REVIEW - Boyz II Men in Vegas

Where do I begin?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - The Iceman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - Amber India

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

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - 42

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RANT - Terracotta "Army" at Asian Art Museum

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - Luis Suarez

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - Blackstreet, at Yoshi's

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - Blackwood

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

REVIEW - Graceland

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - The Promised Land

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

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

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

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

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

RANT - Errors of The Human Body

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

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

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

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

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

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