and Susan George, this retelling tries hard, but is a shadow of that Sam Pekenpah directed classic.

This version, starring airheads Kate Bosworth and James Marsden, and a slumming James Woods, lacks most of the tension of that original, with Marsden missing all the breaking-point unhinged-ness that Hoffman delivered.

Marsden and wife Bosworth re-locate from LA to Blackwater, Alabama, which is her hometown, to allow him to write a movie script.

While a local crew work on the roof to their house, tensions rise between the two successful LA types and the country boys. Things escalate, as they often do in these situations, and the workers' push the writer to the brink.

While the last half hour is gripping stuff - and I'm sorry to keep repeating this - it's not as good as the original.

RANT - Columbus Circle

A curiously dated flick - set in the current day but featuring a low-key crew and an even lower-key plot.

The main character, played by Selma Blair, is a wealthy agoraphobic who has not stepped out of her apartment on Columbus Circle for twenty years.

The neighbor from across the hall is murdered one night, and that brings the police and a host of other disturbances to Blair's life.

But as the characters add their limited weight, the ordinary plot weighs it all down, and it ends up like a ninety-minute episode of Law and Order, and those are two-a-penny.

REVIEW - Men in Black 3

Have we really seen two of these before?

As we came out of the theater, I said to Mrs P "it's funny how the big budget and all those fancy effects somehow add up to nothing". 

Yes, it's choc full of titter-ful material, but the sum of the parts just doesn't add up to much.

Will Smith is very good, eclipsed only by Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) as the fabulous Boris The Monster.

We made the mistake of seeing it in 3D - another waste of technology and uncomfortable glasses.

But, the plot doesn't matter, the humor is mostly slapstick, and MIB3 didn't add anything over 1 or 2.

REVIEW - The Samaritan

It's a pleasure to see Samuel L Jackson in something that doesn't require he wear an eyepatch and start ordering around dipsticks dressed in superhero outfits.

In this he's just released from twenty-five years in prison, trying to go straight. Unsurprisingly, that doesn't work out, and he gets embroiled in a scheme hatched by his ex-partner.

That "scheme" is a grift, called The Samaritan.

Against his better judgement, Jackson plays along, but the whole film is a bit lacking in pace.

It's made in an older film noir style, and wasn't quite enough to keep me captive.

REVIEW - The Cabin in the Woods

Billed as, and starts as a generic horror movie - a group of five decide to head on out of town to a remote, deserted cabin for the weekend. 

But the first few minutes of the film are set in a CIA-like facility where everyone's dressed in white shirts and black ties, and when the group set off for their weekend, another CIA-type is watching their house.

There are some saving graces for this film: 

1. It has some serious actors: Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) and Bradley Whitford (West Wing)

2. It knows when it's poking fun at itself: one creature is listed in the credits as "Fornicus, Lord of Bondage and Pain".

The fact that there's a whole organization of CIA types watching this on CCTV, even betting on the outcome, tends to undermine - in a good way - the cliched events that unfold, like when the group is playing "truth or dare" (#1 on the list of things NOT to do when you're in a deserted cabin in the woods) and the cellar door pops open and they go down to investigate (#2 on the list, etc), and then one of them reads aloud from a Latin book they find in the cellar (#3 on the list ..)

From there, the film either descends into the same old territory covered by a thousand other horror flicks, or ascends into the campy, fun-poke you might be looking for.

One scene epitomizes that camp-ness: 

... As it breaks from the "action" to the team watching it all .... when one woman objects that she hadn't won the prize despite picking "Zombies" as the creatures that would first make an appearance. "No, 'Zombies' are entirely different to 'Zombie Redneck Torture Family', just like 'Elephants' are different to 'Elephant Seals'".

And another, as one "CIA" controller looks on at the developing scene, pulls a lever and says "Engaging pheromone mist".

I've got one of those on order from Amazon.

REVIEW - Pacific Catch

It's strange that while Japanese food - sushi or otherwise - is so different from most other kinds of food, that each Japanese restaurant has the same menu as virtually every Japanese restaurant.

While I knew therefore, that going into Pacific Catch I would see the Edamame, ceviche, calamari, spicy tuna and California rolls, tempura and so on, the restaurant mixed in a tasty selection of Thai and Latin dishes. So much so, that I wouldn't categorize this as a sushi place at all.

To be fair,  they advertise as a "Fresh fish grill" rather than a hard-core sushi place, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.

But .... and this is a big "but" .... the net result was unsatisfactory.

The place sounded, and felt like a busy strip-mall restaurant, part of a chain, and lacking most of the factors that would make this a serious downtown experience.

It's hard to put that down to one or two things - it basically all added up to a negative. 

My coconut shrimp appetizer was OK (not much zing), and  Korean barbecue bowl with marinated skirt steak, seasoned cucumber, shredded omelette, daikon sprouts, shredded nori and Korean BBQ sauce was good. Pavey's Hawaiian Poke (sushi grade ahi tuna in a sesame-soy marinade and spicy seasonings with wonton crisps) was good, but her spicy salmon & albacore roll topped with tobiko, green onion, sriracha (don't ask me what that is) aioli and eel sauce wasn't spicy enough. They were out of her first choice, which was the spicy tuna, but nevertheless, the girl's gotta have her spice!

