Review: Brick

It's Oscar season, and here I am, still reviewing older movies. What fun is the Oscars when it's the same 6 films in every single category (looking at you, effing Benjamin Button)? I'll admit it was alright, but I've found one equally alright. I bring you the anti-Oscar.

I found Brick (2005) stumbling on a blog about the top 5 movies that you've never heard of but you should watch. Sigh. How cliche. IMDB plot summary: high school...underworld...crime ring...investigate...



I'M SOLD.

First few minutes in, and this is very obviously an indie film. It's refreshing to see one every so often, because watching non-cgi visual effects fills you with a sweet feeling inside, like watching a chill magic show. Do those exist? They do old-school things like filming a scene in reverse and playing it back to get the IMPOSSIBLE!!!! shot. Reminds me of the cheapness of Jacob's Ladder effects too.
Effects and cinematography +1

Head man is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whose name or face you might, might recognize. I don't know what you watch. Here, he looks like he could be a cross between John Lennon and a young Heath Ledger. And what could be a better combination for a guy who fearlessly infiltrates a drug ring involving high school students. The support is rather well-played too. Considering that the dialogue is a shitstorm of slang (it took subtitles and some intermittent pauses to get through key plot points), the resulting performances hold up. And thank god it's not the same boring high school stereotypes. I lied. It is the same stereotypes. But not boring though, because it takes the characters from, say, American Pie, and applies a Max Payne story to it. The original video game, not some weird junk with valkyries 'n shit.

Yes, ultimately, it's a noir film and sort of a revenge film, and it grabs you by the collar as it runs down some dank alley. Enjoy.
Read More......

Essential Classical - Pt. 5: Pretentiousness and the last of this

This is it. Here are the miscellaneous pieces left over worth mentioning. Now it's up to you to go hunt down some more classical music you like. I'll give you a hint: Chopin's piano works are insanely good.

1) Vivaldi - Spring
You oughta know this one by now. And just to cover all the seasons, this is Autumn.

2) Bach - Cello Suite No. 1
Yo, Yo-Yo.

3) Bach - Jesu, Joy of a Man's Desiring
Sorta pompous, but check out #4.

4) Boccherini - Minuet from String Quartet in E Major
Sooooo pretentious.

5) Handel - Hallelujah Chorus
As you might have guessed, all those familiar tunes had to have started somewhere. This one just happens to go way back.

6) Tchaikovsky - Dance of the Reeds
If I'm not mistaken, Angela from the office plays this at one of The Office holiday parties.

7) Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
First time I heard this piece was when David Copperfield escaped from a building being demolished. And hey, it's Mars too!

8) Bach - Bouree in e minor
Since it's so rad on strings, Tenacious D and Jethro Tull caught on and replicated.

9) Rimsky-Korsakov - Flight of the Bumblebee
The piece to destroy a violinist with. Sweet trumpet version used in Kill Bill.

10) Mozart - Queen of the Night
The song to destroy a soprano with. You miss one of those notes and your career is effed.

11) Tchaikovsky - Trepak
I think it was featured in Home Alone, or really any other Christmas-themed movie...

12) Rossini - Barber of Seville Overture
I hope this is familiar to you, cause it means you watched the Looney Tunes feature that was voted one of the greatest cartoons ever.

13) Offenbach - Infernal Gallop
No need to say more. See it in Moulin Rouge.

14) Beethoven - Pathetique Sonata (1st and 3rd movements)
A snippet of the 1st movement was played in the Seinfeld episode about the Pez dispenser.

15 and 16) Beethoven - 5th and 9th symphonies
Everyone knows Beethoven's 5th, and the 9th gave you the "Ode to Joy". Sup, Die Hard.
Read More......

Brogger's Menu: Grilled Tofu and Eggplant Noodle Salad

For some of us SoCal people, it's friggin' hot outside. I've done variations on noodle salads, and this seemed appropriate for this week. It's vegetarian to boot. Check after the break for this easy 30-minute recipe that's healthy, light, and refreshing.

