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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Phoenix + Morimoto = Awesomeness Squared

Last week was my husband's birthday, and a few months ago I bought tickets to see Phoenix. What's funny is that I bought them more for me than for him, but I figured we could make a day out of it as consolation for dragging him along. I suggested that he pick a great restaurant, but he still hadn't made up his mind at the beginning of last week. After a few days of haranguing, he finally settled on Morimoto.

While I was initially super excited about Phoenix, I eventually became ecstatic about Morimoto. Now, let me tell you about the best meal of my life.

The restaurant itself is pretty small. The walls are decorated with cool wave shapes and there is a definite feel of simplicity throughout. We sat at the sushi bar, but we noticed that the tables were decorated elegantly...and strangely. The highlight was watching the waiters prep for the upcoming night by giving all of the lamps a good wipe down. After getting over the hilariousness of the scene, we waited for a few minutes and were taken to our seats at the sushi bar. It was a tight squeeze, but luckily we were the only ones sitting there for quite a while.

Until Saturday, I had never tried sushi. I had always wanted to, but living in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I figured it would only lead to food poisoning and a lawsuit. Since we were going to be at an Iron Chef's restaurant, I figured it was safe, so I tried the rainbow snapper. It was seriously like butter over rice. Delicious.

My husband and I had the 10 Hour Pork Kakuni for an appetizer. A piece of pork belly is cooked for ten hours and then served over some rice porridge. It was a little hard for me to get used to the gelatinous texture of the pork belly, but the taste helped me get over the texture issue pretty quickly. Imagine bacon cooked slowly so that the fat melts instead of getting crisp. So tasty.

As an entree, I had the arctic char over gingered mushrooms and swiss chard. It was cooked medium and absolutely fell apart, and the combination of flavors was incredible. My husband had duck three ways, and after sampling a piece of the duck breast, I can understand why he said he'll never be able to eat it anywhere else again. It was juicy and delicious. The duck egg over fried rice was also excellent.

For dessert, I had the yuzu meringue tart, which was absolutely to die for. It was fruity, light and delicious. My husband had the matras tres leches cake, which he enjoyed very much. I also had a glass of warm sake that I loved, loved, loved. To make a long story short, we both loved it and would love to go back again. Unfortunately my husband is allergic to fish, so the Omakase (8 course chef's special menu) will be out for him, and I'm not sure I would want to try it while he sat there and watched me eat.

After stuffing ourselves, we headed over to the Tower Theater in Upper Darby. What a stark contrast to Morimoto. On the way to the theater we stopped in a little movie complex to use the restroom. When I went into the ladies room, there was a bottle of malt liquor on the back of one of the toilets, and in the next doorless stall, the toilet paper was hanging from the wall by electrical tape. I fixed my hair and got the hell out of there.

We had pretty good seats, as we were only eleven rows back. I was pretty excited once we got inside and saw how close we were to the stage. The theater kind of reminded me of the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre before it was refurbished. The ceiling was dotted with lights in the shapes of constellations. I really liked that.

The first band that played was Wavves. They were kind of a mixture of college punk and indie pop. While I am a fan of the original, old school punk sound, I'm not so much a fan of the more modern iterations. The group is also an interesting mix of a James Hetfield-like dude on guitar, an emo kid on bass and a preppy college kid on drums. Their sound was all right, but they had a lot of energy and while they weren't playing to a huge crowd, they brought all that they had. The drums were miked up very loudly, and by the time they were done my ears were bleeding. Did I love them? No. But I didn't mind them.

Jenny and Johnny were next. I kept looking at Jenny and wondering who she was, and it was only later when I realized it was Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley. Their first song, "Committed," was pretty good, but then they played quite a few very 50s beach rock feeling songs. The East Coast crowd wasn't feeling it so much. Then, they played "Slavedriver," which I really enjoyed, and the finished out their set with "Next Messiah," which they rocked all over the place. Their sound with the electric acoustic was amazing, and if they did more crunchy sounding stuff, I'd be totally on board with their sound.

Then came Phoenix. They opened with "Lizstomania," and it was awesome. Their sound live was much heavier and rockish than on their albums, which wasn't what I expected. They played an amazing version of "Fences," my favorite song from the Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix album. Rocker versions of "Girlfriend," "Armistice" and "If I Ever Feel Better" were standouts. After a quick intermission, Thomas Mars, the lead singer, came out into the audience and sang "Countdown" accompanied by an acoustic guitar. He also sang a pretty song in French. After going back to the stage, they rounded out the show with a raucous version of "1901," which included another trip into the crowd for Thomas and ended with many members of the audience going up on stage. Pretty cool.