I'll  have to keep going in my quest to find somewhere in San Francisco that properly matches Blowfish Sushi.

RAVE - The Dictator

Sasha Baron Cohen is one of those people it's natural to love and hate. Who knows if he's a great dinner guest or husband, anyone with that much bile in their comedy just has to be a nasty piece of work in some part of their life.

But it's good to put those considerations to one side when watching a movie like The Dictator. If you consider even one of the jokes about race, religion, physical characteristics, terrorism, children, or sex to be offensive, chances are it will ruin the whole experience.

I'd heard in one review how you could hear a pin drop as the first of those jokes came out, and it was only as the film developed that people found it possible to laugh. There was no such breaking in period required last night, as the audience took all Cohen had to offer, and laughed themselves silly.

Haffaz Alladeen is the wacky dictator of the oil-rich African nation of Waadeya. But not so wacky that he's at a loss for words when the situation allows for some healthy criticism of American politics. 

When addressing the United Nations council, Alladeen extolls the virtue of his dictatorship by telling the UN "Just think, if you had a dictatorship in America, you'd be able to give your closest friends senior positions in government; you'd be able to reward the bad judgement of business people by forgiving them when they messed up, even giving them millions of dollars to do it all again; you'd be able to put people of one color into prison without anyone complaining ....." 

Surprise, surprise, all of these things are done in America.

RAVE - Le Colonial

Having been here a couple times before - most notable a New Years Eve party that disintegrated into an exercise in drunk dodging - it was a pleasure to sit down for a relaxed dinner with one of my close friends from England, and Mrs Page.

Le Colonial certainly looks the part. A grand entrance up a stone staircase, through a palm court into the main dining room is probably San Francisco's best attempt at Elegant.

The mostly Vietnamese menu is good, if not exactly fabulous. It would be churlish to put down the food when the atmosphere is so good. So I won't.

When you have company as good and as talkative as these two, one could argue you don't even need food.

RAVE - Dry Creek Kitchen, Healdsburg

Once you get over the fact that Healdsburg is impossibly twee - perhaps not quite so as Yountville - you have to admit that its restaurants are definitely worth the drive.

And so, Saturday lunch saw us in The Dry Creek Kitchen. 

It was a perfect day out, weather-wise, so we sat on the veranda, sipping our Sauvignon Blanc and Gewurtztraminer while digging into excellent Charcuterie plates, followed by pan-roasted Scottish Salmon, spring chicken "picnic style", and Wagyu beef mini-burgers.

This was all after a detour through Mill Valley, to attend Mrs Page's business mentor's Wild Horse charity for Laotian children. 

Suffice it to say that standing around listening to a teen choir, followed by lunch in the sun is a recipe for sleep, which is how we wasted the evening.

RAVE - Ellendales, Nashville

I'm here at Opreyland, in Nashville, Tennessee, just to top up my revulsion for country music for a week, and do some business at the same time. 

When colleague David and I invited a couple of customers out to dinner, our fears were where we'd end up having our "meat with three types of cheese poured on top", which appears to be what passes for haute cuisine around these here parts. 

But wait, we were recommended to a classic, old house (100 years, but still older than most buildings in Nashville) with a classic, old restaurant and a classic, old menu.

It was definitely meat-centric, with lamb chops, steak, and pork medallions, but it was intelligently prepared - not fried, or cheesed-up - and served up with lashings of genuine Southern hospitality.

Our server turned out to be a singer in a country band with a new record contract. Whether they make it will determine whether she'll still be serving at Ellendales this time next year. Look out for The Barrel Jumpers.

RANT - Bouche

This restaurant sooo disappointed us. It's received glowing reviews since it opened a few months ago, but in my opinion those reviewers just saw in it what they wanted to see.

First, it's in a horrible location, right next door to the Tunnel Top bar on Bush Street, almost on top of the sleazy massage parlors below at the tunnel's entrance.

Second, it's tiny. That in itself shouldn't be a problem. But you push through the people sat at the downstairs bar, and go upstairs to 8 or 9 tightly-packed tables bereft of any light or atmosphere. That upstairs section seems so flimsy, that every time one of the staff used the stairs our table wobbled and creaked.

That would all have been OK if the food was as good as this French chef is alleged to be.

My duck confit starter had to be hunted under the salad with a microscope. When I did find it, it tasted fine, but there was only enough to whet the appetite. Pavey's sauted squid was only fair, and drew no gasps of delight when she ate it.

We both had the lamb shoulder, which tasted fine but left a hole where a satisfied experience should have been. The side order of spring onions looked like they had been dug up and dumped on the plate; and were a pain to eat.

We both felt cheated, and therefore had desserts, neither of which fulfilled the promise the "exciting chef, direct from France" could and should have delivered.

