The Void and Neztra

So yesterday was my birthday. No, no...if you didn't remember on the date, don't bother showering me with expensive gifts today. They will buy you no leverage with me on the 30th of the month...

B-days are supposed to be fun, right? So guess where I spent my 32nd birthday, pondering the meaning of life in my thirties, why I am where I am in life, etc. and more. Nope, you probably guessed wrong.

Let me start off by saying that procrastination is sort of a personal challenge for me. In business, I am Miss Pro-Active, but in my personal life, not so much. So it was not surprising to anyone who knows me personally when I announced that I had to get my Texas driver's license because it was expiring on my birthday.

Unfortunately, getting Homeland Security clearance when I worked at the Federal Reserve Bank was easier than getting my Texas driver's license. Forms of ID needed to procure a license:

1. Birth certificate
2. Soc. Sec. card
3. Two other random and obscure forms of ID - take your pic - two years worth of insurance policy history, a voter's registration card, marriage license, the list continues.

I won't go into too many details, but here's the timeline:

DMV - 20 minutes
Tag Office - 20 minutes
DMV (again) - 20 minutes
Social Security Office - 2 hours
Home (getting insurance company to fax me pages and more pages worth of documentation) - 45 hour
DMV (for the third time) - 1 hour
Travel time between destinations - about a half hour all total. Thankfully, the various offices are all located within five to ten miles of each other.

Since visiting government offices is something I avoid like the dentist, gynecologist and all cheesy self-help books combined, it is safe to say that five hours dealing with bureaucracy was not a fun way to spend my birthday. However, at the end of it all, I have my license, a receipt for the registration on my car (that I threw away a month ago by accident apparently), voter status in TX, a new copy of my social security card that has been missing for the past ten years and a new sense of relief that I should not be forced to visit any of these offices again any time soon. So, all in all, I came out on top....I guess.

I'm going to make this review short and sweet if I can - the way I wish this movie had been. Can you see where this is going?

The only thing that would make this film watchable would be booze. Lots of booze. Will Ferrell is like cotton candy - good in small doses and during very select times of the year. He has made some gems over the years - My favorites are probably not your favorites. I liked Elf and Anchorman to name a couple. But like cotton candy, too much Ferrell is sickening and begins to be the same old flat, one-dimensional flavor after the first five minutes.

There is a scene in this movie where one of the characters tells Will Ferrell that they want to punch him, just because his face makes them want to punch him. That's usually how I feel about John C. Reilly. He may be a perfectly nice person, but he usually just annoys me. If Will Ferrell is a one-dimensional actor, Reilly is usually 1/2 of a dimensional actor. Physically impossible you say? I say not. However, for once, I didn't hate John C. Reilly. He was the better of the two main actors in this film.

Yes, there were some funny moments, but, and maybe I am just getting too old for this stuff, my 32 birthday is tomorrow, after all, but after the first half hour, it was just more and more of the same, with a dash of scrotum and a pinch of bicycle abuse thrown in for good measure.

1.5 very generous winks.

This past weekend, I trekked up to Addison to join my buds HP Sauce (of Randomosity and the Girl fame) and BLN for dinner (drinks) and a movie at Studio Movie Grill. It is beginning to be a regular thing for HP Sauce and I and now that BLN has joined us, our little circle of hilarity is complete. We had a blast. I don't think I have laughed that hard in a bit. Good buds that you can be yourself with - there's just nothing better.

So we decided to watch the Dark Knight and due to the hype we kept reading, we decided to pre-order our tickets. Good thing - the theater was packed!

So the hype, we all heard about how great this film was going to be way back in February and began to hear rumors of Oscar nods to Heath Ledger for his role as the Joker shortly after his passing. The cynic in me dreaded watching this film for fear of finding out that the hype was just that - hype.

Two and a half hours later, when the credits rolled up, all I could do was sit there in amazement for a moment. For once, the cynic in me had nothing to chortle about. The film lived up to ever bit of the hype. I was astounded, astonished, amazed - basically unable to think of enough alliterative words to decribe my state.

The Batman: I've always had a thing for Christian Bale, or maybe just Chirstian Bale's abs. No, definitely the whole package. He's a great actor, chooses interesting roles that are well suited to him and is gorgeous. As the Batman, he is nothing to scoff at and in this film, he delivered as usual, however, he was overshadowed by -

The Joker: We all knew Heath Ledger was a wonderful actor with a bright and promising future, but I never saw him come alive in a role the way he did as the Joker. Every head shake, every quirk and mannerism, every well-timed, nuanced and crafted phrase was another peek into the psyche of a bigger-than-life, but strangely, very realistic villain and madman. At the end of the film, I was left wanting more. I wanted to know more about what drove him to that place in life and whether any of his strange testimonies of heartbreak leading to a carved up face were real or all lies. I am sure there are plenty of Batman fans out there who know the story of the Joker from his birth to death, but I am just a casual Batfan, so bear with me if I am ill-informed. This review is about this movie specifically, not about the whole Batman story/franchise.

