http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMXTfiNB9tg
This video is of Mark making Galician Style octopus. It's a great video to watch and learn from.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Feature on Mark Bittman: In the name of better eating everywhere
My father first showed me a Mark Bittman video and accompanying article on his blog, “Bitten,” when I was 17. Sure, I was growing out of my picky eater phase by then, but I was certainly not a foodie. I loved the act of eating well before I started thinking about how whatever I was eating was created, and Mr. Bittman was certainly a force in changing how I thought about food forever. Mark Bittman’s wealth of culinary knowledge and no-nonsense writing style has made him more than just a food writer. Bittman is a teacher who comes from the same position as most Americans who cook, which gives him the hard attained ability to inspire people to care about food.
Though it might be my own increased interest in food that brings this to light, people across this nation and across generations appear to be thinking about food more. There is no definitive origin of this, but the heightened awareness about environmental degradation’s impact on food supplies and the attack on high fructose corn syrup might have something to do with it. There are more local food cooking classes, farmers markets, and home-cooked meals from scratch have returned to countless dinner tables after being neglected for so long. Bittman has been a home cook since the sixties, and is committed to making that experience creative and not a chore.
Bittman has been writing about food since 1980. In that decade, he worked his way up the ladder to become editor at Cook’s, the magazine that would transform into Cook’s Illustrated. In the year of my birth, 1990, Mark began writing for the New York Times. His weekly column, “The Minimalist,” showcases recipes from around the world, slightly modified for the home cook, all of which are simple in practice, but do not compromise quality or flavor in exchange. Even with recipes and accompanying videos on more exotic cuisine like Galician-style octopus, Mark makes food that may not be viewed as simple or even pleasant to most of his readership’s palettes, accessible and enjoyable.
Bittman writes on his website, “I am not a chef, and never have been. . .I’ve never had any formal training, and I’ve never worked in a restaurant. None of which has gotten in the way of my mission to get people cooking comfortably, simply and well.” What sets Bittman apart from so many other food celebrities (Jamie Oliver and Michael Pollan) is that he equips his readers with chef-like skills that get people back to eating real food that rivals the flavors of any five-star chef. For Bittman, it is not just about cooking easy, simple dishes. It is about breaking down some intense barriers that have been built up for many years about what can and can’t be cooked by any given person.
With his bounty of knowledge in the name of better eating everywhere, comes a need for a variety of media for teaching and sharing with the audience -- a weekly recipe column of 300 words or less (excluding the recipe) is not enough. Mark, then, turned to books.
Twenty years after coming to the New York Times, his bestselling, groundbreaking, franchise-starting, book How To Cook Everything has celebrated its tenth anniversary, and is in its second edition. The sheer girth of these books, How to Cook Everything has just shy of 1,000 pages of recipes, and about 40 pages more of index and tips and tricks, is representative of the time and effort Mark has spent just learning. This attention to detail and striving towards comprehensiveness makes How to Cook Everything appealing to go back to -- his pages forge a deep bond of trust between Bittman and his reader. It was the best 19th birthday present possible.
The supplemental books to How to Cook Everything, including How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and the 6 other books that have some word or phrase following How to Cook Everything show that Mark’s goal is to never stop learning and continue the discussion about food that is as nourishing, and as necessary, as eating.
Most recently, his appetite for knowledge has filled the pages of his latest book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. This book not only presents Bittman’s findings about the links among eating habits, certain diseases, and environmental degradation, but also lays out strategies for how to improve our situations not only for our health, but also for the sake of the planet. In the shadow of acclaimed food writer and de facto authority on sustainable food, UC-Berkley professor Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food), Bittman’s Food Matters picks up on the theory that Pollan championed, and gives us recipes to make the next step. Rising to stardom during the largest boom in food celebrity since Juila Child, Mark Bittman is not just an activist for simple cooking and good food, he is an activist for a better world through food.
In all of his texts, Bittman gets right to the point. He uses specific cooking terminology, like the names of various cuts (julienne, chiffonade) but not to the point that he’s writing in another language. He does not merely teach his readers how to follow recipes, instead, he empowers them to make their own culinary decisions with confidence. Be it his nonchalant attitude towards cooking times and measurements (he eyeballs just about everything), or his frank calls to action in Food Matters, Mark Bittman bites off what could normally be a bit too much to chew and serves it up in accessible portions that make his readers want more. Mark Bittman is not a chef, he is a man who cares. It is only by caring that there can be a hope that others will care as well.
Though it might be my own increased interest in food that brings this to light, people across this nation and across generations appear to be thinking about food more. There is no definitive origin of this, but the heightened awareness about environmental degradation’s impact on food supplies and the attack on high fructose corn syrup might have something to do with it. There are more local food cooking classes, farmers markets, and home-cooked meals from scratch have returned to countless dinner tables after being neglected for so long. Bittman has been a home cook since the sixties, and is committed to making that experience creative and not a chore.
Bittman has been writing about food since 1980. In that decade, he worked his way up the ladder to become editor at Cook’s, the magazine that would transform into Cook’s Illustrated. In the year of my birth, 1990, Mark began writing for the New York Times. His weekly column, “The Minimalist,” showcases recipes from around the world, slightly modified for the home cook, all of which are simple in practice, but do not compromise quality or flavor in exchange. Even with recipes and accompanying videos on more exotic cuisine like Galician-style octopus, Mark makes food that may not be viewed as simple or even pleasant to most of his readership’s palettes, accessible and enjoyable.
Bittman writes on his website, “I am not a chef, and never have been. . .I’ve never had any formal training, and I’ve never worked in a restaurant. None of which has gotten in the way of my mission to get people cooking comfortably, simply and well.” What sets Bittman apart from so many other food celebrities (Jamie Oliver and Michael Pollan) is that he equips his readers with chef-like skills that get people back to eating real food that rivals the flavors of any five-star chef. For Bittman, it is not just about cooking easy, simple dishes. It is about breaking down some intense barriers that have been built up for many years about what can and can’t be cooked by any given person.
With his bounty of knowledge in the name of better eating everywhere, comes a need for a variety of media for teaching and sharing with the audience -- a weekly recipe column of 300 words or less (excluding the recipe) is not enough. Mark, then, turned to books.
Twenty years after coming to the New York Times, his bestselling, groundbreaking, franchise-starting, book How To Cook Everything has celebrated its tenth anniversary, and is in its second edition. The sheer girth of these books, How to Cook Everything has just shy of 1,000 pages of recipes, and about 40 pages more of index and tips and tricks, is representative of the time and effort Mark has spent just learning. This attention to detail and striving towards comprehensiveness makes How to Cook Everything appealing to go back to -- his pages forge a deep bond of trust between Bittman and his reader. It was the best 19th birthday present possible.
