RAVE - Great Band Names

One of the bands appearing recently at one of our local venues, The Parkside, was the fabulously named Rage Against Florence and The Machine.

Their wit reminded me of Jack Black's band in the movie High Fidelity.

They were playing at John Cusack's producer party as Sonic Death Monkey and Black introduced themselves by saying "We're on the verge of being called The Kathleen Turner Overdrive, but tonight we're performing as Barry Jive and The Uptown Five".

RAVE - Vestry

This relatively new place - at least to us - managed to find a spare 30 feet of frontage on Valencia Street, right next door to its sister bar The Chapel. Despite those names' religious overtones, the place is very relaxing, in food and surroundings.

There may be plenty of places where its possible to dine on pate, meatballs, burgers and so on - even on the same block - but The Vestry proved to be a very agreeable place to have all of those.

RAVE - CBGBs

I learned several things watching this film.

First, CBGB stood for Country Bluegrass and Blues - none of which featured in the real-life club, or this movie.

Second, American use of the word Punk to describe music is very different from the way it's used in England. For me, Punk means The Stranglers, Sex Pistols, The Damned, and so on. For Americans, it's more of a punk-ish attitude, rather than music and fashion movements. That's the only excuse I can find for featuring performances by Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith, David Byrne, and (ha ha) Sting, all of whom would get thrown out of any decent Punk band for being too dull.

Alright, the club did see the birth of The Ramones, and played host to early Lou Reed and Iggy Pop (or at least the film did), and so deserved its notoriety.

Alan Rickman was perfect as the legendary club's owner, Hilly Kristal, and despite my irrational bias against anything that professes to be about the birth of Punk yet leaves out the British contingent, I still enjoyed this movie.

RAVE - Escamoles in Mexico City

Spending a week in Mexico City consisted of at least three hours every day bumping around in nose to tail traffic from meeting to meeting in a taxi, with the occasional respite of an interesting meal in the company of some fine hosts.

One such meal I was cajoled into trying last week was Escamoles, the larvae of ants harvested from the roots of the Agave tequila plant. Frankly, how they're harvested is hardly the point. They're ants eggs for heck's sake.

But surprise surprise (especially for those hosts who were certain I'd turn my nose up at these insects) they tasted great, and easy to eat once I'd pecked gingerly at the first spoonful. Apparently, they're best cooked in oil and butter, they look like small pieces of corn, and taste like nutty cottage cheese.

I don't believe they'll ever take the place of a good packet of smokey bacon crisps, but if I'm stranded in the Mexican desert any time, I'll know where to look for a snack.

RAVE - Philomena

This, along with Nebraska and The Invisible Woman, makes a trio of laid back, downright gentle films that have come along lately and while each of them was rewarding, Philomena stood out with its heart-rending story and wonderful script.

Steve Coogan plays a world-weary journalist who - because he's got nothing else going on - decides to pursue the human interest story of Judy Dench, an Irish Catholic who's young child was sold by the nuns from the convent in which she was forced to live as a single, pregnant woman. That story leads the two to track down her son who has grown up in the USA.

It's funny, touching, and an enjoyable movie that reminds us what a great writer Steve Coogan is, and how dirty the Catholic church can be when it puts its mind to it.

RAVE - Nebraska

Bruce Dern plays a decrepit old guy who believes the Publishers Clearing House-type mailer that informs him he's won a million dollars. His secret isn't kept for long. He journeys from Montana to Nebraska with his son, to pick up his alleged winnings, and everyone he bumps into congratulates him on being a millionaire.

There were dozens of fabulous lines, including my favorite: Woody (Bruce Dern's) wife [upon learning Woody has "won" a million dollars] "I never knew the son of a bitch even wanted to be a millionaire! He should have thought about that years ago and got a job!"

This was a gentle, very un-Hollywood-like film. Wry, dry, easy-going fun.

RAVE - American Hustle

You've seen the trailers: Christian Bale as Irving Rosenfeld, sporting an elaborate comb-over, hefty gut and a wicked way with the con; Bradley Cooper, FBI investigator and a bit of a horse's ass; Jennifer Lawrence, Rosenfeld's deceptively dumb blonde wife; Amy Adams, Rosenfeld's co-conspirator and lover; and Jeremy Renner as an is-he-crooked-or-not Mayor - a great cast.

But it's not the thriller the trailers would have us believe. It's about the relationship between Rosenfeld and his wife, between Rosenfeld and his lover, between all three of them and the FBI, and how those relationships all play out with the Mayor.