I rarely, if ever comment on the price. But all of this for $170, and we felt like we had overpaid and under-eaten. A rare experience for a restaurant in California, and not one that we intend revisiting.

RAVE - Australian Financial Tips

A piece of sobering advice on the state of the European and American financial markets comes from this pair of Australians, as always posing as respectable Europeans.

It seems like only yesterday we were having fun with the mule-riding, homemade-helmet wearing criminals of the Ned Kelly variety, so this commentary from a couple of those in rented suits is a mostly too-late warning of what financial borrowing has done to us all.

And if that's all too much for you, rest assured there are still Australian pundits like Chopper still around to offer advice to the working men and women in search of a handy bit of compensation.

RANT - 21 Jump Street

I never saw the original 21 Jump Street, the 1987 film starring Johnny Depp. Maybe that helped. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Certainly, this 2012 version doesn't matter much.

High school pals Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum graduate, join the police and wind up as bicycle-riding, city park patrolling boys in blue.

Their youth and new-found jobs, together with their long-standing ineptitude make them perfect candidates to be placed undercover, charged with infiltrating a drug ring operating in a school.

This was plain unfunny.

RANT - The Darkest Hour

Thanks to a thoroughly implausible plot - but more likely the Russian funding for this movie* - two internet start-up guys are in Moscow to see their killer idea stolen by a two-timing Russian "businessman". 

Aside from the opening scene reminding me never to fly Aeroflot, aliens make it an even worse trip for our American friends by invading. Heaven knows why they invaded Moscow - it must have reminded them of their own frigid planet.

Anyhow, the universe's dullest aliens - just sparks of electricity! - battle it out with a few kids and some Russian rebels who appear almost as magically as the aliens.

The film is notable only for featuring Joe Kinnaman - detective Stephen Holder from my favorite current TV series, AMC's The Killing - in a role where he looks a little more presentable.

Who cares what happens?

* but not enough funding to make decent aliens

REVIEW - The Deep Blue Sea

It's nineteen-forty-something. Rachel Weisz is the wife of a UK Judge, and she's having an affair with a Royal Air Force pilot.

The tension between the Judge, his mother, and his wife, is almost too much, making conversation at home even worse than it is when the mother is not around.

The film is unusually sequenced, with the apparent outcome shown in the first scene, then a bit of the affair, then the uncovering of the affair, then the relationship that led to the affair. 

Despite this cinematic juggling, the film is so dry it almost cracks. It's serious. It's slow. But it's rescued by having a great story, and featuring excellent performances by all.

Don't watch it if you don't like angst and a tortuous violin-led soundrack.

RANT - Travellers

A British film about four friends on a motorcycle adventure weekend.

They camp in a field and wake up in the morning to find an apparently abandoned caravan parked nearby. One of the friends has handily brought along suitable "adventure" gear - a rifle and a hunting knife. He tags the caravan with "Piky scum". 

"Pikey" is a UK slang term for "Traveler". After pointing out the graffiti artist has spelled "Piky" wrong, they spot the returning family of travelers and leg it.

Within a few minutes, one of the bikers is killed, another is captured and left tied up in the caravan, and then it all goes pear shaped.

It suffers from a total lack of budget, although I don't know what they would have spent money on. 

As it is, it aspires to be Southern Comfort, or Deliverance, but misses the mark by so far it seems a shame to have grouped this disappointment in with those classics.

REVIEW - 96 Minutes

It starts out with four teens in a car - two bangers who've hi-jacked it and two girls who came with the car. 

One of the girls has just been shot in the face by one of the guys. They're racing around avoiding the police, trying to find their way to a freeway, and arguing about whether to find medical help for the girl.

The shooter - a white sixteen year old jerk - is trying to get accepted into the other guy's black gang.

Then it dodges back and forth with their lives, and the day building up to car jacking - the guys are going to high school, about to graduate or flunk, the girls are in dismal relationships.

I kept hoping, in vain, that something would happen. In 96 minutes, nothing much does. Certainly nothing we've not seen before in a dozen movies.

REVIEW - Battleship

A US Navy fleet participating in maneuvers in and around Hawaii encounters a similarly gun-toting armada from Planet G. 

Rihanna's presence as Petty Officer Cora 'Weps' Raikes, and the fact that the whole mess is made courtesy of toy-maker Hasbro tells you where this film's heart is. And it doesn't fail to go there. 

The usually admirable Liam Neeson playing Admiral Shane, with his undisguised Irish accent, only caused me to ask "how does an Irishman get to be an Admiral in the US Navy?" Mind you, there may as well have been a pub full of Irishmen for all the professionalism of the Navy's, and everyone else's response to the alien invasion.

"Captain, that doesn't look like anything from this planet. I think we'll take one of the rubber dinghies over and climb on it to see what it is" just about sums up the laughable reaction to encountering the first alien ship.

Basically, Transformers at sea. A bit of a childish joke. No surprise there, seeing as Hasbro own Battleship: the game and Transformers: the toy. Shame they don't own Battleship: the decent script.