The supplemental books to How to Cook Everything, including How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and the 6 other books that have some word or phrase following How to Cook Everything show that Mark’s goal is to never stop learning and continue the discussion about food that is as nourishing, and as necessary, as eating.
Most recently, his appetite for knowledge has filled the pages of his latest book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. This book not only presents Bittman’s findings about the links among eating habits, certain diseases, and environmental degradation, but also lays out strategies for how to improve our situations not only for our health, but also for the sake of the planet. In the shadow of acclaimed food writer and de facto authority on sustainable food, UC-Berkley professor Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food), Bittman’s Food Matters picks up on the theory that Pollan championed, and gives us recipes to make the next step. Rising to stardom during the largest boom in food celebrity since Juila Child, Mark Bittman is not just an activist for simple cooking and good food, he is an activist for a better world through food.
In all of his texts, Bittman gets right to the point. He uses specific cooking terminology, like the names of various cuts (julienne, chiffonade) but not to the point that he’s writing in another language. He does not merely teach his readers how to follow recipes, instead, he empowers them to make their own culinary decisions with confidence. Be it his nonchalant attitude towards cooking times and measurements (he eyeballs just about everything), or his frank calls to action in Food Matters, Mark Bittman bites off what could normally be a bit too much to chew and serves it up in accessible portions that make his readers want more. Mark Bittman is not a chef, he is a man who cares. It is only by caring that there can be a hope that others will care as well.
Oscar gone Wilde: The Story of a Literate Glam Rock THE REWRITE
In the 1970s, “bisexual” was the word. It was thrown around during interviews and press conferences to describe just how edgy and different this generation was from the ones that came before. The music that accompanied this era of sexual revolution is the subject of Todd Haynes’s film, “Velvet Goldmine.”
Written by Haynes and James Lyons, the film follows a young British expat journalist Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) as he tries to write a story about his childhood hero, the fallen Glam Rock star Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).
As his mind begins to wander in the interviews he conducts about Slade, Stuart visually relates to the audience the story about his sexuality, and his ostracism growing up listening to the music that ultimately drove him from his childhood home.
The stories his interviewees tell him through voiceover add context to Stuart’s own tale, highlighting the power of a musical movement to save souls like Stuart’s from the harm of conventional society, and the music industry’s willingness to finance the stars’ insanity, making an organic revolution something corporate.
Stuart’s subject, Brian Slade, is the paragon of this destructive insanity. Slade, who perpetually quotes Oscar Wilde, is obsessed with, and ultimately ruined by, extravagant spectacle. Slade, unmistakably based on David Bowie, uses his bisexuality as a tool to both offend and empower people across Great Britain and the United States.
As the raw, and sexually awkward, film carries on, Slade partners with American bad boy rocker Curt Wild (a hyper-sexual Ewan McGregor), to put on a tour reminiscent of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust tour, complete with promiscuous, otherworldly costumes, that all the while plays with the music’s history as these artists lived: fast, and loose.
Including music by The Stooges, T. Rex, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and original music in the spirit of the genre, the film runs the gamut of epic hits from the era in a manner that precariously straddles jukebox musical and impressive reinvention of classic songs.
Toni Collette’s simultaneously stunning and decrepit Ameri-Brit accented Mandy Slade put it this way in her interview when asked about Wild and Slade: “They weren’t people, they were ideas.”
Despite this apt claim, Haynes adds a tremendous amount of realism to the film by mixing in grainy, faux archival documentary and concert footage with the crisp cinematography of the main plot footage, making this a film more about the industry than a fairy-tale Glam Rocker.
To make this relatively believable story even more complex, still contains some fantastical elements, namely an emerald that Oscar Wilde, a homosexual whose career was ruined by being outed, receives as a young boy from outer space.
The emerald is passed from Glam Rocker to Glam Rocker, weaving an oddly literate fellowship among pop idols who seem to have no regard for books. Perhaps though, it is this fame-giving relic that inspires them to stand strong in the face of bigotry, and confirms for these otherworldly rockers that there is a glimmer of reality and history in their otherwise entirely fantasized world.
Written by Haynes and James Lyons, the film follows a young British expat journalist Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) as he tries to write a story about his childhood hero, the fallen Glam Rock star Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).
As his mind begins to wander in the interviews he conducts about Slade, Stuart visually relates to the audience the story about his sexuality, and his ostracism growing up listening to the music that ultimately drove him from his childhood home.
The stories his interviewees tell him through voiceover add context to Stuart’s own tale, highlighting the power of a musical movement to save souls like Stuart’s from the harm of conventional society, and the music industry’s willingness to finance the stars’ insanity, making an organic revolution something corporate.
Stuart’s subject, Brian Slade, is the paragon of this destructive insanity. Slade, who perpetually quotes Oscar Wilde, is obsessed with, and ultimately ruined by, extravagant spectacle. Slade, unmistakably based on David Bowie, uses his bisexuality as a tool to both offend and empower people across Great Britain and the United States.
As the raw, and sexually awkward, film carries on, Slade partners with American bad boy rocker Curt Wild (a hyper-sexual Ewan McGregor), to put on a tour reminiscent of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust tour, complete with promiscuous, otherworldly costumes, that all the while plays with the music’s history as these artists lived: fast, and loose.
Including music by The Stooges, T. Rex, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and original music in the spirit of the genre, the film runs the gamut of epic hits from the era in a manner that precariously straddles jukebox musical and impressive reinvention of classic songs.
Toni Collette’s simultaneously stunning and decrepit Ameri-Brit accented Mandy Slade put it this way in her interview when asked about Wild and Slade: “They weren’t people, they were ideas.”
Despite this apt claim, Haynes adds a tremendous amount of realism to the film by mixing in grainy, faux archival documentary and concert footage with the crisp cinematography of the main plot footage, making this a film more about the industry than a fairy-tale Glam Rocker.
To make this relatively believable story even more complex, still contains some fantastical elements, namely an emerald that Oscar Wilde, a homosexual whose career was ruined by being outed, receives as a young boy from outer space.
The emerald is passed from Glam Rocker to Glam Rocker, weaving an oddly literate fellowship among pop idols who seem to have no regard for books. Perhaps though, it is this fame-giving relic that inspires them to stand strong in the face of bigotry, and confirms for these otherworldly rockers that there is a glimmer of reality and history in their otherwise entirely fantasized world.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Crazy Heart: getting it right on the first try
In what many have claimed is the role of Jeff Bridges’s life, Bad Blake is Crazy Heart’s protagonist: a washed-up, chain-smoking, alcoholic country singer. Bad drives from town to town across the cinematographically stunning American Southwest playing shows to a small, aged, and inexplicably dedicated fans.
Bitter from his falling out with his incredibly successful protégé Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), Bad refuses to change his ways or write new songs despite his agent’s nagging. Short on money, Bad caves, though, into opening for Tommy’s amphitheater concert in Phoenix.