Best Scene in the film: The Joker's exodus from the hospital. Hilarious in very small ways and some really big ways.

All together, the acting was incredible, the music score phenominal and the pacing was surprisingly good for a 2 1/2 hour movie with not one, but two villianous plot lines and more connected scenes that I can even remember.

This is a keeper and the best film I have seen thus far this year. 4.75 winks out of 5.

You would think that with a title like Funny Games, this might be a fairly harmless little film, boring maybe, but unable to affect the viewer on any deep level. If you think that, you are playing right into the director's hands. That is pretty much the theme of this film - the audience playing into the director's hands.

This suspense thriller that morphs into so much more is about a sweet little family vacation that goes horribly wrong when two psychotic young men happen upon the family's cabin on a lake. And you are clued into this from the first five minutes when a cute little game of "name that opera composer" in the car turns into the name of the film, in bright red letters across the entire screen, with ear piercingly raw rock music (or noise if you are like me) screeching through your speakers.

Let's start with the pros:

1. The acting: Naomi Watts and Tim Roth are incredible in this film. Michael Pitt and Brady Cobert are creepy and in some ways, downright hilarious, but totally believable at the same time.
2. The interesting visual perspectives, pacing and, in some ways, radical departures from traditional film culture.

Cons:

1. The violence. I won't go into details for anyone who wants to actually watch this movie, but I will say that this film acheived what I am sure the director hoped it would: nausea. Keep in mind, the actual blood and gore in this film is surprisingly pretty tame. Especially compared to slasher/gore films of late. But what is more terrifying is the very realistic potential for violence in the two young men and their utter lack of a sense of normal moral code. It is terrifying in its plausability. I am assuming that this film was not meant so much to be a scary movie, but more of a comment on scary movies and the audiences that flock to needlessly violent films and have been so numbed to their affect that only the most radical threat of violence can get through the audience's hard shell.
2. The pacing. I know, I just got done saying that it was a pro. And in some ways it is, but, and again, I believe this was intentional, there are points in this film where you want to scream "get on with it!" at the screen.
3. The feeling I was left with when the film was over. Again, I am not going to ruin it for anyone who wants to watch the film, so I'll say no more.

All in all, I am having a really hard time rating this movie. For film buffs, I think this is a gem, but for the average viewing audience, it just isn't good entertainment and I can't recommend this to someone looking for a fun evening in with popcorn and friends. Bottom line - you've been warned - watch at your own risk.

For film buffs: 3.5 winks
For everyone else: 2.5 winks

I love getting up on a weekend morning and to make pancakes for everyone at home. Everyone is fresh, well-rested and happy early in the morning and a nice, leisurely pancake breakfast is such a great way to spend time with people I care about. The only problem is, pancakes can be a little bit time-consuming sometimes. So the solution I have devised over the years is to use a pancake mix, jazzed up with my special blend of additional ingredients to make pancakes that taste like they are from scratch. So here it is.... my weekend Strawberry pancake recipe:

2 cups of good quality just-add-water pancake mix
1 1/2 cups water
2 cups chopped fresh strawberries
2 Tbsp. dark brown sugar
4 Tbsp. melted butter
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine all of the ingredients, adding the water gradually. You don't want to have overly thin pancake mix, so you may have to revise the water you add to the mix to suit your own needs. Don't overstir - the batter should just come together. I like the batter to be a little thicker with all the strawberries in it so that the batter cooks faster. It is less likely to burn.

Ladle 1/4 cups of batter per pancake on a griddle over medium heat.

That's all there is to it. These pancakes taste much better than out of the box pancakes and only take about ten minutes longer to make. Enjoy!

I don't know what has happened to me lately, but the Fourth of July weekend finally broke my distaste for beer. Historically, I have never been a drinker of beer. Sure, when at a party or barbecue and there is nothing else to drink, I've been known to imbibe, but when strolling down the aisles of my local booze boutique, I rarely head for the beer section. A good bottle of reisling, gewurtztrameiner, merlot or cab is usually in my basket along with a bottle of Malibu Rum and fixings for some fruity-tooty cocktails, but rarely do I slip a six-pack of lager into the mix unless I am having beer-drinking buds over.

