RANT - Thor

A complete and utter waste of time. So, those are the good points about this steaming pile of poo. 

What on earth Kenneth Branagh was thinking of when he signed up to direct this dreadful mess is beyond me. I can't believe he can look himself in the mirror now.

Ah, what's the point in piling on the negatives?

RAVE - Margin Call

Perhaps strange to give props to a story about how the global Finance community royally screwed us, but it's the telling of this story that places it so much higher than Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. 

The film starts with a large slice of one Wall Street brokerage firm getting laid off, and then develops as the dirty laundry is uncovered. Admittedly, this re-telling focuses more on the extent to which the brokerage is exposed, rather than the sub-prime mortgages, dodgy loans and other corporate excesses (all bundled together as "toxic loans") that caused the exposure. 

I'm not sure whether to be more surprised by the enormity of the financial train wreck, or the fact that two of the brokerage's senior executives cannot read a spreadsheet. 

When the top guys meet for a pow-wow, it's apparent none of them are Excel-aware. Jeremy Irons looks like a more angular Mitt Romney, which doesn't bode well should the flip-flopping Mormon get elected as our next president. 

No doubt the real life experiences of many of these finance types aged them tremendously, but Kevin Spacey and Demo Moore are looking really OLD.

RANT - The Last Rites of Joe May

All too depressing for me to provide a positive review, I'm afraid.

Joe May is an aging hustler, just out of hospital after a 7-week bout of pneumonia. He returns to his chilly neighborhood to find that his apartment has been rented to a single mother and her 9-year old daughter. His scant belongings have been thrown out by the landlord who thought Joe had just moved away without telling anyone.

And it all goes downhill from there for the hapless Joe.

I'd like to say that Joe, or the movie, have some redeeming qualities that are revealed as the story s-l-o-w-l-y and miserably unfolds, but there are none.

This might be "the role of his life" as tagged by one Eye for Film reviewer, but Dennis Farina is much easier to watch in Law and Order.

RAVE - Sushi Roku, Las Vegas

Other than for its vast selection of top notch restaurants, I pretty much hate Las Vegas. 

Maybe it's because every time I go there it's for business (schlepping around trade shows, mainly) and not for pleasure. The hours are long, the standing around time is interminable, and the fresh air moments are all too rare. 

I've just spent 8 days at 2 events - one of which was the IBM User Conference, delivered 5 presentations to 50-150 people at each, walked for 1 hour each day to get to and from that IBM Conference, and pretty much stood around the other 9 or 10 hours each day discussing document imaging and capture software with our customers and business partners. 

I've eaten 24 times in 5 hotels, and only had one meal that is worth talking about. 

We used to live in LA, within a block of Sushi Roku in West Hollywood, so I mostly knew what to expect. And I was looking forward to a fun evening with one of my co-workers. As I had experienced every time we ate at the West Hollywood location, the food was wonderful. 

I'm not a cold, dead fish fan (I may even have used that very expression in one of my earlier sushi reviews) but here the Yellowtail Sashimi with diced chiles, Popcorn Rock Shrimp Tempura, and the various rolls we had were all superb. A few Kirin, and some wacky Japanese cocktails to wash it all down made it a great evening. 

It certainly stood out alongside the dreadful buffets, fried food breakfasts, and Stoli-drenched meals on every other day.

REVIEW - London Boulevard

Once you get past the stupid title (is it a musical, is it a travelogue?), which turns out to have nothing to do with the subject or plot, and the fact that this is probably the 5,000th movie about a newly-released jailbird trying against stiff odds to go straight-ish, this is a decent crime story.

Colin Farrell is the ex-con - we never find out exactly why or how long he'd been in prison, but he's a solid hard man, rather than a measly thief - and soon after his welcome back party in a pub full of half the criminal population of London, he's embroiled with Keira Knightly (a movie star always dodging the paparazzi), David Thewlis (her stoner companion) and big, bad Ray Winstone (the local crime boss).

The story's not that taxing, the action not that breakneck, but it's still better made than most of the other 4,999.

RAVE - PGA Hopefuls in Palm Springs

Probably should've said "PGA No-Hopefuls in Palm Springs", but our general lack of skill with the golf  stick thingies was more than offset by the great company, our enthusiasm and good humor.

Lawrence, Gareth (pictured here in one of those rare 'not entirely horrible swing' moments), Amo and I spent Friday through Monday in Palm Springs, golfing at Cimarron Golf Resort on Saturday and Indian Canyon Golf Resort on Sunday.

Both days were scalding, with temperatures in the high 90s, but we were ready for that with our shorts, hats, and ice-boxes.

We rented a house through vrbo.com, and spent most of our down-time in or near the pool and hot tub.

Palm Springs had just enough to keep us occupied restaurant- and bar-wise along Palm Canyon Drive through downtown.

The heat sapped our strength a bit, so there were no disgustingly-late nights.

I don't know if I could spend longer there, as the heat would get to me, especially considering it's nearly "winter" there. Of course, "winter" in Palm Springs is like night-time on the sun - still way too hot for most normal humans.

REVIEW - Bourbon Steak

Some time ago, celebrated chef Michael Mina moved his eponymous flagship restaurant from the Weston St. Francis Hotel to his old Aqua space. 

After the move, the hotel location was re-branded as Bourbon Steak, and with my brother Lawrence visiting us from the UK, we decided to address his love of steak by visiting Bourbon.

The room is very large, too dark, slightly less classy than it was before the BS overhaul, but overall quite impressive.

Service is almost perfect - a consistent feature in each of Mina's restaurants. The food here however, is only competent, and not stellar.

The three of us each had a different steak, but none of us believed it to be anything like the best steak we'd ever had. Needless to say, Mr. Mina prices his steaks like they are the best you'll ever have.

Overall, a great night out, with enough style to make it a great, special night out, even if you have to go elsewhere for the best steak (e.g. Harris', Lark Creek, or 5&5).

RANT - Benu

Let's just start with a combined gastronimic and economic warning - don't waste your time and hard-earned cash eating at Benu. 

The plaudits garnered from various culture magazines and repeated on Benu's web site must've been written after industrial-sized samplings from the great wine list, rather than experiencing the microscopic scraps of food on the fussy flop of a menu. 

We had the tasting menu - 19 items (yes, 19 items) each - which revealed several things: 

• Way too much time is spent arranging tiny amounts of food into pretty little shapes, and no time at all is spent making sure those ingredients taste good
• The huge feeling of disappointment as each dish is delivered, and each dish cover is removed, doesn't diminish over the 2.5 hours it takes to pick through the menu
• Most of the dishes on the 'tasting' menu have no real taste whatsoever; this is a culinary feat in itself .. using so many normally tasty ingredients and rendering them taste-less
• I'm already repeating myself: the food was taste-less and massively overpriced. 

Service was impeccable, but not good enough to make Benu worth another visit.

REVIEW - Blitz

Well this is a record. Two Jason Statham movies in 3 days!

This one is straight from the bottom of the quality pile, and barely more demanding than an episode of Law and Order. 

To say he's prolific would be a massive understatement, as he's got FIVE films out this year, with three already in the can for release next year. My guess is that most of them are like this shallow piece of drivel, rather than the above average Killer Elite we saw earlier this week.

As they say about Statham, "you just have to take the rough with the, er, rougher".