Beautiful Dreamers... I mean, Creatures (Spoilers)

We resumed our movie-going on Valentine's Day with Beautiful Creatures, another fantasy movie based on a YA book. I went into this movie venture this year knowing that we would probably see movies that would be really stupid or disappointing or just not my thing. I was fully expecting Beautiful Creatures to be a shallow, overly angst-ridden movie with a terrible setting and horrible accents and a real disappointment. I went into the movie fully prepared to mock it the whole way through. You could say I had low expectations. I even refused to tell V what movie we were going to see before we got there.

But then I watched the movie, and I actually quite enjoyed it.

Beautiful Creatures is based on the book of the same name. Ethan is a teenager who can't wait to get out of his hometown of Gatlin, South Carolina, a Civil War-obsessed tiny town. He has been dreaming of a girl for months before she moves to town. Of course, they immediately fall for each other, despite the effort that Lena (the main girl character) puts forth to tell Ethan to leave her alone since "her people" can't mix with "his people." (Hint: his people are ordinary mortals.) It becomes an epic struggle over the balance of light and dark because she's, like, important and powerful and stuff. If this sounds pretty generic to you, that's what I was afraid of going into the movie.

When the movie started, Alden Ehrenreich (who plays Ethan) opened his mouth, and an abrasively fake southern accent came pouring out. I know that's how actors are trained with southern accents, but I halfway expected Forrest Gump to come running across the screen. (Have I mentioned that horrible fake southern accents are one of my pet peeves in movies? Not to mention that accents to change over time -- Americans sound much more generic now than they did seventy-five years ago.) Honestly, the Best Southern Accent Award should go to British actress Emma Thompson or American actress Viola Davis (who, according to IMDB, is actually from South Carolina).

In any case, the initial encounters between Ethan and Lena are somewhat predictable, despite supernatural elements involved, although Ehrenreich plays Ethan with enough charm to pull it off, and Alice Englert plays Lena as very quick-witted, which is what that character needs. It was also refreshing to see two teenaged characters who were actually pretty witty. In the end, however, it is the "adult" actors (I use quotation marks because while Alice Englert looks like she's turning nineteen, while Alden Ehrenreich looks like he's about to turn twenty-nine) who save the show. Their portrayals add enough depth to keep the background struggle between light and dark from appearing hopelessly shallow and add enough heft to the story to prevent it from falling flat. It is through their portrayals of Macon (Jeremy Irons), Serafin (Emma Thompson), and Amma (Viola Davis) that the narrative appears in three dimensions. It had heart.

Now, if they'd only portray real Christians instead of openly hypocritical cardboard cutouts, then we'd be getting somewhere. Okay, so maybe they came close with Amma.

In the end, Beautiful Creatures was good enough to see, but not good enough to buy when it comes out on DVD. I might give the book series another shot, though -- from the public library.

Korean Potato Salad, or What We Had for Dinner While Watching Alien

Awhile back, V and I tried out a new restaurant. I can't remember the name of it, but it looked local and was next to an Asian grocery store in Iowa City, IA. The menu was divided into nationalities – Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. Considering my love for Korean drama, we picked from the Korean menu, and I found that while I love K-drama, no so much Korean food – spicy/sour combinations aren’t really my thing. But I did find that I adored the potato salad, which prompted me to Google a recipe. Tonight was my second time making it, and it turned out pretty well, if I say so myself. :-) This is a compilation of a couple of recipes that I’ve found online (http://www.food.com/recipe/kona-ks-korean-style-potato-salad-373784, http://koreanfood.about.com/od/sidedishesbanchan/r/PotatoSalad.htm, and http://www.food.com/recipe/kewpie-mayonnaise-384110), along with a couple of my own tweaks that I’ve added due to inspiration at a local restaurant. The instructions below are pretty much in a potato salad for dummies format, so if that bugs you, sorry, but it’ll help me the next time I make it.

Because there will be a next time.

Unless something strange happens, but that’s another story….