A generous RAVE then, because it wasn't a complete success. Mrs P and I were both looking at our watches after a half hour, but it ended up an enjoyable if imperfect movie.

REVIEW - The Invisible Woman

We could not have picked a different movie to the previous night's Wolf of Wall Street. Rather than a film about money, with a lot of sex going on, The Invisible Woman was a film about sex, with virtually nothing going on.

Set in the 1830s, It's the story of a middle-aged Charles Dickens and his love affair with an 18-year old fan. Ralph Fiennes is impeccable as Dickens, the father of 10 who became bored with his long-suffering wife, and took a fancy to Nelly Ternan, played by Felicity Jones.

It's tough picking out the high points here because, aside from superb acting there was very little going on worth talking about.

A gentle movie, soporific even. It was tough watching this in the fully reclining leather chairs at The Embarcadero theater zzzzzzzz.

REVIEW - The Wolf of Wall Street

This was that rare example of a great film that I just could not enjoy.

It was 'great' thanks to the direction - Martin Scorsese does nasty characters better than most; the acting - Leonardo Di Caprio filled the role of crooked stockbroker Jordan Belfort with gusto, and even the otherwise lightweight Jonah Hill proved he's more than just a tubby chuckler; and the story - based on that of the real life swindler who conned hundreds of millions out of mostly modest investors in the 80s all should have made for a thrilling 3 hours of movie magic.

But it didn't. At least for me. I just couldn't see past the revolting character that was Jordan Belfort.

Somehow, Johnny Depp as the cocaine dealer George Jung in Blow, or Al Pacino as Tony Montana in Scarface, even Pacino and Robert De Niro as Vito Corleone in the Godfather series all managed for me to be ruthless in a way that didn't seem to interfere with my enjoyment. But Di Caprio's character really disturbed me - his callousness, debauchery, and sheer ahole-ness just ruined this film. And maybe that criticism should be leveled mainly at Scorsese, who seemed to revel in all this excess, almost celebrating the depths to which these brokers had sunk.

REVIEW - Fruitvale Station

Fruitvale Station is the Bay Area subway stop where, on New Year's Eve 2008, Oscar Grant, a 22 year old black guy was shot and killed by a subway cop.

The film paints a pretty positive picture of Grant, a good father, a decent guy. However, that picture takes rather too long to develop, and like most people, Grant's life is fairly tedious. 

That is, until New Year's Eve, when he, his girlfriend, and half a dozen other friends take the subway to see San Francisco's New Year's Eve fireworks show. On the way back, Grant gets involved in an altercation with another subway rider, and when that altercation breaks out on onto the platform at Fruitvale, so steam in the uniforms.

While the real life and death drama was played out in our local news media, the film deals sympathetically with the challenges of growing up without money or a white skin.

It was a sad and all too frequent story about life in America, and I really ought to be as sympathetic as the film's director.

RANT - Riddick

I've no idea where we are in the not so grand scheme of things in Riddick's world, but this episode covers a period when he's trying to escape from some distant and inhospitable planet - and if you think that sounds very much like every other Riddick film, you'd be correct.

I hate movies that are shot entirely in virtual darkness. This one was, and while I didn't exactly hate it, it did very little to improve the New York to San Francisco flight I was on. I'm afraid that Diesel's permanently gravelly votive does nothing for me, neither does his ongoing predicament.

Even the monsters were blah.

REVIEW - Runner Runner

Justin Timberlake plays a Princeton student, studying for his masters in Math. He's drawn - apparently like lot of students - into online gambling where he loses his modest, but entire savings that had been accrued to cover his school fees.

He decides to visit Costa Rica, the lair of Ivan Block (Ben Afleck), the guy who runs the casino that operates he online site that Timberlake believes cheated him out of is his savings. Timeberlake's innate brilliance results in a job offer from Block. This leads to success, fortune, yachts and babes, and interest from the FBI.

Predictably - like much of this movie - things go from bad to worse, as the ante is upped. It all plays out to its telegraphed conclusion.

In Loving Memory - Dad

It's now a little over six months since my Father passed away.

Seeing our Dad in his diminished health over the past few years could lead us to forget what he was like when healthy, and younger.

He was always an honest, hard worker, qualities that he invested in us, his children.

Right from his youth, he worked hard. First at an Insurance company, a time we only know of from his telling us stories. Like the time he was counseled by his manager not to whistle while he worked. Apparently, that was not the done thing!

Then, when he used to take one or more of us boys out with him when he delivered meat while working at FMC. We remember those road trips in the big white truck, and being waved at as we peered out of the truck's windows as Dad toured around the West Country.