A few months ago, a work buddy of mine introduced me to Budweiser Select. Not my favorite drink, but something I decided I could actually enjoy if I were forced to drink beer. Then the weekend before last, my little bro conned me into drinking a bottle of Becks. Yum! So fourth of July weekend, I decided to be a good little American and buy some beer, for ME to drink at our family barbecue. And I enjoyed it! So I guess, in my 30's, I have finally aquired a taste for beer.

I don't know whether to be disappointed with myself or resigned to my fate as a barley-hound.

Still - I love a good cocktail. Here's a couple I concocted for my mum this past weekend. She said they were (and I quote) "aweshum". She was feeling no pain at that point...

Tropical Twilight (hey! my drink - I get to name it)
2 oz. Malibu Rum
.5 oz. Dark Rum
Juice of 1/2 lime
3 oz. coke or diet coke
2.5 oz. 7up or diet 7up
1/2 tsp. raw sugar
crushed ice
sugar cane swizzle stick or regular swizzle stick.

Squeeze the juice of 1/2 a lime into a large tumber. Add the raw sugar and stir.

Add crushed ice to fill 1/3 of the glass.

Pour in the malibu rum, dark rum, and 7Up. Shake a little to combine.
Gently pour the coke on top of the other ingredients. If you do this right, you'll have a nice gradient of light to dark from the bottom of the glass to the top.

Add the swizzle stick down the side of the glass, but do not stir. Serve.

I'll try to take a picture and add it so that you all can see what it looks like. It is yummy!

Second drink I made this weekend:

Sun Beams (working title - this is a sort of less sweet, more punchy pina colada)
2 oz. dark rum
1/2 oz. triple sec
2.5 oz. pineapple juice
1 oz. coconut milk
2 oz. orange juice
juice of 1 small lime
crushed ice
3 Pineapple chunks and a slice of lime for garnish
swizzle stick

In a large tumbler, shake together rum, triple sec and crushed ice (enough to fill the glass 1 3rd of the way).
Add the pineapple juice, coconut milk, orange juice and all but 1 tsp of the lime juice. Stir well.
Float the last tsp. of lime juice on top of the glass. Stick the pineapple chunks on the swizzle stick and submerge into the liquid. Float the lime slice on top of the drink. Serve.

Across the Universe - starring Rachel Evan Wood, Jim Sturgess, etc.

I have to admit it -I am a huge fan of the Beatles. One of my first memories as a child was my father playing the guitar and singing "If I Fell". From that time on, the Beatles music became the soundtrack of my youth. So when I heard that a movie made been made featuring Beatles music, I was thrilled! Then I got sidetracked and never made it to the theater to see the movie. Then it came out on DVD and I forgot about it. So when I went to my local Blockbuster this weekend and saw this title, I snagged it.

I wasn't dissappointed. Filled with emotional snapshots of the late sixties focused on the war in Vietnam and the social upheaval as a result here in the USA, this film was a feast for the emotions: joy, wonder, awe, sadness, anger, frustration and love, this film envokes it all.

Cleverly thrown in are characters that mirror some of the biggest names in music in the 1960's - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and more.

Also featured was Eddie Izzard, who is quite possibly one of my favorite celeb personalities.

I may be one of a few since I didn't hear a lot about this movie when it came out, but I loved it and will most likely see it over and over. 4.25 winks.

Since I avoid movie theaters on holidasy weekends as if they are filled with ravenous, brain-material craving zombies with a special penchance for the flesh of 30-something women, I do not have any "now in theaters" movies to review this week. However, my Blockbuster account is still active, so I rented some DVDs instead.

Speaking of Blockbuster, has anyone noticed the particular frenzy that is Friday night at Blockbuster? People are nuts. Say you are reading the back of the latest Harry Potter movie on DVD and it happens to be the last one on the shelf. People will hover over you, waiting to see if you will put the movie back on the shelf or not.

Sometimes I mess with them a little bit. I'll just stand there, with the movie in my hands, reading the back for about five minutes while they circle me like a voracious vulture. Sometimes I'll hold on to the DVD, even if I am not planning to rent it. I know....I think I have an evil streak sometimes...

So, on to movie reviews. Pickings were slim this weekend and the reviews will reflect that.

The Signal - starring people that are somewhat decent actors, but relatively unattractive and so, apparently unmarketable to the average film viewer and thus, totally unfamous.

This is one of those movies that I expected to be sort of terrible. Image my surprise when I found that not only was this movie well directed and fairly well acted, but, for a horror movie, boasted a fair level of social consciousness and depth, even with an incredibly ambiguous storyline. The first section "Transmission 1" was eerie and terrifying. "Transmission 2" was hilarious and ridiculous, in a great way. "Transmission 3" was the weakest of the three secitons of the movie, but still did a good job of wrapping up.

All in all, I give this 3.5 winks.

More to come...