Before that, Bad plays two nights in Santa Fe, and agrees to an interview with local journalist Jean Craddock (an incredibly beautiful and convincing Maggie Gyllenhal). Making a not-so-long, or unusual, story even shorter, Bad and Jean fall madly in love. Homebound due to injuries he sustained in a bad car crash, against the stellar New Mexico landscape, and in tight-framed shots indicating their immediate closeness, Jean and Bad sink into a family life with Jean’s son Buddy in Santa Fe, that exudes the very laid back, mind clearing essence that is the Southwest.
There is a common joke about country music: if you play a country song backwards, you get your dog back, you get your wife back, you get your house back, and you get your job back. Until it’s all lost again to the demon of alcoholism.
Screenwriter-Director Scott Cooper, and novelist Thomas Cobb before Cooper, rip it all away from Bad when Jean and Buddy visit him in Houston after Bad heals and goes home. Bad loses track of Buddy at a mall, and does not get a second chance to make it right. He transforms himself, sobers up, and is still denied in a tragically realistic and intense exchange between him and Jean back in Santa Fe.
Like any real country singer though, Bad returns to Texas and writes about it. The original song and theme for the film, that Bridges himself sings in part, “The Weary Kind”, is the catalyst that springs Bad beyond a sober, but stagnant, life into a life of recharged creativity and a restocked bank account. Tommy, who despite outshining Bad still admires him to an almost perplexing extent, begs Bad to write songs for him, and Bad sends off what he describes to his best friend, and former bar tender, Wayne (Robert Duvall) as “the best song I ever wrote.”
Brigdes has played the addict, the drunk and the deadbeat. Never, though, has he portrayed a lowlife so full of feeling and with so deep a problem. In a nod to his forever defining role as The Dude in The Big Lebowski, Cooper briefly sits Bad down at the bar of a bowling alley, before throwing him on a journey through the Zen garden that is the Southwestern desert where the visually and literally wide-open end scene is a subtle victory for Bridges’s subdued genius. Not to mention, Jean finally gets her full interview.
Bitter from his falling out with his incredibly successful protégé Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), Bad refuses to change his ways or write new songs despite his agent’s nagging. Short on money, Bad caves, though, into opening for Tommy’s amphitheater concert in Phoenix.
Before that, Bad plays two nights in Santa Fe, and agrees to an interview with local journalist Jean Craddock (an incredibly beautiful and convincing Maggie Gyllenhal). Making a not-so-long, or unusual, story even shorter, Bad and Jean fall madly in love. Homebound due to injuries he sustained in a bad car crash, against the stellar New Mexico landscape, and in tight-framed shots indicating their immediate closeness, Jean and Bad sink into a family life with Jean’s son Buddy in Santa Fe, that exudes the very laid back, mind clearing essence that is the Southwest.
There is a common joke about country music: if you play a country song backwards, you get your dog back, you get your wife back, you get your house back, and you get your job back. Until it’s all lost again to the demon of alcoholism.
Screenwriter-Director Scott Cooper, and novelist Thomas Cobb before Cooper, rip it all away from Bad when Jean and Buddy visit him in Houston after Bad heals and goes home. Bad loses track of Buddy at a mall, and does not get a second chance to make it right. He transforms himself, sobers up, and is still denied in a tragically realistic and intense exchange between him and Jean back in Santa Fe.
Like any real country singer though, Bad returns to Texas and writes about it. The original song and theme for the film, that Bridges himself sings in part, “The Weary Kind”, is the catalyst that springs Bad beyond a sober, but stagnant, life into a life of recharged creativity and a restocked bank account. Tommy, who despite outshining Bad still admires him to an almost perplexing extent, begs Bad to write songs for him, and Bad sends off what he describes to his best friend, and former bar tender, Wayne (Robert Duvall) as “the best song I ever wrote.”
Brigdes has played the addict, the drunk and the deadbeat. Never, though, has he portrayed a lowlife so full of feeling and with so deep a problem. In a nod to his forever defining role as The Dude in The Big Lebowski, Cooper briefly sits Bad down at the bar of a bowling alley, before throwing him on a journey through the Zen garden that is the Southwestern desert where the visually and literally wide-open end scene is a subtle victory for Bridges’s subdued genius. Not to mention, Jean finally gets her full interview.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The 82nd Academy Awards: Records Set, Barriers Broken.
Hosted by the champions of awkward, inside, and generally poor jokes, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony was as much an event for the people whose entire careers culminate, as a show for viewers at home. It was a night of firsts and sixteenths.
Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) was nominated for the sixteenth time for Best Actress, and Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) won her first Oscar ever in the same category. For Sandra, it was a dream come true. For Meryl, it confirmed that she has nothing to prove to anyone. Her nomination made her a record-holder, solidifying her immensely talented self in film history.
Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) won his first Oscar as Best Actor after six nominations. In pure joy, his Dudeness laughed the whole way through his acceptance speech, humbly thanking, and attaching the suffix “man” to, everyone that helped him along the way.
The actors and actresses nominated for their performances in leading roles were praised by their friends, directors, and costars in one of the most honest and meaningful sections of the evening, showing that this event is not just for the home-viewer’s pleasure, but is also a night that people dedicate their entire professional lives to attending.
In this celebrity obsessed era, these performers, and the people who give these actors films to act in are honored for their work in the film community. Despite the tuxedos, makeup, and designer gowns, this section of the evening showed off an especially human side of the Academy.
In stark contrast to the longer, heartfelt presentation of the best actor and actress awards, Tom Hanks got right to the point when he presented the award for best picture.
If ears could blink, it would have been possible to miss the award entirely, and that blink-fast award went to The Hurt Locker. Director Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to receive the award for Best Director, and war correspondent-turned-screenwriter Kevin Boal received the Oscar for best original screenplay. The film picked up three other Oscars in Editing, Sound, and Sound Editing, to cap off this film’s rather surprising run.
In her acceptance speech, Bigelow thanked the investors who took a risk on the film, which goes to show that what makes a good film is not the box office charts, but the collaboration and deep passion that each person on the set brings to the table.
Bigelow and her team dedicated the film and the award to people in all types of uniforms everywhere, and thanked them for doing what they do so that she and the rest of the filmmaking industry could write about it, film it, and honor their work on the screen.
With someone receiving their first Oscar in almost every category, a slew of first-time nominees, and gender barriers broken, the film industry enters a new year: a year for taking risks and keeping those new faces around for a long time.
Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) was nominated for the sixteenth time for Best Actress, and Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) won her first Oscar ever in the same category. For Sandra, it was a dream come true. For Meryl, it confirmed that she has nothing to prove to anyone. Her nomination made her a record-holder, solidifying her immensely talented self in film history.
Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) won his first Oscar as Best Actor after six nominations. In pure joy, his Dudeness laughed the whole way through his acceptance speech, humbly thanking, and attaching the suffix “man” to, everyone that helped him along the way.