Korean Potato Salad

Ingredients:

4 medium potatoes, cubed

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

2 eggs

About ½ cup broccoli

Fake crab meat

Minced onion (to taste)

Salt and pepper (to taste)

½ cup or whatever looks right of Kewpie (Japanese-style) mayonnaise (see recipe below)

Directions:

1.  Make the mayo. It’s supposed to chill for at least an hour before using it, although it didn’t work out that way for us this time. Recipe is below.
2. Boil potatoes – after two minutes, add the eggs and carrots and continue boiling for eight more minutes. (10 minutes of boiling potatoes, total) Potatoes should be a little softer than for typical American potato salad – or maybe I’m just usually impatient. :-)
3. Cook broccoli in the microwave in a microwave-safe dish with a tablespoon of water for 4 minutes – while the potatoes etc. are boiling.
4. Drain potato mixture using a colander and then throw the broccoli on top.
5. Fish out the (now hardboiled) eggs using a spoon and transfer to a bowl/pan of cold water to cool off. (Or you can use your fingers if your hands are more heat-tolerant than mine.)
6. Transfer the contents of the colander to a bowl.
7. Peel the eggs, throw out the yolks (unless of course you have a use for boiled egg yolks), and chop up the whites to add to the potato salad.
8. Sprinkle minced onions (if you’d rather use regular onions, chop them and sprinkle with salt to get the excess water content out while the potatoes, etc. are boiling), salt and pepper to taste.
9. Shred fake crab meat and add to other ingredients. I used the equivalent of one really big crab leg’s worth of crab meat. This, I think, is one of those “whatever looks right” moments that drive my mother crazy.
10. Mix in mayo with other ingredients and serve warm if you like warm potato salad (we both do) or serve it chilled if you prefer it that way.

Kewpie Mayo (pretty much exactly like Food.com’s recipe at http://www.food.com/recipe/kewpie-mayonnaise-384110)

Ingredients:

1 egg at room temp

1 ¼ cups canola oil

1 tsp salt

½-1 tsp sugar

2-3 tablespoons rice vinegar

Directions: 

1. Crack egg into bowl of blender. (Make sure it’s as fresh an egg as possible. Older eggs do not combine properly with oil and vinegar to make mayo.)
2. Add salt and sugar and process until well combined.
3. With the motor running, add the oil in a slow, steady stream until all is incorporated (very important to add the oil slowly to ensure proper mayo consistency).
4. With machine running, add rice vinegar  
5. Cover and refrigerate an hour before ready to use. (We cheated this time around and used it immediately. No illness so far.) 

P.S. V thinks this is too salty to use in any other recipe, and he was the Mayo Making Man.

Oh, and we had BBQ ribs that I made in the crockpot with a cup of water, a sprinkle of brown sugar, and a squirt of mustard and a squirt of barbecue sauce on each rib. They cooked on low for about 6 hours-ish? They fell off the bone -- next time, I'll do my usual trick of baking them in the oven instead. And we also had cabbage -- we cooked bacon in a pan, crumbled it up, threw in the rinsed cabbage leaves, and added about half a cup or a cup of water and let it cook for twenty minutes-ish -- maybe more because it's nearly impossible to over-cook cabbage.

Enjoy!

Week Two: Time is of the Essence (Spoilers)

When looking at the new movies that came out this week, V and I came down to two choices: Side Effects, a thriller about a woman who takes an anti-psychotic that causes her to go crazy and Identity Thief, a comedy where a woman has stolen a man's identity in order to live it up in Florida. Side Effects looks like Generic Thriller Number Three, and Identity Thief looks like it could be pretty good or the kind of antics that most of the audience laughs at while I check the time.

So we decided to rent a couple movies instead. Our theme was "time." The first movie was In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried in a highly-stratified dystopian America where time is the currency of choice. Literally, you spend your life. Aside from the creepy factor of everyone looking virtually the same age (25), it sounded like a neat concept. I was ready for good ol' man versus society conflict where he overthrows the system or escapes the system. And have I mentioned that I enjoy the whole dystopian thing?

It turns out he's actually Robin Hood, robbing the rich to give to the poor, and Maid Marian's father is one of the financial magnates with millions of years stockpiled. The Sheriff of Nottingham (alias The Timekeeper, played by Cillian Murphy) is actually the most interesting character; he escaped the lowest tier of society where they live day to day (often literally on borrowed time) and then moved on to enforce the system, helping to keep millenia in the hands of the rich while the poor were likely to drop dead from debt. If this is starting to sound like social criticism to you, it is.

