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Another birthday, another year, another pride, and another celebration. It happens every year today.
The old birthday tradition is to eat noodle during breakfast for longevity. I chopped some vegetables and made a bowl of noodle, with the salty egg I marinated myself. I wish it had more oil in the egg yolk.
But that would be too boring just eat the noodle, especially I didn’t cook meat in it. So, I cooked my favorite dish, pan seared potato, and I added some baby carrots and pine nuts, to bright it up a little bit. Oh, I also added a tomato flower to make it colorful.
The weather is better compared to the last couple of days — we even got wet roads and very foggy. Today is a little windy, but at least a little warmer. It makes easier for people to bare their skin at the Civic Center for the pride celebration.
The crowd at the Civic Center is not too big today. That will change tomorrow, with a sea of people. I am ready for tomorrow’s parade. I will be on the first float!
Too bad the Russians didn’t stay long enough to have all the fun. They left a few days ago when their president finished the visit of the City last week.
I went to Nara Sushi in my neighborhood for dinner. I have been there numerous times, it never failed me, until today! The albacore toro is still sweet and buttery, but the chef forgot to put ginger and wasabi on my plate! It’s the small stuff, but it shows the standard has been lowered.
However, that’s the small stuff. What disappoints me the most is the quality and quantity in its sashimi deluxe. I had the smallest portion and less tasty fish today, even the soy sauce doesn’t seem have the same quality. I don’t think it’s me. It really has changed. I think I won’t go back there anytime soon. It’s time to look for a new place. Since I am one year older today, as they say, I should be wiser now.
I surely hope so.
Tom Cruise is back! Not only he shakes off the “weight” he puts on in “Tropic Thunder,” but also he acts like a superman in the entertaining “Knight and Day” (USA 2010 | 110 min.), with a full head of hair and a few more winkles around the eyes.
The amazingly capable protagonist is Roy Miller (Tom Cruise), a formal CIA spy now a fugitive. Under the close watchful eyes from the CIA agents, he meets June Havens (Cameron Diaz) at the airport, who is on her way to her sister’s wedding. For reasons unknown to June, as well as to the audience, June is dragged into Roy’s mission to recover a super-powered battery invented by geeky Simon Feck (Paul Dano), and to prevent the battery from falling into European arm manufacturer’s hand. They travel from Boston to a remote island, to Europe, and back to Boston, in fast moving forms of transportation, including airplanes, trains, cars, motorcycles, even on foot. They are constantly under intense fire. Yet, they are always miraculously on time, appear magically where they want to be, and easily accomplish the mission impossible.
Director James Mangold mixes action, romance, comedy, and suspension all together in this film. It seems that his main objective is to entertain the audience, while he holds his breath hoping that nobody asks any question about the holes in the story. He succeeds in the entertaining part, to a degree. The chemistry between Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz also greatly helps his objective and creates comic moments. Without them, the audience will be left no choice but to focus on the sloppy plot.
During the first half of the film, Tom Cruise manipulates Cameron Diaz’s every move as if she is a dummy puppet. Luckily, Diaz emerges and gains control, and shoots. She even tails the incredible Tom Cruise to a restaurant and over hears his whispering behind a closed restaurant window—she must be an undercover spy herself, and she makes Tom Cruise look like a fake, contrary to how he flies around in other scenes!
Wait, let’s not pick on those details. Instead, sit back mindlessly and watch Tom Cruise crashing an airplane. It is actually pretty cool, and a lot fun.
“Knight and Day” opens on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at Bay Area theaters.
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Like the saying goes: “If it disturbs you, it’s art.” That certainly could be said to British director Michael Winterbottom‘s controversial “The Killer Inside Me” (USA 2010 | 109 min.). Despite how you criticize or analyze the undertone of the film’s graphic violence toward women, you will not leave this film without being eerily shaken by the killer inside the protagonist.
The film is based on Jim Thompson‘s pulp fiction novel that is written in 1952, but set in 1958 in a small town in Texas, where people speak as if they have marbles in their mouths.
Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) not only speaks as if he hides something in the mouth, but also with a creepy hoarse sound, even he talks politely and calmly. His late father is the only doctor in town, leaves him the house, the opera disks, plenty books, and many dark secrets.
Chester Conway (Ned Beatty) is a powerful owner of a construction company. His son Elmer (Jay R. Ferguson) is involved with a prostitute Joyce (Jessica Alba). To avoid the exposure of the scandal, Chester bribes Lou to drive Joyce out of town. However, when Lou shows up at Joyce’s door, he falls for her and begins to have rough sex regularly with her, disregards his long time girlfriend Amy (Kate Hudson).
After Lou learns from a union leader that Chester is responsible for his foster brother’s death, he begins plot his masterminded double-crossing scheme to revenge, by unleashing the evil under his dandy appearance. This once quiet little town starts to pile up dead bodies, thanks to the killer inside Lou.
The plot is complex and sometimes confusing. A few flashbacks hardly tell the audiences who they are, much less provide clues for Lou’s behavior. Couple overly stretched horrific violent scenes, which causes the most controversy, make the film look like pornography, on violence.
However, Casey Affleck‘s brilliant portrait of Lou as the cold-blooded serial killer is memorable and chilling. Listening to him talking, you will feel the chill comes up to your head from your spin, especially when he talks charmingly and softly. Some people’s strong reactions to the brutality precisely validate the effectiveness of the character he plays. If Casey Affleck does not have a partner in real life yet, he probably never will after this role, because he is so convincing that people will remember the killer inside of him.
The film creates a monster, and the monster upsets people big time.
“The Killer Inside Me” opens on Friday, June 25, 2010 at Bay Area theaters.
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Silky Tofu, 味道好极了! 