The actors and actresses nominated for their performances in leading roles were praised by their friends, directors, and costars in one of the most honest and meaningful sections of the evening, showing that this event is not just for the home-viewer’s pleasure, but is also a night that people dedicate their entire professional lives to attending.
In this celebrity obsessed era, these performers, and the people who give these actors films to act in are honored for their work in the film community. Despite the tuxedos, makeup, and designer gowns, this section of the evening showed off an especially human side of the Academy.
In stark contrast to the longer, heartfelt presentation of the best actor and actress awards, Tom Hanks got right to the point when he presented the award for best picture.
If ears could blink, it would have been possible to miss the award entirely, and that blink-fast award went to The Hurt Locker. Director Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to receive the award for Best Director, and war correspondent-turned-screenwriter Kevin Boal received the Oscar for best original screenplay. The film picked up three other Oscars in Editing, Sound, and Sound Editing, to cap off this film’s rather surprising run.
In her acceptance speech, Bigelow thanked the investors who took a risk on the film, which goes to show that what makes a good film is not the box office charts, but the collaboration and deep passion that each person on the set brings to the table.
Bigelow and her team dedicated the film and the award to people in all types of uniforms everywhere, and thanked them for doing what they do so that she and the rest of the filmmaking industry could write about it, film it, and honor their work on the screen.
With someone receiving their first Oscar in almost every category, a slew of first-time nominees, and gender barriers broken, the film industry enters a new year: a year for taking risks and keeping those new faces around for a long time.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Rustica: Worth More Than a Gamble
The restaurant business is fraught with risk, especially in Kalamazoo. Occupying the space of two failed restaurants, one of the city’s newest eateries, Rustica, defies economic depression starting at 5 PM Monday through Saturday.
Just shy of three months old, Rustica serves “rustic European cuisine” with mostly local ingredients, Turkish extra-virgin olive oil aside. Situated in Kalamazoo’s quasi-urban center, across from an upscale tapas bar, several higher-end hair salons and a fair-trade clothing store, Rustica’s fare and atmosphere are well-suited for midwestern sensibilities in a slightly more refined setting.
Rustica’s narrow, low-lit dining room surrounds the open kitchen where Chef Adam Watts and his team prepare dishes in a style consistent with the principle goal of rustic cooking: making guests comfortable and welcome.
One indicator of Rustica’s hopefully continued success is its attention to its clientele, not only in the generous portions that it serves, but in the prices that accompany its dishes. All main courses are between $14 and $19, and are easily shared between diners, and many first courses are quite filling by themselves.
The massive antipasti plate offers a variety of flavors that work on every region of the tongue ($6). With grilled yams (served cold), a savory olive medley, sweet and spicy nuts and intensely acidic house-pickled vegetables, not venturing away from the “firsts” section on the menu might provide a satisfying meal.
The next appetizer could be a terrific one-person entree on the cheap, and may inspire selfishness. The duck confit ($9) is fruity, sweet, and better resembles braised duck leg than a traditional confit, though rustic cuisine can get away with playing fast and loose with tradition. The meat’s apple-celery chutney was refreshing and palate clearing.
Anything on the main course menu could have been satisfying, and the long ribbons of papardelle pasta ($15) with hickory smoked chicken and pecorino cheese in an arugula-walnut pesto were no exception.
Brought to the table by one of the restaurant’s genial waitstaff, the thin, but peppery, sweet, and citrusy pesto danced across the tongue, and invited the sweet-smoke umami of the chicken to play with it.
Despite being shared, this meal required boxes -- even for the sweet ricotta cheese cannoli ($5). The accompanying espresso-sized mug of hot chocolate with cinnamon and cayenne gave a sweet-spicy finish to the meal that cleared the senses, but not the checkbook.
From entrance to exit, it seems like Rustica has it right. Rustica stands among a select group of new restaurants in Kalamazoo whose openings represent a commitment to revitalize this city. As co-owner Bill Weier demands on Rustica’s website, “Give me some crusty bread, simple food, good friends and a bottle of wine. . .now that is a meal.” Kalamazoo citizens should enjoy that meal and ensure civic revitalization at Rustica.
Just shy of three months old, Rustica serves “rustic European cuisine” with mostly local ingredients, Turkish extra-virgin olive oil aside. Situated in Kalamazoo’s quasi-urban center, across from an upscale tapas bar, several higher-end hair salons and a fair-trade clothing store, Rustica’s fare and atmosphere are well-suited for midwestern sensibilities in a slightly more refined setting.
Rustica’s narrow, low-lit dining room surrounds the open kitchen where Chef Adam Watts and his team prepare dishes in a style consistent with the principle goal of rustic cooking: making guests comfortable and welcome.
One indicator of Rustica’s hopefully continued success is its attention to its clientele, not only in the generous portions that it serves, but in the prices that accompany its dishes. All main courses are between $14 and $19, and are easily shared between diners, and many first courses are quite filling by themselves.
The massive antipasti plate offers a variety of flavors that work on every region of the tongue ($6). With grilled yams (served cold), a savory olive medley, sweet and spicy nuts and intensely acidic house-pickled vegetables, not venturing away from the “firsts” section on the menu might provide a satisfying meal.
The next appetizer could be a terrific one-person entree on the cheap, and may inspire selfishness. The duck confit ($9) is fruity, sweet, and better resembles braised duck leg than a traditional confit, though rustic cuisine can get away with playing fast and loose with tradition. The meat’s apple-celery chutney was refreshing and palate clearing.
Anything on the main course menu could have been satisfying, and the long ribbons of papardelle pasta ($15) with hickory smoked chicken and pecorino cheese in an arugula-walnut pesto were no exception.
Brought to the table by one of the restaurant’s genial waitstaff, the thin, but peppery, sweet, and citrusy pesto danced across the tongue, and invited the sweet-smoke umami of the chicken to play with it.
Despite being shared, this meal required boxes -- even for the sweet ricotta cheese cannoli ($5). The accompanying espresso-sized mug of hot chocolate with cinnamon and cayenne gave a sweet-spicy finish to the meal that cleared the senses, but not the checkbook.
From entrance to exit, it seems like Rustica has it right. Rustica stands among a select group of new restaurants in Kalamazoo whose openings represent a commitment to revitalize this city. As co-owner Bill Weier demands on Rustica’s website, “Give me some crusty bread, simple food, good friends and a bottle of wine. . .now that is a meal.” Kalamazoo citizens should enjoy that meal and ensure civic revitalization at Rustica.
