Image via CrunchBaseI got my mother a copy of Mark Bitman's How to Cook Everything cookbook for Christmas a few years back, and she uses it all the time.  I'm waiting for the latest edition to come out in paperback, then I'm buying it myself.

Bitman has a blog on the New York Times website, and has contributing and guest bloggers appear regularly.  At one point, the contributor was Luca Marzorati, a high school student and street-cart food connoisseur.

Marzorati's writing is excellent -- you wouldn't guess he was in high school when this was written if the article hadn't made mention of it.  And his praise of Sammy's Halal Cart is glowing.  I'm tempted to track the cart down for lunch one of these days.

Check out the review for yourself.


 

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

2008, online only

You should know

Most of what I heard about this initially was from people raving about it on Twitter the first day it went public. Of course, at first I couldn't get the site to work; opening night, it overloaded. High demand.

I did manage to see the whole thing straight through more than once, and also shared it with my parents, Chris, Brian, and Dan. It somehow didn't occur to me to review it until a few weeks ago, and real life and Iron Man got in the way.

So?

Dr. Horrible is a small-time supervillain about to make his big break. He's working on perfecting his freeze ray, and in between fantasizes about Penny, a regular at his laundromat.

When he finally gets word from Bad Horse, "The Thoroughbred of Sin" and head of the Evil League of Evil, that his application to the League is under serious consideration, Dr. Horrible sets out to steal the Wonderflonium ("Do Not Bounce") he needs to finish his freeze ray. His heist succeeds only because his nemesis, Captain Hammer, "Corporate Tool," gets distracted... by Penny.

The bad Doctor's objectives: perfect the ray, defeat the Captain, impress the Big Bad, and get the girl. Can he do it?

By the way, this is a musical, and if you're prone to catching earworms, beware -- the songs are extremely catchy!

It also may not be appropriate for younger children or more conservative workplaces. There are some mild but blatant sexual references, plus implied and shown violence, including one sympathetic character suggesting another kill a child.

It also has an ending that's pretty controversial, but ultimately unsurprising in context.

I genuinely enjoyed this serial, and pretty much everyone I've shown it to has gotten a kick out of it. If the premise I've outlined sounds interesting, you'll probably enjoy it.

Rating

Check it out
In fact, if you enjoy it, consider watching it more than once. It's extremely heavy on tiny details and blink-and-you'll-miss-it jokes, so the laughs don't fade because you catch something new each time.

The rest of the Internet

Beware of spoilers
Follow Dr. Horrible on Twitter for news and updates, or become a fan on Facebook.
The Wikipedia and IMDb pages.

The official fan site.
Lifehacker interviews Felicia Day, while Wired interviews Joss Whedon.
Entertainment Weekly has scoop from Comic-Con.
The Dr. Horrible/feminist controversy, summed up nicely (read as many of the comments as you can stand).
And now: Buy the DVD!

Clerks.

1994, VHS

Clerks II

2006, big-screen

You should know

Sorry about the late update. I'm in New York looking at apartments for the upcoming semester, and was on the run all day yesterday.

Last week I mentioned that I hadn’t wanted to see Clerks II until I had seen the first movie. Fortunately, my brother owns a copy and was willing to let me borrow it. Dan came over, and we watched Clerks. with my parents, then headed out to the theater to see Clerks II.

So?

Watching Clerks. with my parents was awkward. My mom really appreciated most of the humor, but I couldn’t tell how my dad was reacting at all. Actually, it was a lot like that episode of That 70s Show where Eric and Kitty see a movie together – the whole time, each is hoping the other doesn’t understand the dirty jokes.

Also, and I know this is blasphemy against pop culture, I think the movie would have been much better had Jay and Silent Bob been cut. Yes, I know Silent Bob is Kevin Smith himself, and I know Jay is played by his friend. Even so, the only thing they really contributed to the plot was a bit of dialogue at the end that anyone could have spoken – and the comic relief wasn’t that funny or that relieving. Flame away, but that’s what I think.

Clerks II was really enjoyable. It was completely different from its predecessor, but still managed to capture the spirit of the first.

The introduction of color reminded me of The Wizard of Oz, and the new characters fit in perfectly. Even Jay and Silent Bob seemed more organic, although I didn’t always welcome them. I could spot several places where the sequel could have made references to the first movie perfectly naturally, but it didn’t suffer for wanting them; if I hadn’t just seen the movie that day, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

And how can I forget the dance number? It never would have fit into Clerks. However, it was a fun moment in Clerks II. Like the rest of the movie, it was over-the-top in contrast to the lower-key first movie, but that just shows how cinema, Kevin Smith, and Dante and Randal have grown and changed in the last decade.

Rating

See them both.
Back-to-back, if you can. I considered recommending that you fast-forward through Jay and Silent Bob scenes, but you know what? Watch them and make your own call. They’re cultural icons, and me not liking them doesn’t make it not true. Of course, don’t watch it with your kids… and consider not watching it with your parents.