Ingredients - Serves 3
1 package of Chinese egg noodles 1 block fried Tofu/bean curd (using only half anyway) 1 eggplant (I prefer Chinese variety, but I used Japanese because that's all they had) 1 cucumber 1 package of bean sprouts 1 package Japanese seaweed 2 green onions 5 basil leaves 3 cloves of garlic
olive oil
salt
pepper
light sweet soy sauce / soba noodle dipping sauce (very similar)

Step 1: Prepare the vegetables & tofu - 5 minutes

Fill a pot with water, large enough to fit your noodles. Put it on the stove to bring to a boil.

Mince the garlic, shred the cucumbers, dice the basil and green onions.

Cut eggplant length-wise in half, then width-wise to get nice quarter-slices (look like chips). 3-4 slices per person. Drizzle olive oil enough to coat pieces, and add salt and pepper.

Cut tofu block in half, then cut the tofu from corner-to-corner to make a triangle piece of tofu.

Water should be boiling or near it. Take about a handful/fist's worth of bean sprouts and throw it into the boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Take out and set aside with the rest of your vegetables.

Step 2: Boil the noodles - 8 minutes

Dump your package of noodles into the boiling water. Stir slowly constantly to prevent sticking. After 7-8 minutes, take a sliver out and check for done-ness. You want them to still have a bit of bite to be chewy, but not mushy.

Step 3: Make noodle salad - 2 minutes

Grab a bowl large enough to fit the noodles. Drizzle olive oil enough to just coat the noodles so they don't stick together. Take your garlic, basil, and green onions and dump them in with the noodles and toss together. Take your light sweet soy sauce and drizzle enough to coat the noodles.

It should be at a consistency where the garlic, basil, and green onions stick to the noodles and are not clumped together. Put in refrigerator to chill.

Step 4: Grill eggplant and tofu - 8-10 minutes

Get the grill hot. Smoking hot. Toss on the eggplant and tofu triangles and close. Wait 5-6 minutes or until the eggplant skin becomes charred, and flip both eggplant and tofu. 2-3 minutes later, it should be completed.

You're looking for a tender consistency on the eggplant to tell if it's done. Poke it with a fork or tongs to check. The tofu just needs to get charred.

Don't have a grill? Sauteeing the eggplant and tofu works too.

Step 5: Construct plate - 1 minute

Take the noodles out of the fridge. Grab a plate and make a noodle mountain or however much you want to eat.

Layer on a bed of bean sprouts. Layer on a bed of cucumbers.

Place tofu triangles on top of cucumbers. Place eggplant around the plate.

Top off with seaweed salad.

Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top if you have it.

This dish has a refreshing light soy/garlic/basil flavor, and a smokey aftertaste once combined with the tofu and eggplant. It's deep and whole in it's flavor due to the grilling, and you won't feel guilty eating it because it's very light and chilled.

Read More......

Essential Classical - Pt. 4: Romantic...sorta

This category started out simply enough, and then it got out of hand really quickly. So here's 16 pieces, subdivided into dances, wedding music, and then general, chill-out-with-your-waifu stuff.

I. The Dances

Feel free to gloss right over if this ain't yo thang.

1) Ponchielli - Dance of the Hours (excerpt, cause the whole thing is loooong)
2) Tchaikovsky - Waltz of the Flowers
Where you've seen it: If you haven't seen it performed seriously, it's usually in spoofs of synchronized dances.
3) Bizet - Habanera
4) Gardel - Por Una Cabeza
Where you've seen it: Scent of a Woman, Schindler's List, True Lies


II. Weddings

Strictly wedding stuff.

5) Clarke - Trumpet Voluntary
Now that's classy. I'm pretty sure the bridal party usually comes in to this one.
6) Wagner - Lohengrin Act III Prelude ("Bridal Chorus")
Wikipedia: despite this being popular as "here comes the bride", it's usually not used for Jewish, Lutheran, or Roman Catholic weddings. And in the opera, the marriage between Elsa and Lohengrin is an almost immediate failure. Take that, Western culture!
7) Mendelssohn - Wedding March
Frankly, this is borderline epic.


III. Chill Out with Your Waifu

8) Pachelbel - Canon in D
The "original one-hit wonder," sometimes used in weddings too. The chord progression is in every single song you have and will ever like. Here's proof. And oh yeah, remember this guy?

9) Schubert - Ave Maria
Damn right, that's Hitman. So I've heard this during weddings and a funeral. Although, come to think of it, the funeral was in a game. Crazy. And crazy good.