NYT Defense: Alex Witchel: "Variations on a Beloved Theme"
Here is a link to the article I'm defending: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/dining/24feed.html
I was initially drawn to this article in last week’s dining section because of its teaser title, “Feed Me: The Chopped Meat Variations.” I love eating meat, so I was immediately intrigued, and the demanding and to the point tone of the column title "Feed Me" (a monthly column in Dining) suggested that this article would be written efficiently, with the express purpose explicitly of making me hunger for whatever type of chopped meat I was going to read about. I decided to write on this article for my defense when I realized halfway through the piece that Alex Witchel was impressively weaving personal narrative writing with recipe writing, restaurant reviews and a dash of social criticism. Her snarky comment about how Café Boulud’s number one seller is the arugula salad, “The Upper East Side is truly wasted on the rich,” was jarring, hilarious in context, I find to be a good example of her combining many different types of writing to write a successful food column. Alex is a novelist and a writer for the New York Times magazine who resides in New York City. Her husband, Frank Rich is an Op-Ed Columnist for the Times.
I was initially drawn to this article in last week’s dining section because of its teaser title, “Feed Me: The Chopped Meat Variations.” I love eating meat, so I was immediately intrigued, and the demanding and to the point tone of the column title "Feed Me" (a monthly column in Dining) suggested that this article would be written efficiently, with the express purpose explicitly of making me hunger for whatever type of chopped meat I was going to read about. I decided to write on this article for my defense when I realized halfway through the piece that Alex Witchel was impressively weaving personal narrative writing with recipe writing, restaurant reviews and a dash of social criticism. Her snarky comment about how Café Boulud’s number one seller is the arugula salad, “The Upper East Side is truly wasted on the rich,” was jarring, hilarious in context, I find to be a good example of her combining many different types of writing to write a successful food column. Alex is a novelist and a writer for the New York Times magazine who resides in New York City. Her husband, Frank Rich is an Op-Ed Columnist for the Times.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Final Pitch: Mark Bittman profile
Thesis: Mark Bittman’s wealth of culinary knowledge and no-nonsense writing style has made him more than just a food writer. Bittman is a teacher who comes from the same position as most Americans who cook, which gives him the hard attained ability to make people care about food.
Why it’s relevant now and why I should write about it:
Discussions about food are on the rise. There are more local food/locavore cooking classes, farmers markets, and the return to home-cooked meals from scratch. Bittman has been a home cook since the sixties, and is committed to making that experience creative and not a chore.
Bittman recently published a book called Food Matters. This book interests me, because his other books are cookbooks, and this text seems to show Bittman changing the definition of “food writer” by crossing over from journalism into the study of food systems.
Mark Bittman is one of my inspirations for cooking and for food writing. I don’t want to paint him as the greatest food writer and home cook in the world, but he has done a lot for both of those things. It is not Bittman’s activism that is the impetus for this project, but his stretching/testing the boundaries of the definition of a food journalist that interests me. I think that Bittman’s work will pave, if it hasn’t already begun, the way for a different type of food writer.
Sources: How to Cook Everything, Food Matters, "The Minimalist" articles form The New York Times, and interviews with Mark.
Why it’s relevant now and why I should write about it:
Discussions about food are on the rise. There are more local food/locavore cooking classes, farmers markets, and the return to home-cooked meals from scratch. Bittman has been a home cook since the sixties, and is committed to making that experience creative and not a chore.
Bittman recently published a book called Food Matters. This book interests me, because his other books are cookbooks, and this text seems to show Bittman changing the definition of “food writer” by crossing over from journalism into the study of food systems.
Mark Bittman is one of my inspirations for cooking and for food writing. I don’t want to paint him as the greatest food writer and home cook in the world, but he has done a lot for both of those things. It is not Bittman’s activism that is the impetus for this project, but his stretching/testing the boundaries of the definition of a food journalist that interests me. I think that Bittman’s work will pave, if it hasn’t already begun, the way for a different type of food writer.
Sources: How to Cook Everything, Food Matters, "The Minimalist" articles form The New York Times, and interviews with Mark.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Hate and Love are One in the Same: An Essay on Pauline Kael
When Pauline Kael (1919-2001) retired as The New Yorker’s film critic in 1991, she was met by the applause of disdain and of praise. She is loved by many, hated by an equal number, and occupies the minds of all those people enough to inform their thoughts on Art. Pauline Kael is worth discussing because her bold writing style and unabashed personality incited discussion throughout her life, and continues to today.
In “House Critic,” Renata Adler scathingly denounced Kael’s work based on her use of rhetorical questions and her use of “I,” “You,” and, “We” in her reviews. Though it is where Adler finds fault that Kael’s great strength can also be found.
In Kael’s 1989 review of The Little Mermaid, she asks her readers, “Are we trying to put kids in some sort of moral-aesthetic safe house?” Kael has her opinion already, and makes it clear, yet she asks her readers so that they may dialogue with her, or at least talk about it within their social circles.
Similarly, these ‘faults’ help Kael draw her authority from her life, not from an academic approach to film. She reflects personally on the films, using the first and second person to preserve herself as a member of the audience, just like her readers would be. Certainly, she has seen numerous films, and, as a critic, knows a great deal more than most of her readers do about the minutiae of film, though she presents that knowledge without being pedantic.
It is her brazenness that has captivated readers for so many years, and has made Kael so prominent. When reading Kael, her thorough injection of her personality into her work reflects her waiting for a response about her work, and herself. Both of which are welcome, and are important for a continued discussion of Art. Art is a discussion, and, as Oscar Wilde wrote 100 years prior to Kael’s retirement, “Without the critical faculty, there is no artistic creation at all worthy of the name.”
Kael’s critical writing should be talked about so that the discussion about the art of criticism can continue to develop by a new cache of voices and perspectives, and so that her subject, film, can also grow. As long as Art develops and responds to the changes in society, criticism must do the same. In doing so, Kael, and Adler, must be remembered and talked about, love or hate, and the art of criticism will continue to change based on the lessons learned from Kael and her colleagues.
The Jazz critic Francis Davis writes in the introduction to Afterglow, his book documenting his final conversation with Kael, that, “Pauline’s insistence that art happens in the real world and that it should be an instrument of pleasure has become a governing principle in writing about rock and pop.” Her influence across genres speaks to her relevance to criticism as a whole, and her protégés are as important as her enemies in enriching this art.
In “House Critic,” Renata Adler scathingly denounced Kael’s work based on her use of rhetorical questions and her use of “I,” “You,” and, “We” in her reviews. Though it is where Adler finds fault that Kael’s great strength can also be found.
In Kael’s 1989 review of The Little Mermaid, she asks her readers, “Are we trying to put kids in some sort of moral-aesthetic safe house?” Kael has her opinion already, and makes it clear, yet she asks her readers so that they may dialogue with her, or at least talk about it within their social circles.