Unfortunately, the movie makers did not see fit to have Robin Hood and Maid Marian overthrow the system, which would have made for a much more interesting movie. Nor did they see fit to explore the Timekeeper's character -- seriously, why did he enforce the system he fought to escape? Instead, they opted to focus on the social criticism ("millions must die for a few to be immortal" was one of the themes) of the elite having much while the 99 percent live from day to day.

On another note, what is it with Cillian Murphy and having roles in movies in which socialism/communism plays a role? In case you missed it, in the last Batman movie (The Dark Knight Rises), the bad guys -- including Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow -- portray a very American view of communism, in which they promise equality for the masses but actually deliver a reign of terror. I'm not sure what the significance is here, but I just thought it was interesting to note. It's not like it's typecasting him, in this sense; in The Dark Knight Rises, he's on the (bad) socialist side, while in In Time, he's on the (bad) capitalist side. Okay, so he never gets to play the good guy. But at least you can't profile his political leanings.

So, on to movie number two (assuming you're still interested): Looper. Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a killer who works for some unnamed crime syndicate killing men sent back into the past for the expressed purpose of being killed. The catch in the job description: when you sign on, understand that eventually your future self (thirty years down the road-- once time travel has been invented) will be sent back to the past for you to kill. Knowing that killing your future self will not keep you loyal to the organization, closing your loop (killing your future self) is the last hit you have to make. Bruce Willis is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's future self who comes back to the past, avoids getting shot, and then proceeds to try to off the kid who takes over all the crime syndicates in the future and begins closing all the loops of these assassins in the past. Temporal paradox much?

In spite of the inevitable paradox that takes place in the movie, it is actually a well-done, plot-driven, gritty, dark, violent, edge-of-your-seat movie. Ultimately, a killer is a killer, and the movie makes no bones about it. In a world of questionable moral choices, this movie remains true to itself: killers are made, not born, and you are rooting for a morally-reprehensible killer. That being said, while Looper  is a very well-done movie, I did not particularly enjoy the experience. While the ending was satisfying (in a grisly sort of way) and you never lose track of the fact that you are rooting for a killer (albeit one who tries to "get his life back"), I have no plans to ever watch this movie again. If it were a book, it would be one of those where by the end of the thoroughly-engrossing book, you feel like you've been beaten because you've been so involved in this painful emotional roller coaster. A well-done movie, but I'll be glad to send both it and In Time back to the video store.

And, btw, let The Terminator references begin.

P.S. Our other female guppy gave birth! At least one of them lasted for twenty-four hours! I don't know if it's still alive, though....

Omnivorous Cannibal Mommies!

So.... it's not dinner... it's not a movie... but it IS entertainment...

My latest obsession is my aquarium. It's the first time I've had aquatic creatures last for more than six weeks. (And just think, somewhere out there are parents that entrusted their children to me for an hour daily to teach them history.) Fortunately, I have my fab hubby helping to keep the little critters alive -- four plants (water wisteria, java fern, anubis, and anacheris), three guppies, two amano shrimp, and two African dwarf frogs. We don't have cable, so it's the closest thing to the Discovery Channel that we have.

Especially today.

My guppy (the fattest one) gave birth! I even saw her pop out two of the little guys. Little balls of fish just rolled out and then started swimming (I hope...I'm not sure I saw those particular ones again. Turns out one baby guppy looks like another.)

If you've ever had guppies (especially a guppy and aquatic frog combination), then this is no surprise to you. They give birth, like, once a month given the opportunity, supposedly with anywhere from 4 to 200 (still not sure if that was a typo when I saw that) at a time. My two female guppies have been pregnant since they left the fish store, so we've been waiting anxiously for the day when there are a bunch of little baby guppies swimming around in the tank before they get picked off by the frogs ... Or their mommies....

A few weeks ago, we saw one baby. A week later, a second had joined it, much smaller than the first, appearing to be newborn at that time. We waited anxiously for more to make their appearance. But that was it. We never saw another one (though we showed way too much excitement over fish pooing at times), and I came to the following conclusion:

My guppies are ninja-birthers.