10) Bach - Air on the G String
Never mind the awkward name. You'd sometimes hear this one at wedding processions as well. But by far, the Klazz Brothers/Cuba Percussion version used for the film Collateral is my number one piece of music to chill out to.

11) Delibes - The Flower Duet
I can't remember, but I think this is the song playing when Homer Simpson sees "Flushing Meadows" and dreams about a field of toilets.

12) Jenkins - Palladio
Only because this was used in old De Beers commercials. A diamond cubic zirconia is forever.

13) Strauss - The Blue Danube
If this song didn't sound so blissful, it'd belong in the Epic section too.

Where you've seen this: 2001: A Space Odyssey (noticing a trend?)

14) Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 8 II. Andante cantabile
Better known as the Pathetique Sonata, for whatever reason. Klazz Brothers and Cuba Percussion have a good, jazzy arrangement of this piece too.

15) Grieg - Morning
More fun to set this song as your alarm than Rage Against the Machine - Wake Up. The other "morningy" piece is from the William Tell Overture (see the 2nd half of the video).

16) Rachmaninoff - Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Variation XVIII
This will freaking sweep you off your feet, even if you're sitting down. Amirite?
Read More......

Electronica Classics

Here are some songs I've found in the past and had the feeling that I've heard a million times before, though I never knew who did them. They're the kinds of songs they put on cheesy commercials or they're in movies and you never know who they're by. Please ignore the videos themselves as they are generally rubbish. Insomnia has been sampled for other songs for ages, and Operation Blade was the theme song for Blade (Starring Wesley Snipes, before tax fraud and jail). These songs will also take a while before it gets to the "Oh I feel like I've heard this before" part.

• System F (aka Ferry Corsten) - Out Of The Blue
• Felix - Don't You Want Me
• Zombie Nation - Kernkraft 400
• Faithless - Insomnia
• Public Domain - Operation Blade

Read More......

Shorting Treasuries: 2-week update

I have more or less turned out flat for the past two weeks. The Dow has gone down roughly 1000 points, with these being the big headlines:

• Citigroup Ready to Shrink Itself by a Third
• Jobless Claims Jump in Latest Week
• Retail Sales Keep Sliding, Declining 2.7% in December

On another note, there is part II of the Finance Meets Fashion party. This is a party organized by promoters to cater to the greatest d-bags in Manhattan - the bankers and traders who think they're the shit, and the girls that want to snag a rich guy in Gucci loafers. Or as Dealbreaker puts it, it will "make you want to throw a grenade into the party and kill all the assholes in NYC in one fell swoop." Read More......

Essential Classical - Pt. 3: Epic

The ones that didn't make the Furious cut, but still had huge, classical cojones.

1) Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra Introduction
How do you pack that much epicness into such a small time frame?
Where you've seen it: 2001: A Space Odyssey

2) Orff - O Fortuna
It's sad how overplayed this is. It could've been something special.
Where you've seen it: EVERYWHERE. I hate you, Paul Blart, mall cop.

3) Grieg - In the Hall of the Mountain King
You've heard it before, I know. I don't have anything to say about this one.
I was also not aware ELO did a version of this...whatever.

4) Bizet - The Toreadors
Where you've seen this: I remember this at the end of each NES tetris level. And then the Russian church towers would blast off like rockets. Just like in real life.

5) Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 14 III. Presto agitato
If you didn't know, Piano Sonata No. 14 = Moonlight Sonata. And to think, I was learning how to play this...

6) Mozart- The Marriage of Figaro Overture
My music teacher in high school called this a classic overture, saying it was a "fun song." I guess that's one way to describe it.




And now, the juggernauts...

7) Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture
Part 1
Part 2
Tchaikovsky wrote a part for cannons to be in his overture. Cannons! Imagine the afterparty after a performance:

"Yeah, I'm in the orchestra. I played the cannon."

Where you've seen it: V For Vendetta Finale [OBVIOUS SPOILER]

8) Tchaikovsky - Marche Slave
The Slavonic March. This song kept coming up in a documentary of Stalin I saw last semester.

9) Rossini - William Tell
Part 1
Part 2
...triangle guy steals the show.
Read More......