Similarly, these ‘faults’ help Kael draw her authority from her life, not from an academic approach to film. She reflects personally on the films, using the first and second person to preserve herself as a member of the audience, just like her readers would be. Certainly, she has seen numerous films, and, as a critic, knows a great deal more than most of her readers do about the minutiae of film, though she presents that knowledge without being pedantic.
It is her brazenness that has captivated readers for so many years, and has made Kael so prominent. When reading Kael, her thorough injection of her personality into her work reflects her waiting for a response about her work, and herself. Both of which are welcome, and are important for a continued discussion of Art. Art is a discussion, and, as Oscar Wilde wrote 100 years prior to Kael’s retirement, “Without the critical faculty, there is no artistic creation at all worthy of the name.”
Kael’s critical writing should be talked about so that the discussion about the art of criticism can continue to develop by a new cache of voices and perspectives, and so that her subject, film, can also grow. As long as Art develops and responds to the changes in society, criticism must do the same. In doing so, Kael, and Adler, must be remembered and talked about, love or hate, and the art of criticism will continue to change based on the lessons learned from Kael and her colleagues.
The Jazz critic Francis Davis writes in the introduction to Afterglow, his book documenting his final conversation with Kael, that, “Pauline’s insistence that art happens in the real world and that it should be an instrument of pleasure has become a governing principle in writing about rock and pop.” Her influence across genres speaks to her relevance to criticism as a whole, and her protégés are as important as her enemies in enriching this art.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Pauline Kael and the Critic’s canvas
NOTE: This article was written for an audience of people who consider themselves critics in the 21st century.
Oscar Wilde wrote in 1891, “Without the critical faculty, there is no artistic creation at all worthy of the name.” In 1991, Pauline Kael retired from the New Yorker. Passing away in 2001, Pauline Kael bequeathed to the world of Art an estate of shrewd writing that equally affected Journalism and Filmmaking.
The least that can be said of the late critic is that she was influential. Kael’s bold claims about the institutions of film and cinema, as well as about individual films have made tremendous contributions to the Art of Criticism. She is loved by many, hated by an equal number, and occupies the thoughts of all those people enough to inform their discussion of Art.
Though Kael is not the end all be all of Criticism, for such an end would end Criticism. As long as Art develops and responds to the changes in the larger discourse of society, Criticism too will develop and respond. In the 21st century, the youngest generation of critics has had almost no exposure to her work nor knowledge of her existence, and the show must go on. The little acquaintance with Kael we get through assignments or suggestions by our seniors, though speaks to her relevance in making critics think about what it means to be a Critic. Regardless of the subject we criticize, in spite of vehement hatred, or undying adoration, we have Kael and she informs our passion for Criticism.
The Jazz critic Francis Davis writes in the introduction to Afterglow, his book documenting his final conversation with Kael, that, “Pauline’s insistence that art happens in the real world and that it should be an instrument of pleasure has become a governing principle in writing about rock and pop.” Her influence across genres speaks to her relevance to Criticism as a whole, and her protégés are as important as her enemies in enriching this art.
Art is a discussion, and each painting, film, and critical piece are unique statements in that discourse. These statements beg us to not neglect them, and we, as artists, must recognize their importance or forsake our expressive medium.
In Renata Adler’s “House Critic,” she broadsides Kael based on her vulgar vocabulary preferences, and Kael’s use of rhetorical questions. Adler also points out that Kael has made some flagrant errors as a writer, namely Kael’s neglecting to rectify her criticism of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s use of an indoor studio for shooting, though the film was in reality shot outdoors when appropriate. This last fault certainly tarnishes Kael’s reputation, though the majority of Adler’s attacks merely reflect her distaste for tactics that Kael sees as central to her artistry.
Despite Adler’s total denunciation of Kael in house critic, the time Adler spent writing her essay solidifies Kael’s relevance to art, in that her existence has fostered discussions about the Artist. It is these discussions and manifestos that have survived into the 21st century discourse, and it is these discussions that will sustain our own.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Tough Acts to Follow: The English Department Reading
Last week Wednesday, students and the English Department faculty gathered for the annual department reading in the Olmsted Room, on what professor Gail Griffin called a most “godforsaken night.”
Featuring readings of creative and critical pieces by all of the department’s faculty, Griffin explained to the standing-room-only crowd that this annual reading is a time for the department faculty to “show off, and make the faculty just a bit vulnerable.”
Department chair Andy Mozina started the reading with an excerpt of his short story, “My Non-Sexual Affair,” a moving tale about the chilling fear of accidental infidelity, love, and explaining how someone could be so absentminded as to forget about the spilled chocolate sauce down the front of their shirt.
Next, visiting professor, and local poet, Elizabeth Marzoni delivered a sultry, and gripping, reading of her poem, “Rothko’s Room,” insipired by expressionist painter Mark Rothko’s work. Like Rothko’s brushstrokes, Marzoni’s reading blanketed the room in ponderous waves of words.
Gail Griffin followed, with a compelling excerpt of her upcoming book about the Murder-Suicide that occurred in DeWaters Hall 10 years ago. Her impeccable attention to detail immersed the audience in her story, letting them walk alongside her as she travelled back in time.
Glenn Deutsch contrasted wonderfully with his short story, “Monkey Version of My Father,” about a young boy growing up in 1969 New York City. Deutsch’s awkward young New Yorker took the crowd with him on a car trip across the city to share his fascination with Chichen Itza, human sacrifice, and his belief that being stuffed into subway cars is the ultimate cool.
Amy Rodgers, who is only on campus for the year, read the only dramatic piece of the evening. Known for her impressive scholarship, her piece, about Robert Frost’s son who committed suicide, was a refreshing, deeply personal, and moving, surprise.
Also a well respected critic, Babli Sinha followed Ms. Rogers with an excerpt of a conference paper about the power of women in media and the South Asian novel. Also the chair of Media Studies, Sinha’s scholarly writing was an impressive, engaging, and informative, bridge between creative pieces.
The ever popular Di Seuss returned the reading to creative writing with two poems from a forthcoming collection. The first was titled, “It Wasn’t a Dream, I knew William Burroughs,” who is of “Naked Lunch” fame. The piece is daringly written in the largely unpopular form of a confessional poem, blurring the lines among poetry, written documentary, and free-writing.
Before the sea of heads dissipated, Bruce Mills concluded the evening with two excerpts from a memoir in progress about his son’s autism. His work arguably made him the most vulnerable faculty member of the evening, and gave sound confirmation that every member of the department fails only at disappointing an audience. His storytelling, which is, if anything, earnest, left the room yearning to hear more, just how Mills described the yearning in every sound his son utters.
Monday, January 25, 2010
'Velvet Goldmine' Review: Oscar Gone Wilde: The Story of a Literate Glam Rock
In the 1970s, “bisexual” was the word. It was thrown around during interviews, press conferences to describe just how edgy and different this generation is from the ones that came before. It is the music that accompanied this era of sexual revolution that is the subject of Todd Haynes’s film, “Velvet Goldmine.”
