Oh Kings, Kings, Kings. You tried, but you choked in the end. So frustrating. Miller is such a lump on the court. We kept joking about how stoked and relieved he looked as soon as he got taken out of the game. He turned into the biggest cheerleader, maybe that should be his new position. It was fun to watch Kevin Martin and Abdur-Rahim but it was sad to hear the TNT people mangle his name. What did they call him? It was like "Abdul Shareef" or something. And what did they call Garcia? Scott knows what I'm talking about.
Here's a rad thing that Ebert wrote on the Long Goodbye. Seriously, if you like Werner Herzog at all read that New Yorker article. Herzog is in the midst of shooting his first Hollywood-financed movie, starring Christian Bale and Steve Zahn(?)I never ever would have thought that he would be in a Herzog movie but I love Zahn so I'm stoked. The movie has been financed by these shady, low budget types and one of the producers tried to get Werner to watch an action movie starring the Rock to give him an idea of what he wants the movie to be like. The crew is a pro crew instead of who Herzog usually uses and they are openly defying his orders and sabotaging the shoot because they think he's an idiot. They have been secretly shooting footage on second cameras because Werner refuses to use them. They hide the second camera under a banana leaf. They have shot all this second unit stuff unbeknownst to Herzog and he's going to throw it all out. Highly entertaining.
I have to reconsider my assessment of Taste of Thai. I know I said I liked it more than Chada Thai but I'm going to have to say that they're both good. Last night we got pork larb (larb!) and asked for it hot (one under "thai hot") and hoo boy was it hot but fucking good! Larb is a kind of salad where you put the ground pork and herbs and spices onto cabbage leaves and eat them. Then we got a dish I've had there before which is mostly fried red snapper and Japanese eggplant. It's really good. Big hunks of fried white fish (I am wondering whether it really is snapper) and tender, flavorful eggplant.
did you get that at taste or chada? chada has this awesome salmon, pumkin curry. it's deeelicious and very filling.
ReplyDeleteit's interesting, there's really no such thing as red snapper. it is a marketing tool used by restaurants and fishmongers to sell any number of different species of fish.
ReplyDeleteDoes Sacramento have a Burmese restaurant? They usually have a lot of pumpkin curries. Yum.
ReplyDeleteA while back I saw Anthony Bourdain's food/travel episode on Malaysia & I was wondering if anyone knew of a Malaysian restaurant within 100 miles. I poked around on the web & didn't find anything in Sac, but I figure SF must have one. I'm particularly interested in trying this breakfast soup/stew thing he was eating that was really spicy & looked amazing.
ReplyDeletemiller
I'd think the odds would be good that Sac would have a Malaysian place. Since we're the most ethnically diverse city in the US.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if people don't advertise their restaurants.
Hey, who wouldn't be looking forward to a Herzog film being produced by someone who jumped from the trucking business to owning nudie bars and who uses expressions like "get fucked?" As the piece says, only the clout of Bale and Zahn's agencies can keep that film from being recut into something tragically atrocious. In the meanwhile, there's always "The Long Goodbye." Ebert's right on when it comes to the pure genius of that movie. Altman's made an 80s teen comedy, a western, a kids' movie and a John Grisham flick, but was hardly ever better at defying expectations than making Elliot Gould the most interesting Marlowe ever. It's all right with me, indeed.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that the Herzog film is based on his own documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly", especially since much of that film featured the actual Dieter Dengler starring in re-enactments of his experiences directed by Herzog. It sounds like a trainwreck, but I'm sure the enormous international clout of Steve Zahn will save "Rescue Dawn".
ReplyDeleteHey DB (and Dub if you are reading):
ReplyDeleteThere was an interesting interview on the Leonard Lopate show (WNYC) today with Melville's cinematographer, in case you want to listen to it.
They are releasing his previously unreleased film about the Resistance, called Shadow-something. I hope I get to see it!
Some tidbits I learned were that he changed his last name to Melville (after Herman melville) and that he dressed like Casablancan Humphrey Bogart and drove a Camaro, he was so enamoured with American culture.
-michele
Yeah, I saw that Melville's "The Shadow Army" is coming to San Francisco in June. I hope we get it in Sacramento, but I'm not holding my breath (I don't think we even got the re-release of Antonioni's "The Passenger"). Is the interview on the NPR website? Thanks for the tip-off.
ReplyDeleteyeah we got it here, db, me and smiller saw it and loved it. on the big screen is the only way to watch the passenger because it's really boring.
ReplyDeleteand alice, if it wasn't clear we got that food at taste of thai. i still want to try the pumpkin curry at chada. i like pumpkin anything but pumpkin and salmon together don't sound good to me.
oh yeah, and happy birthday, alice!!!!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/wireditems/2006/03/theres_a_rather.php
ReplyDeletearticle about herzog's latest and the sketch elie samaha compmany funding the bit.
I know that a lot of the best ethnic restaurants don't advertise because it's just too expensive, and they don't have a budget for marketing. Even a 3"X 3" ad in the magazine I work for costs over $300 a month (and that's only a b&w ad), a full page is around $3000...
ReplyDeleteyeah, i was skeptical about pumpkin and salmon together also. i've only had it once and it worked for me. but, i was also starving so that might have influenced my opinion.
ReplyDeletethanks for the birthday wishes!
Yeah, "The Passenger" isn't to everyone's taste. I still even haven't made up my mind on that one.