The rest of the Internet

IMDb entries for both movies.
Wikipedia entries for both films.
Rolling Stone reviewed Clerks II.
Movie Mistakes found continuity errors in both films.
Jeff at Minutiae enjoyed Clerks II.
Shameless but topical self-promotion: Attention, Shoppers! gives helpful hints that could keep cashiers from going the way of the Clerks.

I realized that since I'm going to be citing other people, I really should have a guide to the people who show up in my blog, and any previous informtion I've posted about them, so that if I reference them again, you can see exactly who they are.

So:

Mom -- My mother is a homemaker and the mother of two. She, along with my father, watched The West Wing early on, and it was thanks to them that I got into the show. She watched the finale with me and weighed in on it.

Dad -- My father is an engineer and the father of two. He also watched The West Wing early on, and watched the finale with me.

Chris -- My husband (as of 9/26/09) is a lawyer and a Long Island native; we met in college, where he double-majored in economics and political science.  Note well: he hates spoilers. Chris blogs about the NFC East. 

Dan -- "Grade school best friend. Enjoyes his comic books and playing the occasional game of heroclix. Yes he knows that he's playing with little men. Shut up. Works as a police dispatcher and loves movies. Knows far too much about useless trivia." Heh. He wrote that himself.

Brian -- My close friend and Chris's went to undergrad with us, where he majored in Political Science. Brian adds: "Currently he works for a local bank's corporate security department and attends graduate school at LaSalle. He is also involved in Classic BattleTech (and is a staunch supporter of House Davion)."

Paul -- Another friend from undergrad, who majored in International Relations. Paul is the friend who accompanied Chris and me to Canada; I only recently got permission to cite his name.

Janny -- I first met Janny online, and we began hanging out when I moved to New York. We attended shows together, and occassionally got sushi together.

Dave -- My brother, a recent college grad with an engineering degree.  He has a blog of his own here (warning: not safe for work...).

Michelle -- Dave's fiancee.  She's a vegetarian, so if we're eating together I'll be commenting on veggie options.

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The West Wing Series Finale

NBC, Sunday, May 15, 8PM

You should know

I’ve been watching The West Wing since about the second season, and own the first two seasons on DVD. Obviously, I’m going to talk about the episode, so if you haven’t seen it yet, and don’t want to be spoiled, you should walk away now.

I’ll wait.

























Ok.

So?

It’s the last stages of the transition. Santos has to move in; Bartlett has to move out. Will Bartlett pardon Toby? (Yes) Is Charlie the son Bartlett never had? (Yes) Will CJ regret her choice to leave the White House? (No) Are Josh and Donna still together, and ready to be chiefs of staff? (Yes and yes) Did Sam show up? (Yes, for about 10 seconds) Was Leo fondly remembered? (Yes, and if you didn’t guess what the gift was, shame on you) Also, Aaron Sorkin showed up and Richard Schiff did not.

Rating

A tidy end, but not up to early-season standards.
I watched this episode with my parents, who have been watching off and on since season one. I asked them what they thought. Mom expected more, but couldn’t articulate what. Dad thought it “fizzled.” I have to concur.

As you can see from my micro-recap, it was largely predictable. That’s ok, because it means that it met most of the minimal requirements: return of Rob Lowe, poignant moments between Bartlett and Charlie, cute parallelism between the two First Couples, Josh and Donna naked in bed, tribute to Leo.

Still, the first episode of this season featured a nice “three years later” scene that revealed a few things that. In a perfect world, the episode would have followed up, maybe with another three-years-later scene. In the last few episodes, we saw Danny and CJ get together, and since Toby went to the ceremony in the flash-forward, it was pretty obvious he was going to be pardoned. Will got thrown into the Congress race we already knew he’d win. Still, we’ll never know why Toby did it, or if Will and Kate stayed together, or what exactly the deal is with Zoey and Charlie. Ok, fine, these are petty things compared to, say, the war that Bartlett set up for Santos (another bit of parallelism). But the show is about people running politics, so I want to see what happens to the people and the politics.
All in all, the predictability was a bit of a letdown, but any shockers would have been a lot worse. John Wells avoided the helicopters, for which I am grateful.

If you’re a loyal viewer, you’ve seen it. If you bailed out when Aaron Sorkin did, I’d recommend watching the finale, although you might be a bit lost. But if you’ve never cared about this show, this episode is not going to draw you in the way M*A*S*H might have in its day.

The rest of the Internet

The official West Wing website.
The unofficial continuity guide.
Television Without Pity. Their recap should say be up within a week and I'll add it here when it is.
Land of Lime comments on Barlett's reading choices in the finale.
Kelly at Byzantium's Shores liveblogged the episode.
Jeff at Minutiae gave a great review.