Thomas sounds awesome live, pretty much exactly like he does on their albums. He has a great voice. Their showmanship was excellent, and my only complaint would have to be the light show, which at times was retina burning and nearly seizure inducing. Other than that, they were excellent. I wanted them to play so much more, including my favorite song of theirs, "Everything is Everything." I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to hear it, but I really can't complain.

Needless to say, it was a great night, and my husband actually enjoyed Phoenix live, which made it even better.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Movie Review: The Social Network

Ok. I have to admit I was really skeptical about The Social Network despite the across the board good reviews. I was initially turned off by super melodramatic trailer. While I usually take a lot of joy out of hearing choirs of children singing, hearing their rendition of "Creep" by Radiohead almost made me boycott the movie all together. Well, that and the fact that I don't really care about Mark Zuckerberg or what he supposedly did.

I am truly a cinephile, so when my husband said that he wanted to see it, I decided that I should just suck it up and go. From the very first scene I was hooked. A scene of snappy dialouge between Mark (Jesse Eisenberg) and his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara) really sets the pace for the rest of the film, and it also accomplishes incredible character revelation. It's kind of hard to think of Mark as anything other than a totally self-absorbed obtuse jerk after the way he talks to his girlfriend.

The script is practically flawless. If Aaron Sorkin isn't nominated for an Oscar, I'll be surprised. He expertly crafts a story weaving together the intricate details with the intimacies of Mark and Eduardo Saverin's (Andrew Garfield) friendship. Both Eisenberg and Garfield are incredible on screen. Eisenberg plays the role of Mark as someone so smart he's nearly autistic, and Garfield plays the role of Eduardo as an emotional, thoughtful guy who just wants to help his friend out with his idea. They are polar opposites and if they are portrayed as they are in real life, well it's easy to see how their friendship could have suffered. I think it would have suffered at some point anyway, with or without the creation of Facebook.

The movie moves at a feverish pace, with scenes going back and forth between the events leading up to the creation of Facebook as well as the depositions of Mark, Eduardo, the Winklevoss twins, Carmeron and Tyler (Armie Hammer, who is insanely handsome, by the way) and various others involved in the lawsuit against Mark. It's during the depositions when we see who Mark truly is; he has himself convinced that he has done nothing wrong, and his arrogance and disdain for anyone in his way is apparent.

The question is, "When are you going to make another record, JT?"

We even get a great performance from Justin Timberlake in the role of Sean Parker, also known as the guy who founded Napster. It's obvious to see how Mark would be attracted to Sean. It was almost like a Fight Clubesque relationship - Sean was everything that Mark wasn't, and Sean reinforced how Mark felt about Facebook and what it should and shouldn't do for its users. We can see how Sean's influence began to change Mark, and it wasn't for the better.

I'd also like to add that the soundtrack is pretty incredible. Scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the music really heightens the emotion in a lot of the scenes. It highlighted the darkness that was just underneath the surface in Mark's personality, and it also helped to express the characters' feelings throughout the film. Once again, I'll be surprised if they don't get a nod at the Oscars.

Is this really how it went down? Who knows. Zuckerberg has come out and said that it's a work of fiction, but I can't imagine anyone being portrayed as poorly as he was in this film would have anything else to say. I can't imagine that it's been much fun for him to have his life splayed open in a public forum, but then again, Mark is laughing all the way to the bank. Dude is twenty-six and worth nearly seven billion dollars. While his public image may have taken a hit, I'm sure that he'll get over it.

This is a really great movie. It's well written, thought provoking and emotionally charged. If you like dramas about the human condition, friendship and betrayal, you'll enjoy this film. I feel like you don't even have to know what Facebook is to enjoy it, so if you don't know what to see and are just looking for something good, check it out. You won't be disappointed.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Teeny Tiny Update

So after pysching myself out eleventy billion times, I finally started writing my screenplay. Of course, I kept forcing myself to try to be perfect, and we all know how well that goes when writing. After resigning myself to the fact that it was not going to be a masterpiece the first time out, I've actually been productive. I'm about seven scenes in and it's going pretty well.

I'm a very succinct writer, and while sometimes it's absolutely appropriate to be terse, but with creative writing, it's not always a good thing. I know I'm going to have to go back and lengthen some scenes just like I did when I wrote my novel. I can't let that discourage me from pushing forward, but honestly, it really frustrates me. I just have to remember the words of Dr. Mike Lennon, "Lower your standards."

It gets me through. I can't revise a blank page.

At some point today I'm also going to see The Social Network. Everyone is saying that it's incredible, and even though I wasn't interested at first, I want to see what the deal is. I'm sure it's not going to hurt to watch a well written screenplay up on the big screen either. I'm also reading The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, which I've really been enjoying. Hoping to have reviews up for both the movie and the book very soon!