With an all-star cast, including Ewan McGregor, Christian Bale, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Toni Collette, “Velvet Goldmine” (written by Haynes and James Lyons) tracks the quest of a young British expat journalist Arthur Stuart (Bale) as he tries to write a story about his childhood hero, the fallen Glam Rock star, Brian Slade (Meyers).
Using an almost disorienting amount of voiceover from conversations with interview subjects, Stuart visually relates his own story to the audience about his sexuality, and his ostracism growing up listening to the music that ultimately drove him from his childhood home.
The stories his interviewees tell him add context to Stuart’s own tale, highlighting the power of a musical movement to save souls like Stuart’s from the harm of conventional society, as well as the music industry’s willingness to finance the stars’ insanity, making an organic revolution something corporate.
Stuart’s subject, Brian Slade, is a textbook example of this destructive insanity. Obsessed with, and ultimately ruined by, over the top spectacle, the Slade character is unmistakably based on David Bowie, whose bisexuality is used as a tool to both offend and empower people across Great Britain, and eventually the United States.
As the raw, and occasionally sexually awkward, film carries on, Slade partners with American bad boy rocker Curt Wild (McGregor), to put on a tour reminiscent of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust tour; all the while playing with the music’s history as these artists lived: fast, and loose.
The original music is written and performed in the style of the period songs that the film uses as its soundtrack. Including music by The Stooges, T. Rex, Lou Reed, and Brian Eno, the film runs the gamut of epic hits from the era in a manner that precariously straddles jukebox musical and impressive reinvention of classic songs.
Toni Collette’s Ameri-Brit accented Mandy Slade put it this way in her interview when asked about Wild and Slade: “They weren’t people, they were ideas.”
Despite this apt claim, Haynes adds a tremendous amount of realism to the film by mixing in faux archival documentary and concert footage with the main plot footage, making this a film more about the industry than a fairy-tale Glam Rocker.
To complicate things, this relatively believable story still contains some fantastical elements, namely an emerald that Oscar Wilde receives as a young boy from outer space.
The emerald is passed from Glam Rocker to Glam Rocker, weaving an oddly literate fellowship among pop idols who seem to have no regard for books. Perhaps though, it is this extraterrestrial object that confirms for these otherworldly rockers that there is a glimmer of reality and history in their otherwise entirely fantasized world.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Some helpful articles
I really had no interest in reading other reviews before I wrote and rewrote my own, so as not to color my own thoughts with others', and thus develop my voice better. Below I've posted links and excerpts to two other reviews of the film. One is Tim Robey's review from the Telegraph, which I was particularly interested in because of the English perspective on this film interpretation of a classic piece of English Literature. The other review is Kenneth Turan's from the LA Times. I'm envious of both writers' ability to write with larger word limits, but I also found through reading their pieces that mentioning other versions of films, and name dropping actors and directors who previously tackled a version of the film is a very common practice that doesn't so much add context as it does give the reader a history lesson that he or she can then use in watching or evaluating the film. Turan's article is much more mixed than Robey's, which is more to the 'rave' side of the review continuum, though both are still highly critical. The historical knowledge of film and literature that the two writers employ impressively solidifies their credibility though they probably didn't need it, as they are the film critics for two very large newspapers. As a writer who doesn't have a contract that gives me a fair amount of automatic credibility like these men, I hope in the future to incorporate more references to other films and director/actor histories into my articles so that I can help establish my credibility where it is already so lacking.
And now, the articles:
'Sherlock Holmes'
Guy Ritchie turns the master sleuth into an action hero, with mixed results.
By Kenneth Turan FILM CRITIC
There's a mystery at the heart of "Sherlock Holmes," and it's not the one the great master of detection has been called on to solve. It's how a film that has so many good things going for it has turned out to be solid but not spectacular.
Solid, of course, is more than many studio films can muster these days, but we expect better when we're dealing with the world's greatest consulting detective, someone who has been played by more than 70 actors in something like 200 films, good enough for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Solid, of course, is more than many studio films can muster these days, but we expect better when we're dealing with the world's greatest consulting detective, someone who has been played by more than 70 actors in something like 200 films, good enough for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records.
...
It's helpful to add in the brisk style of British filmmaker Ritchie, best-remembered for two of his earlier films, "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels." A director with onscreen energy to burn, Ritchie initially has fun with this story of Holmes versus master criminal Lord Blackwood, a man who dabbles in the black arts, says gnomic things like "death is only the beginning" and threatens to end civilization as we know it.
On the other hand, though, all this "new Holmes" talk is something of a smoke screen. What is problematic about the film is not so much the change in character as the change in the nature of the classic Sherlock Holmes vehicle. This Hollywoodized epic has attempted to do too much, has had to serve too many masters. That has, in turn, given the picture an air of trying too hard, which is the one thing Sherlock Holmes should never have to do.
On the other hand, though, all this "new Holmes" talk is something of a smoke screen. What is problematic about the film is not so much the change in character as the change in the nature of the classic Sherlock Holmes vehicle. This Hollywoodized epic has attempted to do too much, has had to serve too many masters. That has, in turn, given the picture an air of trying too hard, which is the one thing Sherlock Holmes should never have to do.
...
The plot itself is promising, starting withLord Blackwood (an excellent Mark Strong) being stopped by Holmes, Watson and Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) just before he commits a dastardly black-magic deed. Blackwood's apparent ability to cheat death terrifies the metropolis ("London in Terror" headlines obligingly shout), and only Holmes has a chance of figuring out just which game is afoot.
Adding yet another uncertain element to the mix is the appearance of the mysterious Irene Adler, celebrated among Sherlockians as the only woman to fascinate the great detective as well as the only adversary to ever best him. Unfortunately, the usually excellent and very contemporary Rachel McAdams is simply miscast here in a part that cries out for the kind of deeper Victorian soulfulness that someone like Rachel Weisz can project.
More than any one big thing, it is the accumulation of these kinds of small misadventures that trip up "Sherlock Holmes." They so cramp its style that instead of appreciating the good things we've been given, we end up wishing for the film that might have been. It's a mug's game, but currently it's the only one in town.
Adding yet another uncertain element to the mix is the appearance of the mysterious Irene Adler, celebrated among Sherlockians as the only woman to fascinate the great detective as well as the only adversary to ever best him. Unfortunately, the usually excellent and very contemporary Rachel McAdams is simply miscast here in a part that cries out for the kind of deeper Victorian soulfulness that someone like Rachel Weisz can project.
More than any one big thing, it is the accumulation of these kinds of small misadventures that trip up "Sherlock Holmes." They so cramp its style that instead of appreciating the good things we've been given, we end up wishing for the film that might have been. It's a mug's game, but currently it's the only one in town.
