Friday, November 01, 2019

grab bag post

The food writing world is all abuzz this week about Pete Wells' one star review of Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn, which has been around since 1887. It was a moderately fun read, not that crazy. The best line was about the shrimp in the cocktail tasting like latex. I've never been to Peter Luger, at first because it was way out of my budget, and now because I only go to NYC every couple of years. It sounds like the kind of place that is right up my alley as far as being old and crotchety and having grumpy servers.

Eater Podcast had a discussion of it, and I felt very validated for my love of old places, as I wrote about in Eater (plug, plug) (which I still have not been paid for BTW). They talked about all the reasons they love Peter Luger that are not just about having the very best steak in the world.

For Halloween I watched 1 1/2 scary movies, the half was The Cell. I saw this movie when it came out and I forgot about how bonkers it is, and how repulsive as well. I have a newfound love of J Lo from Hustlers but she is so ridic in this, and it's not her fault. The director's leering gaze permeates how she is filmed. She literally has on pink lip gloss in bed alone!! Gross.

The other scary move was Insidious, from the Conjuring dude. I like all his dumb movies. And as a lady, I like Patrick Wilson.

Smiller and I saw The Lighthouse at Tower. I find it very amusing that he was getting The Nurse (directed by conjuring dude) and The Witch (actual high quality movie) mixed up and thought we were seeing a Nurse-related movie. He also did not realize that it starred Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe until the end credits rolled. Nevertheless we both enjoyed it a lot, and I'm so glad I saw it on the big screen as I 100% would have fallen asleep watching it at home. The guy working the ticket booth was very nice and told Smiller that all the Hitchcock movies have been selling out, which is cool. I'm stoked Parasite came out today and will see it soon for sure.

5 comments:

Cody said...

My kind of post!

You're the second person I've read who mentioned the Cell, which I also haven't seen since it hit home video, whenever that was. The stills I've seen posted reminded how wild looking it really is. I don't remember anything about the story, and J Lo being in it makes it even more interesting to me now. I'll have to re-watch it some time.

I get Insidious, the Conjuring and Sinister all mixed up, but I also like them all. Not even sure off the top of my head if Sinister is related, but if I recall it's actually one of the most disturbing main stream-type horror movies from the 2010's. If you like that kind of movie you should check it out. Next October I guess.

Loooved the Lighthouse. I expected it to be very slow and kind of boring (and exected to love that) but it's actually pretty damn entertaining the whole way through. If something weird isn't happening, something funny is usually happening, or at the very least there's something interesting to look at. Robert Eggers is my #1 dude.

beckler said...

I will definitely watch SInister. I even think Saw is pretty good.

Scott Miller said...

I thought he directed The Nun! And spent the first 30 minutes of the movie thinking it was some set-up flashback that was going to jump to the current day any minute and scare the hell out of me. When it comes to movies I have the mind of a child. Loved it regardless.

Anonymous said...

I loved The Lighthouse and I was pretty biased going into it (I watched The Witch again, on Halloween. Damn that movie is great). While I was watching The Lighthouse, I couldn't help but imagine that it might be Tom Waits' all-time favorite film. I can picture him calling up his BFF Jim Jarmusch and alternately weeping over how much he loved the movie and berating Jarmusch for not making an attempt to capture Waits' psycho salty-dog aesthetic in one of his films. DKK

jeffrey day said...

"ridic." Thank you. I heard it first and most often in "Lost Weekend."