Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

Pulplike, noirish, Bollywood-with-no-dancing, marvelously multicultural, set in beautifully detailed historical Calcutta, and 100% awesome!! A mad scientist, a supervillain, a femme fatale, an engaging detective, and a couple of truly wicked fight scenes.

See it on the big screen if you can; there's enough loving attention in the background details to reward it. It's currently playing in Eden Prairie and will probably disappear from theatres fast.

I had a week, I know I did!

I pretty much recovered from the bout of parapertussis this week (thank you, antibiotics!), and so I was actually able to be a bit productive, and also to socialize a bit. Still more tired than usual. I can tell my body was/is still working to clear out the last bits of bacterial crud.

Immediately before I got sick, I finished my Short Story of Unusual Size. Normally, I try to take a couple of days off after finishing a project, partly to refill the creativity well and partly to give a lick and a promise to all the other writing-related tasks that I tend to fall behind on. The sick ate my recharge time, so I took a couple of days on the other end of it. Most of that, I spent writing updates on things that I wanted to get down--con reports, child at age X months, etc.

Then I got to restart Circus of Brass and Bone AKA the Way Overdue Project! Or at least to finish up my re-read (with minor revisions), figure out what needed to get wrapped up, and plot the grand finale. That was difficult, after so much time away from the project. As I commented over on Facebook, I had a plan for how to do that, but my plan was, "Make a plan." Not so useful! A couple of months ago, Pat helped me to realize that what I thought was the climax wasn't the actual focus of the plot arc and so should be a quiet postlude instead of the big finale, but it took post-its filled with threats to hash out what would actually work well. Not threats to me, but all the perils and threats pointed at different characters. I rearranged the post-its, added solutions or results, and I finally got a conclusion that I was happy with. Next up: writing the damn thing.

[ . . . And coming back to this post and trying to write it while sitting outside and letting Cassius play in our back yard and pick ALL the raspberries. He still needs interaction, though, so this may be a little scattered.]



Life at home has become more exciting because Theia's made a big developmental leap from "wiggling a bit on her tummy" to "crawling across rooms in 30 seconds flat." Keeping her safe just became a lot harder, and keeping the floors and other low surfaces clean and child-proofed just became a lot more important. Having an almost-three-year-old who likes to carry around his choking hazard toys and deposit them wherever makes this more challenging. It is really cute watching her chase balls across the room, though. Or cats. Or Cassius (especially when he's also army-crawling so that they can play "Snakey"). Now that she's moving around a lot, I can tell that she's also losing weight. She's becoming a skinny baby, just like her big brother. Sigh. She's also lost patience with most of the baby-containment devices, which makes doing anything else around the house more challenging.

I saw Chef, now playing at the Lagoon, on my monthly movie date with E. Five stars! Cleverly written, populated by an amazing cast, extremely funny, truly heart-warming, and filled with delicious foodie moments. My only complaint is that the wrap-up had maybe a touch too much childhood-wish-fulfillment, in a way that might be a sore spot for kids who have that wish but won't get it fulfilled. Regardless, highly, highly recommended, especially if you need something to cheer you up. For bonus points, plan on going out for dinner at a place with good tortas afterward.

Other things, in summary: vegan waffles yay!, breakfast with C., yay!; Phil working way too many hours, boo!; all the raspberries, holy cow!

I was able to get advanced tickets to see Europa Report (yes, the *other* sci-fi movie that starts with an E!) a couple of days ago. If you're in the mood for a science fiction movie that's a relatively pure science fiction movie, not an action movie, I recommend seeing it. It's set up as part "documentary," part live footage, but this isn't like any space documentary you'll see in a planetarium. Oh, and pay attention to the time stamp in the first scene, as that will help with your chronological disorientation. Time, spatial, and plot expectations are all things that the directors are going to be screwing with.

If you're in the Twin Cities, this is running for a weeklong limited engagement.