Even later, when he used to cycle around doing his postman deliveries early in the morning (far too early for us to see him go), and then come back and haul his ladders out onto his window-cleaning round in the afternoons. We saw him then, and each of his boys have tried that job out with much less enthusiasm than Dad.

But little is ever said about his sporting prowess. Mostly because he didn't have much actual prowess. But nevertheless he was an enthusiastic participant in our games of football and cricket at the local park. For the early years he showed us how to play, showing us just how to dribble and pass a ball, or giving us the lead with his "unorthodox" fast bowling. His action was not a thing of beauty, but it certainly was loaded with effort and determination.

When advancing years called for something slower, he would give us his "Rocket Rod" moves at the snooker table.

But what he should be remembered for are not his 147 breaks - because there weren't any - but his willingness to do anything for anyone, like ferrying family, friends and acquaintances around to get them wherever they needed to be.

That he did these things always with a smile on his lips is something we'll remember.

Dad, we love you and miss you.

Rachel, Mandy, Lawrence, Stephen, and Philip

RANT - Border Run

The film featured Sharon Stone. Both were tired (her and the film), derivative (like half an episode of The Bridge), and drawn out (most scenes played out for too long).

The plot - for what it's worth - A female American reporter searches for her missing brother against the backdrop of violence and human smuggling across the US/Mexican border. 

But don't bother.

RANT - The Conjuring

This was immensely forgettable. Dull even.

I've already forgotten the lame plot.

It committed that most heinous of let-downs for a horror movie - it was just not scary.

RAVE - Closed Circuit

An overly familiar title - although, with movie producers clearly employing thesauri to name their products, that's not a massive shock.

Stars Eric Bana - why employ an Australian actor to play an English barrister? I know a couple of barristers (unprofessionally, of course) who are nothing like the prissy smart asses played by Bana and Rebecca Hall.

The film is about a terrorist bomb in London. Bana is the defendant's attorney, Hall is the defendant's personal advocate.

I really liked the story: serious, unpredictable, and well told - despite the category of 'terrorist court drama' not being underpopulated.

RANT - Ginger Baker at Yoshi's

I was sooo looking forward to seeing the legendary drummer Ginger Baker at Yoshi's I guess I was bound to be disappointed. And boy was I.

Not only was he a miserable old git. He didn't play any Cream or Blind Faith stuff, and what he did play he seemed hardly into. He just showed up, shuffled onto his seat, made some cursory, sour-puss remarks, and tap tap tapped on his kit.

The line-up - saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, bassist Alec Dankworth (son of Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine) and percussionist Abass Dodoo (who for me, was much the better drummer on stage).

A thoroughly underwhelming night, and I felt I'd wasted my good lady's evening by dragging her out in the hope of seeing what used to get me bopping back in the day.

RANT - Pacific Rim

I really should stick to my rule and steer clear of superheroes, robots, and gussied up kid's characters.

Like indoor fireworks whose 'excitement' is inversely proportionate to the advertising - this film was all crash-bang-wallop and no content. It's full of over-the-top, human-driven, giant robot-like machines that are invented to counter Godzilla-like monsters that come spewing from beneath the earth's crust.

The explosions are non-stop and extremely tiresome. The acting is juvenile, as is the target audience.

REVIEW - The Lone Ranger

Surprisingly enjoyable if a little frothy re-re-telling of one of our schoolboy favorites - provided your schooldays occurred in, as Arthur Askey used to say, nineteen hundred and frozen to death.

The story was irrelevant. It was all about the fabulous scenery and the light-hearted script. And Johnny Depp's makeup. As Tonto he stole this one. Arnie Hammer was so-so as The Lone Ranger, but it hardly mattered.

So, not a great movie, although perhaps not as much of a stinker as most critics would have us believe.

RAVE - Dallas Buyers Club

In 1985 Dallas, Matthew McConaughey is diagnosed with AIDS. He's a hard-drinking, hard-living racist Redneck, and a homophobe.

When he learns he only has a month to live, he tries to get into a drug trial program at his hospital, only to find supplies are short and he's not allowed into the program at all.

He researches the current state of drug treatments to find that the most successful is AZT, but it's still in its trial phase in the US. His search for a supply of AZT leads him to Mexico, where he is able to buy enough of the drug to treat himself, and a long line of similar patients back in the US.

He dodges drug-smuggling laws by setting up a buyers' club, where members pay to join but get their medicines for free.

McConaughey is so good in this role that its a shame to see him pop up in those occasional RomCom rubbish flicks he does because he so desperately needs the cash.