Sherlock Holmes, review
Guy Ritchie spins a flashy, thunderous, all-action blockbuster around the Victorian super-sleuth and his sidekick.
By Tim Robey
There’s an eccentric touch in the end credits for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. They’re beautifully done, freeze-framing all the preceding mayhem into elegant graphic stills to recall Sidney Paget’s original magazine illustrations. Then up pops the page for the movie’s literary source – credited to “the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”. How late can you get? Watching this pumped-up Victorian buddy movie, Doyle might have wondered what mad century he’d stepped into.
...
Thanks to Downey, and thanks in surprising part to Ritchie, it’s a totally enjoyable spin on the character – he’s a slovenly headcase who can’t look after himself, not an opium addict but neurotic, perma-bantering student of crime and combat. Jude Law’s pally Watson – a definite plus – is essentially Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, the stolidly reliable, long-suffering foil to his friend’s quicksilver brilliance. Together, they confront the case of an Aleister Crowley-ish serial killer called Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong, with a wonky front tooth), who is caught, sent to the gallows, pronounced dead, and then does a dastardly Lazarus routine.
...
As usual, Ritchie overdoes the flash; there’s hardly a scene he doesn’t want to edit back to front, and the opening sequence of Blackwood’s capture, which he intends to feel like the overblown finale of a previous case, doesn’t work at all. Still, it’s fun flash, on the whole: powered by Hans Zimmer’s antic score, the movie has a restless, try-it-on quality that keeps you on your toes.
Rachel McAdams, as American femme fatale Irene Adler, feels like very pretty window-dressing, because the script never decides what to do with her beyond setting up the shadowy, sequel-hinting presence of an accomplice called Moriarty. Too often she and Law are competing for scenes. We want more Law! But that’s a fairly sure sign this droll blockbuster has got you on its side.
Every hero needs a sidekick, or three.
No double-brimmed cap, no oversized magnifying glass, no trademark pipe, and heaping amounts of explosions -- this is Sherlock Holmes. While some may be bothered by the lack of classic trademarks in the new film based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books, this less classically stylized Sherlock Holmes brings out more of the subtle, complex issues of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and of Holmes himself.
Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is charged in the film with the task of stopping Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) from launching his evil plan into action. Like Blackwood, who is notorious for his mind tricks, Holmes is devoted to getting inside people’s heads. With the aid of director Guy Ritchie (“RockNRolla”, “Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”), Holmes’s wild eyes stare off into the great unknown of human hyperlogic, while chasing down Lord Blackwood through the dark, disorienting and tight-framed cinematography of Victorian London, showing what goes on in the detective genius’s head, and how he gets into other people’s heads.
With its understanding at the mercy of his deductive power, Holmes takes the audience along for a wild, and drug-addled, ride beyond reason and conventional logic to an inevitable, perfectly constructed truth at the end.
This rough-and-tumble comic, dramatic, and adrenaline pumping roller coaster of a film fills the unfortunately bland, and predictable, framework of the classic mystery almost to bursting with the crass, borderline diabolical, and sardonic Holmes that so many have forgotten.
Much like how Holmes and his incredibly able best friend and assistant John Watson (Jude Law) gingerly walk the line between chaos and order, so too does Ritchie walk the line between action flick and dark drama.
Amid the punches and gunshots, Ritchie maintains the substance of the story (screenplay by Anthony Peckham, Michael Robert Johnson and Simon Kinberg) by not making violence the goal, but rather using violence to present obstacles for Holmes to conquer in his attempt to solve the case.
Ritchie balances the well-choreographed action scenes highlight Holmes’s superhero-like reflexes and strength with a romantic subplot that highlights Holmes’s conventional weakness for a woman, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), and also his very human fear of losing the best, and possibly the only friend, Holmes has ever had -- Watson. These foibles shed some light into the pitch dark room where Holmes hides for weeks on end, accompanied only by highly dangerous drugs, pondering how to solve his cases, as well as perhaps how to preserve any shred of sanity he has left.
Certainly, these tendencies color Holmes’s reputation as the paragon of mental sharpness, and force the audience to ask whether Holmes would be worth a feature film at all had it not been for the talented support in the script and on screen he receives from Watson and, to an extent, Ms. Adler. Holmes is the film’s namesake, yet the constant presence of sidekicks, who are more his equals than anything, that Holmes is human, and all humans need help from friends.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Film Review: Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes Review
No double-brimmed cap, no oversized magnifying glass, no trademark pipe, and heaping amounts of explosions. While some may be bothered by the lack of Sherlock Holmes trademarks in the new film based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books, this less classically stylized Sherlock Holmes brings out more of the subtle, complex issues of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and of Sherlock himself. As a detective, Holmes, played by Robert Downey Jr., is entirely devoted to getting inside people’s heads, and together, he and director Guy Ritchie quite successfully used [respectively] wild-eyed faces staring off into the great unknown of human hyperlogic, and dark, occasionally disorienting and tight-framed cinematography to show us a glimpse of what goes on in the detective genius’s head, as well as how Sherlock gets into other people’s heads. The audience’s eyes are forced to rely on Holmes’s deductive power to make sense of the largely messy, chaotic and treacherous landscapes that seem to be the very lifeblood of Holmes’s intellect, not only keeping the audience dependent on Holmes to make sense of things, but also letting the viewers simultaneously get inside Holmes’s head as he gets into others’ heads. As a man who thrives on chaos, his obsession with creating order is fascinating. His violin as his main source of meditation and tool for experimenting with chaos, Holmes takes the audience along for a wild, and occasionally drug-addled, ride beyond reason to a perfectly constructed truth at the end.
Like any mystery, the main character holds the audience’s understanding in its hands. Had Sherlock decided to not tell his viewers how he solved the case, chaos of a rather unpleasant sort would ensue. Much like how Sherlock and his incredibly able best friend and assistant John Watson (Jude Law) gingerly walk the line between chaos and order, so too does Ritchie walk the line between action flick and dark drama.
Amidst the punches and gunshots, Ritchie maintains the substance of the story (written for the screen by Anthony Peckham, Michael Robert Johnson and Simon Kinberg) by not making violence the goal, but rather understood obstructions and obstacles for Holmes to conquer in his attempt to solve the case.
Though the action scenes highlight Holmes’s superhero-like reflexes and strength, Ritchie balances these attributes with a romantic subplot that not only highlights a rather predictable and common weakness for a woman, but one that also highlights his very human fear of losing a best friend, and possibly the only friend Holmes ever has had. These weaknesses make way for noticing some of their more tragic effects, namely total seclusion for weeks on end accompanied only by various highly dangerous drugs.
Certainly these tendencies color Sherlock’s reputation to the audience as the pinnacle of mental sharpness and sanity, though they force the audience to ask whether Sherlock would be worth a feature film at all had it not been for the talented support he receives from Watson and to an extent Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams).
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