Object Dart

After reading a slightly negative review of this film on the interweb I didn’t have very high expectations. Which is probably a good thing. I Am Legend is pretty much 28 Days Later meets The Omega Man. And don’t ya just love the way that zombies are always screaming and scary these days?

Will Smith stars as the sole New York survivor of a virus created by Dr Smarty-Pants, and he’s working hard to find the cure. Naturally this isn’t easy, especially when he pisses off some uber-monster. (more…)

I’m guessing you’ve still got loads of ham left over from Christmas? It’s gone off? Too bad. What you should have done is frozen it in meal-sized blocks, then defrosted it on demand! And what better to soak it up with, than a creamy “carbonara”.

I looked this recipe up in the Silver Spoon to settle an old debate I’d had with someone about putting tomato paste in my carbonara. And whaddya know? There is no cream at all in a carbonara. It’s actually a dish distinguished by the combination of eggs, bacon, and black pepper.

A friend insists that a mutual Italian friend of ours “goes ballistic” whenever seeing ‘creamy carbonara’ on a menu. It seems that adding cream is an American thing, and not authentically Italian. So ignore the title above, it’s only to drag in Google hits.

This dish should more authentically be called fettuccine with cream. It isn’t anything like an authentic dish, and is actually copied from a Italian chef I worked with at a pub in Melbourne (and no, it wasn’t a “gastro” pub. It was just a pub with some old soaks on barstools and a bloody great, but simple, menu). He just chucked everything into a pan, and made us a feed. So I’m doing the same. (more…)

Well, I’ve been completely unable to get into this book, despite making it 2/3rds of the way thru.

Effendi is essentially a mystery, with weird sci-fi elements thrown in, and is set in near-future North Africa. And that’s about all I can say for it. What we actually have is a sequel (which could be the main problem), but one that maintains no actual suspense, and in which the characters are balanced in favour of descriptions from the previous novel. And I haven’t read the previous novel…

Grimwood also has an annoying tendency to skip very simple explanations of character movements. By that I mean he’ll, for example, have two characters speaking in a room. One character will move to embrace the other, but he doesn’t say that, he’ll just skip immediately to a description of the way one character can feel the other’s shoulder-blades. It’s confusing, and annoying.

Finally, the book begins by introducing one character and focuses on  him for a good couple of chapters. But, this isn’t the main character! And by the time the main is introduced, it’s not apparent why the protagonist has shifted! Again, confusing and annoying…

As far as romantic comedies (“romcom’s”) go, Priceless isn’t too bad. Fortunately it’s French, so it manages to sneak a little of the farce, and little social commentary in there to let you know it’s not all just shallow old people being ripped off by their toy-boy/girls.

And that’s pretty much the entire story. Audrey Tatou plays a young gold-digger who mistakenly falls into bed with a lowly bartender on her birthday, despite the wealthy older man asleep back in her hotel room. Naturally the bartender (Gad Elmaleh) falls for her, and resolves to win her over. (more…)