REVIEW - Hunger Games - Catching Fire

The Hunger Games franchise is, for me a bit too like a Young Adults book - not quite young enough to take the ankle biters to see, and not quite adult enough to be genuinely gripping. Exactly like the Harry Potter movies therefore, a series that exasperates me just as much.

The premise was fine - a select group of combatants are deposited inside a giant dome, where they're meant to fight to the death. Sounds all grown up? Nah, it wasn't.

And just like the first installment, this episode again ended with the equivalent of a car rocking on a a cliff edge - clumsily poised for yet another Hunger Games movie (and another after that). In the anticipation league, these are so unlike the Jason Bourne series, or even the Planet of the Apes for heaven's sake.

I'll have to remember to look up this review later this year, when the Hunger Games - Mockinjay Part 1 is rolled out.

REVIEW - All Is Lost

Sailing single-handed in the Indian Ocean, or anywhere for that matter, must be genuinely exciting. So how this movie was such a snooze-fest is beyond me.

Robert Redford is the lone sailor and actor (with practically no dialog), and even though I don't think the film intended to paint him as a poorly-prepared sailor, the number of faults with his boat and its equipment meant he was doomed from the moment he set sail.

After the genuine accident of having his boat collide with a shipping container, and partly patching up the damage, not only does his navigation system fail, but so does his radio. Then his life-raft fails, and he is unable to contact a couple of nearby ships with his emergency flares.

These mistakes angered me as a viewer from the comparative safety of my theater seat, and reminded me never to go to sea on my own, or with Robert Redford.

REVIEW - Rush

Another example of how building one's hopes up too high can often lead to severe disappointment.

I'm a huge Formula One fan, so a film by the normally ultra-reliable Ron Howard, with Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl as drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda ought to have been a very watchable sports movie. But it just wasn't.

Maybe because I've seen so much of F1 over the years, both live, on TV, and in film, there was nothing new in this. Yes, it was set in the 70s, so it wouldn't necessarily be new, but still ....

One unforgivable omission was the sense of really being in a race car, driving at close to 200 miles per hour.

It was interesting seeing the deadly rivalry between the two main drivers, which led to Lauda's crash and the fire that permanently scarred him. But Bruhl's portrayal of Lauda - perhaps accurate - being such a self-centered, unpleasant individual left me with little sympathy for his character.

All in all, a wasted opportunity. I guess that's what you get when you leave the directing job to a person that knows relatively little about the sport.

RANT - Out of the Furnace

A great cast (Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson, Casey Afleck, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker - the list goes on) wasted on a dark, dour film that had some high spots, but ones that were overshadowed by the whole, heavy piece.

Bale and Afleck live in a depressed steel mill town - Bale works at the mill, Afleck is recently returned from Afghanistan. Afleck tries to earn some money fist fighting and ends up running foul of local hick Harrelson, who runs fights in dilapidated country barns while dealing drugs to his fellow hicks.

But they all live miserable lives, and this ended up a miserable film.

RANT - The Last Days on Mars

This film squanders two story lines of which I'm normally a big fan - Science Fiction, and Zombies.

The crew is supervising the final days of an expedition to collect samples on Mars, but while nosing around collecting bacteria, they start losing their co-travelers to a zombie-like disease.

But hey, I said those threads were squandered. By lackluster action, zero plot, and dull scenery (even for Mars).

RAVE - Gravity

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

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

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

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

RAVE - Captain Phillips

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

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

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

RANT - The Butler

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

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

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

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

RANT - 2 Guns

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

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

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

RAVE - World War Z

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

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

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - Boyz II Men in Vegas

Where do I begin?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - The Iceman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - Amber India

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

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - 42

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RANT - Terracotta "Army" at Asian Art Museum

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - Luis Suarez

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - Blackstreet, at Yoshi's

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - Blackwood

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

REVIEW - Graceland

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - The Promised Land

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

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

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

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

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

RANT - Errors of The Human Body

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

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

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - St Vincent

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

The food was good, while not being spectacular.

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - Erased

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

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

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

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

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

RANT - Oblivion

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

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

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

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

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

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

One that I keenly felt watching this dull film. 

REVIEW - Antiviral

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

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

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

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

But its lethargic pace stops Antiviral from truly breaking out.

REVIEW - The Numbers Station

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

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

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

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

RAVE - Beware of Mr Baker

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

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

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

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

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

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

RAVE - Sociale

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

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

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

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

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

REVIEW - The Place Beyond The Pines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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