ReplyDeleteI've been a Chada enthusiast since it opened and the tiling in the restroom kicks it up a notch for me.
ReplyDeleteJed
If anyone is interested in Cambodian/Malaysian food, there are two amazing restaurants to try out in SF.
ReplyDeleteSingapore Malaysian
http://sanfrancisco.citysearch.com/profile/905598/san_francisco_ca/singapore_malaysian_restaurant.html
AND
Ankor Borei
http://sanfrancisco.citysearch.com/profile/889370/san_francisco_ca/angkor_borei.html
THere used to be a place on Geary, before you hit 19th Ave., called Ankor Wat, but I can't find any online info on it. I order sooooo much food from there for awhile that I ODd on it. Pope John Paul used to eat there. Don't know if that's a great endorsement, but if it's good enough for God's former puppet, it's gotta be pretty good.
DB-
ReplyDeleteGo to this page and scroll down to the Army of Shadows entry.
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2006/04/26
Oh yeah, and the cinematographer's name is Pierre L'Homme, which is a pretty sweet French surname.
-michele
so you totally missed grant telling jerry, "bonzi looks really comfotable with michael finly on him, doesn't he jer" and jer finally saying that "there is a new shareef in town" vince and nitro have been waiting and waiting for jerry to bust that.
ReplyDeletehomzee
Ebert writes:
ReplyDeleteIn the novel, Marlowe has no pets, but here he has a cat, and in the famous pre-credit opening sequence he attempts to convince the cat he is supplying its favorite cat food, but the cat is not fooled. In a movie that throws large chunks of plot overboard, there is no reason for this sequence, except that it establishes Marlowe as a man who is more loyal to his cat than anyone is to him.
Or, the cat doesn't fall for bullshit, a quality that Marlowe thinks he has. Or something.
Anyway, I wanted to like that flick, but Gould's mumbling (yeah, it's supposed to be like an internal narration, I get it) is too distracting. In the end, I hated it.
Looking forward to that Herzog flick. That guy is highly entertaining.
-sac
I havent been to chada following a string of bad incidents a long while back. After a long time and hearing about it on this blog, Im happy to say I went their again and had a great experience.
ReplyDeleteRe the Long Goodbye: what annoyed me was the washed-out-then-suddenly-bright look that Ebert described. I get it, but it was heavy-handed. I LOVED Gould's performance. Him and Sterling Hayden, who was great. It was neat to see some guy who ratted all his pals out to HUAC looking like he'd never get over it.
ReplyDeleteEd
Zahn is so highly underrated!!!
ReplyDeleteZahn and Herzog together should be mind blowing.
It was eight years ago, but Zahn in "Out of Sight" is still magnificent.
ReplyDeleteHmm. The Long Goodbye has always struck me as the only unwatchable adaptation of a Chandler story. More or less plotless, seemingly devoid of art direction, and it completely misses the spirit of Chandler's book. AND Elliot Gould. ugh.
ReplyDeleteOn an unrelated elliot gould note... stumbled across MASH the movie on tv while we were in a hotel in Barstow. I can't believe how sexist and lame it came across. Hasn't aged well at all.
you're right about mash, i blogged almost the exact same thing a few months ago when i netflixed it. HOWEVER, your dissing of gould cannot go unchallenged. consider yourself slapped across the face with a glove. tomorrow at dawn, we duel.
ReplyDeletehey anonymous,
ReplyDeletethere is so a red snapper:
myfwc.com/marine/FishID/snapred.html
what is up with these anonymous folks and their misinformation?
-Liv
you know what, I bet anonymous was talking about how sometimes other fish gets labelled as red snapper because people would rather buy that than something they haven't heard of. or maybe anonymous is just full of shit.
ReplyDeletei guess what i should've said was, yeah, what beckler said. it's like the whole "bass" thing. bass sounds yummy, so restaurants sell you "white bass" or "chilean sea bass" when that really isn't what it is. i just remember reading about a biologist that did dna testing in all these different restaurants on "red snapper" and they were all different species of fish.
ReplyDeletelove,
ANON4LYFE
ok.. i slept thru dawn, so maybe you can instead recommend 3 good elliot gould flicks that will change my opinion that he is best suited to Hollywood Squares.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Chilean Sea Bass a culinary term for what marine biologists and fishermen have for ages known as the Patagonian Toothfish? Granted, that doesn't sound very tasty.
ReplyDeleteBecky, I believe the Elliot Gould authority is you -- don't you carry a torch for him? Any excuse to use that outdated lingo...
OK, number 1- Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
ReplyDeletenow i'm looking at imdb and it's hard, i have to admit. I've heard California Split is good from DB bug I've never watched it, and if you're not going to count the long goodbye I guess I have to say-The Muppet Movies? See, it's not so much the movies he was in it was just him being Elliot Gould and being so fine and being married to Barbra. Oh yeah, there's that cameo in Nashville.
I'm just glad that Elliot made a smooth transition from ultra-hot Jewish 70s leading man to playing befuddled dads and neighbors, with some time off (and time with Muppets) in between for good measure.
ReplyDeleteok, I admit that I love the Muppet Movie ('A bear in his natural habitat... a Studebaker.'), but Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice just gives me the creeps. That whole nouveau Hollywood cocaine hipster 70's schtick (epitomised by Donald Sutherland) was the worst. but then, I'm old timey.
ReplyDeleteoh no he didn't! now he has to go and dis sutherland too?! this is war.
ReplyDeleteI got your back on this one.
ReplyDelete