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=128377

Okay, so...RED is what happens when you take a dark, grim Warren Ellis graphic novel and turn it into a Romancing the Stone-style romantic comedy. With a dash of "old skool bad-asses can still kick your ass."

The real surprise is how well it works. The actors are phenomenal (which shouldn't be surprising when you see the cast list), the banter is hilarious, and the romance has chemistry. I loved this movie. I was giggling with glee in the theater...and I wasn't the only one. There is violence, but though a lot of bullets are fired and a fair number of people are taken out, the grue factor is quite low.

Highly recommended, a good cheer-you-up movie.

It's kind of a bad thing when Paris Hilton's performance is the best one in the movie. (To be fair, it was a very good performance for her.) Repo: The Genetic Opera tries for a slick, gaudy, splatterpunk musical, and it succeeds in being about one-quarter as awesome as it thinks it is. Alas, that's not enough to elevate it above a "Meh, not so good," movie. The graphic novel pages they use to explain the plot are awesome; the movie's main action, not so much. Exception the first: If you're into fetish costuming, you should see it--just try to ignore the badly scripted dialog, er, lyrics. Exception the second: This is your movie if you think seeing Giles from Buffy being dark and evil (but with a heart of gold) would be super-hot.

If you have the urge to see a dark musical, see Sweeney Todd instead. I give Repo a C-.

Verdict: Not a bad popcorn action/sci-fi movie, but not noticeably better seen in theatres than rented later. Worth putting in your Netflix queue.





( Mild spoilers that you would figure out really quickly anyway, if you haven't already just from seeing the trailer )

• 00:08 Uploaded a ton of gorgeous food and flower photos: www.flickr.com/photos/aswiebe/ #
• 07:03 So far, the flaw in my bike commute plan is that it means I can't carry a mug of hot tea. Mornings with *no* caffeine? Ack! #
• 14:27 ++Ate leftover chocolate ice cream at work during break. #
• 14:27 --My master plan to bike home was flawed; my very wobbly bike pedal almost fell off. Had to bus most of the way. #
• 14:29 Attempting to fix bike was a humbling experience. Couldn't get pedal entirely on. Couldn't unbolt bike seat to replace. And where to grease? #
• 16:39 Multi-tasking means cleaning up photos while listening to sci-fi podcast and either folding laundry or shredding old docs. #
• 21:40 My left knee now bends as far as my right knee! WA-HOO!!!! (knee surgery will change your perspective) #
• 21:43 Mountain Dew Supernova ("trial" flavor) tastes a lot like grape/cherry freezee pops. #
• 22:13 The Descent: of the "startle" horror ilk, the basic elements are scary before they add the extras, Argento-like sense of light, shadow, gore #

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Home from Wisconsin. Gathered truly excessive quantities of loot, mostly from The Mad Scientist, who really did go craaaazy (list forthcoming). Himself spent quality time with his godson and niece. I managed to stay mostly sane, despite lack of internet access for most of the visit. I also caught a nasty cold (or brought it with me); today was worse than yesterday, so I'm hoping tomorrow's better!

Driving in was interesting, since we had about 10 feet of visibility in front of the car in the fog--that same night his parents hit, killed, and field-dressed a deer (and an uncle took it off to be mounted after butchering it the next day).

I had the usual culture-clash issues, but mostly everything went well, and I only had to step up (against general conservative red-neckedness) a couple of times, in a mostly unobtrusive way. His grandmother is growing crotchety and senile (as mine already have).

Came back and were greatly pleased to discover house unburnt, valuables unstolen, and cats undead--er, alive, that is. Bonus thanks to whoever shoveled our front walk (mischief03?); when I told the Mad Scientist it was done, he made various promises of sexual favors to the shoveler(s), which he then hastily recanted in hopes of not worrying the wife.

While we were there, also saw Aliens vs. Predator Requiem. ( No spoilers, mostly opinions, but some people like the mystery. )