Dinner and a Movie
Hey everyone! Ok, so I didn't actually go to this particular dinner and this particular movie at the same time, but I wanted to write about both. Thomas just wasn't up for a movie called, The Last Kiss. Shocking, I know. But this is a title pretty much guaranteed to draw me in. Romantic comedy, I'm thinking. Turned out to be not too romantic and not too much comedy either. This was kind of a poor man's remake of my beloved Beautiful Girls. Except that Beautiful Girls is beyond wonderful and Last Kiss was OK at best. It too was about a group of guys in their late twentys having a quarter-life crisis. First we have Zach Braff living with Jacinda Barrett (the Aussie model from Real World London). She gets pregnant so he decides to step out on her with college girl Rachel Bilson of the OC. Then we have Casie Affleck who is cursed because he's married with a baby, then there's some other guy who's suicidal because his girlfriend dumped him, and finally a guy who's bummed because all the women he meets actually want a relationship and not just a one night stand. These poor, poor guys. They have it rough.
The tribulations of Zach Braff of course hog the lion's share of this movie. And the premise here is just plain flawed. I'm sorry, but this guy is way too goofy looking for me to believe a super model and a hot college girl are fighting over him. In my review of The Family Stone, I noted that Sarah Jessica Parker did not have a face for the big screen. Zach Braff is the male version of her. On Scrubs, a show I just can't get into, that goofiness could be somewhat acceptable given the right amount of alcohol. But on the bigscreen....yikes! Enough wiuth the closeups already. Aside from the fact that Braff just isn't hot, the entire movie seemed to be written and performed by people who wanted the institution of marriage to be abolished. This was like a marriage horror story. If you're engaged, do not go to this movie. If you're pregnant or your wife/girlfriend is pregnant, do not go to this movie. It will depress the hell out of you. The final thing that bugs me is why does almost every movie these days have to have a guy as the protagonist? I read that Entertainment Weekly did a cover story on this recently. Only something like 8 or 18% of movies released by big studios this year had a woman as the protagonist. This is ridiculous. I like my share of big studio blockbusters just like everyone else, but women do account for 50% of the population and we need more Family Stones, more Bridget Joneses. One a year just ain't cutting it. Rant over.
And now for the dinner. Luckily it was a big improvement on the movie. This past Sunday was the official kickoff of birthday month so Thomas took me to L'Absinthe, a newish French restaurant in Boulder I've been dying to try. All I can say is YUM. To kick things off right, I ordered absinthe (sans the wormwood, more's the pity). Several years ago Cyd and I developed a bit of an absinthe obsession, Cuban passport stamps be damned. I'm not sure what stirred our interest, as it wasn't available in the US, but thanks to our lack of absinthe spoons and OCD, the myriad of steps required to properly prepare the drink were never followed. So the taste of our version could be described as medicinal at best. On a trip to London, we did go to an absinthe bar where Cyd swears we watched the bartender prepare the drink with spoons, fire and all, but I recall absolutely none of this. Anyway, I was thrilled to have our divine Chilean waiter prepare the drink and light it afire right before my eyes. He also told me that absinthe spoons can still be procured. Who knew? Though the first sip was a little too like licorice for my taste, the aftertaste was pleasing and the rest of the drink went down well. The waiter said it's original use actually was medicinal and it's recommended if you have stomach problems. As for the rest of the meal, I got the prix fix dinner - mussles then trout in beurre blanc sauce. Both were excellent. We will definitely be back. This weekend we're trying Le Chantecler in Niwot wtih Eddie and Larissa so my French food fixation will be sated.
Boulder Bumpersticker of the Day (straight from the seventies): Just wink....I'll do the rest!
-sunday
The tribulations of Zach Braff of course hog the lion's share of this movie. And the premise here is just plain flawed. I'm sorry, but this guy is way too goofy looking for me to believe a super model and a hot college girl are fighting over him. In my review of The Family Stone, I noted that Sarah Jessica Parker did not have a face for the big screen. Zach Braff is the male version of her. On Scrubs, a show I just can't get into, that goofiness could be somewhat acceptable given the right amount of alcohol. But on the bigscreen....yikes! Enough wiuth the closeups already. Aside from the fact that Braff just isn't hot, the entire movie seemed to be written and performed by people who wanted the institution of marriage to be abolished. This was like a marriage horror story. If you're engaged, do not go to this movie. If you're pregnant or your wife/girlfriend is pregnant, do not go to this movie. It will depress the hell out of you. The final thing that bugs me is why does almost every movie these days have to have a guy as the protagonist? I read that Entertainment Weekly did a cover story on this recently. Only something like 8 or 18% of movies released by big studios this year had a woman as the protagonist. This is ridiculous. I like my share of big studio blockbusters just like everyone else, but women do account for 50% of the population and we need more Family Stones, more Bridget Joneses. One a year just ain't cutting it. Rant over.
And now for the dinner. Luckily it was a big improvement on the movie. This past Sunday was the official kickoff of birthday month so Thomas took me to L'Absinthe, a newish French restaurant in Boulder I've been dying to try. All I can say is YUM. To kick things off right, I ordered absinthe (sans the wormwood, more's the pity). Several years ago Cyd and I developed a bit of an absinthe obsession, Cuban passport stamps be damned. I'm not sure what stirred our interest, as it wasn't available in the US, but thanks to our lack of absinthe spoons and OCD, the myriad of steps required to properly prepare the drink were never followed. So the taste of our version could be described as medicinal at best. On a trip to London, we did go to an absinthe bar where Cyd swears we watched the bartender prepare the drink with spoons, fire and all, but I recall absolutely none of this. Anyway, I was thrilled to have our divine Chilean waiter prepare the drink and light it afire right before my eyes. He also told me that absinthe spoons can still be procured. Who knew? Though the first sip was a little too like licorice for my taste, the aftertaste was pleasing and the rest of the drink went down well. The waiter said it's original use actually was medicinal and it's recommended if you have stomach problems. As for the rest of the meal, I got the prix fix dinner - mussles then trout in beurre blanc sauce. Both were excellent. We will definitely be back. This weekend we're trying Le Chantecler in Niwot wtih Eddie and Larissa so my French food fixation will be sated.
Boulder Bumpersticker of the Day (straight from the seventies): Just wink....I'll do the rest!
-sunday
posted by Sunday at
4:36 PM
1 Comments:
Excellent piece, hermana. For starters, your brother, aside from being the former Sausage King of Stillwater, was also something of an Absinthe King as well. My girlfriend at the time Caroline smuggled a liter of full-blown opium Absinthe from Russia for me, poppy plant floating in the green just the way a worm would in Mescal. I still have my absinthe spoon somewhere, as well. It actually ended oddly, though, because after drinking a half-bottle of the stuff, we went to a dinner party hosted by a friend of hers and I spent three hours staring at the fish tank talking to the goldies. Fun stuff.
CBK
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Anonymous, at 10/19/2006 6:39 PM
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