And it doesn't hurt that guppies are unnatural parents. They will eat their babies. Some internet sources claim that this only happens if they're not well-fed. My guppies are the biggest gluttons in the world. Every day is a beautiful Thanksgiving Day in their neighborhood. And considering how I've seen the adult guppies stalk the babies (that we've seen) until the babies break line of sight -- usually by swimming behind a leaf of one of the plants in the tank -- the idea that these guys wouldn't eat the little guys if they weren't fast enough is ludicrous.

Yes, I just used the word ludicrous to refer to a fish.

In any case, it's been like the Discovery Channel in that corner of my house. I can't help but root for the little guys as they dart away from their PARENTS and the much-dumber aquatic frogs and hide amongst the gravel, even though ... they're kind of there... to help keep the frogs well-fed....

'Cause let me tell you something about African dwarf frogs: they are dumber than the rocks they bump their heads on. And the guppies would eat their blood worms in a heartbeat, except for the fact that my fab hubby uses a turkey baster to make sure that the little darlings get the food dropped right in front of them... on top of them... into their mouths ... and the fish still steal the bloodworms. They're almost as crafty as the amano shrimp who like to gank the frog pellets as soon as they hit the bottom of the tank, and then hide from the frogs (usually on the other side of the leaf that the frog is sitting under) and merrily chow down on it. Needless to say, African dwarf frogs can be a challenge to keep fed.... but the guppy fry actually do provide one more food sources for the cute little dummies.

And so the drama of the Discovery Channel resides in my house: it's a guppy-eat-guppy world in there. And I can't help but cheer for the little guys. If one of them ever gets big enough not to get eaten, I'll even give it a name: Brave Sir Robin, maybe, or Dodger, or Tad, something completely different.

So maybe it IS dinner... just not for me... It gives new meaning to: "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out, make another one just like you!"

Guppies will really DO that.

Week One: Warm Bodies (Minor Spoilers)

So, my husband and I are taking the plunge: we are going to try to go to the movies once a week, and I’ll report back here, dear reader, about what’s hot and what’s not on the big screen in 2013. Of course, this is totally biased and depends largely on my enjoyment of movies with “heart,” as well as sci-fi. The worst kind of reviewer of all, alas: one with her own taste. :-)  

The first movie that looked worthwhile was Warm Bodies, which came out February 1, which had both heart and science fiction. Based on a young adult book by Isaac Marion and put out by Summit Entertainment (the same folks who did Twilight), Warm Bodies is clearly jockeying to fill the movie void left by the ending of the Twilight Saga. Fortunately, none of these characters had quite the same pervasive unhealthy, unexplained infatuation demonstrated on the silver screen for Twilight. (Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the Twilight Saga, but the Bella-Edward attraction was never quite explained to my satisfaction – it was more like one day Edward woke up and decided to stop being cryptic, and Bella was totally fine with risking un-death to raise her social status.)

Warm Bodies is the story of how a zombie is changed by love and by how one small change in him could affect other zombies. The zombie R narrates what it’s like to be a zombie in a tongue-in-cheek manner. For example, zombies can’t think (though R and his best friend M can, to a certain degree), bleed, or dream. The closest zombies get to dreaming is eating the brains of their victims, where they get to experience their memories. It is through the experience of eating a young man’s brains that R falls in love with Julie… Wait… R loves Julie…. R(omeo) loves Julie(t). It’s true. There are multiple Romeo and Juliet references here (and how can you get more star-crossed than girl whose father is the leader of the last group of humans and the zombie who ate her ex?), including a balcony scene. What the movie does well, though, is that the R&J references are not pounded into your face, the zombies are appropriately disgusting though more understandable by the end of the movie, and, for a zombie, R shows a lot of, well, heart. (And brains and courage, too, but that’s another parallel – one that will have to wait for Oz the Great and Powerful on March 8.) Julie is not a languishing damsel in distress – she and R seem to have a somewhat equitable relationship; the fact that R ate her ex is significant; and the end of the movie gets wrapped up in a neat little package like only the silver screen can. It was the best romantic comedy I’ve seen in ages. Next question: does that say more about me or more about the kinds of movies that have come out in the last few years?

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that saving the world plays a role in the movie, too. Heart. It had heart.