Silver Linings Playbook

One of the best movies this year... They say and I don't see it.
Is Bradley Cooper a Best Actor? I think not.

If the critics call this movie just a usual romantic comedy - drama, I will take it, but once they are trying to push it to be an Oscar Best Picture or call it the best movie of the year then right away it becomes a major turn off to me, I don't know why this movie and Bradley will get the nomination,  when this film is not as good as "When Harry met Sally", "Garden State" or  "As good as it gets"?..

Maybe I am a bit bipolar right now because I don't understand why everyone thinks this movie is so amazing? Are those people being paid to say that? Or they have watched the uncut version? I don't understand why this movie to be nominated for 8, yes you are right ...  8 Oscars! The only nomination I agree with is best supporting actor and beside that, the other reason I can think of is that the Oscar  are trying to build a movie up to be the Oscar best picture, so they need something weaker to do it, so the Silver Linings is just that. Or maybe they don't have any other choice? Who  are the judges anyway? Bradley Cooper doesn't act very well and almost like he wasn't there for the whole film, he is not convincing as a bipolar patient. Oh wait, maybe that's the method acting, he actually was on Effexor.

From experiences,  I happened to know a few people have OCD or BPD and I can tell you, no one can really feel better just by themselves and drugs can only do little help with their mood swing but it will never fix anyone,  they can try their best to control it tho, but in the end it is not as easy as it seems in this movie, obviously Bradley or the director hasn't done much research, somehow I think he didn't even read about bi-polar disorder. Yes, they can shout and panic under stress, but the truth is mostly they will just shut down and don't want to interact with anyone, they are living in their own world, they will cry and depress with no reason, but when they panic and stress is because some kind of emotion triggers them so they will be filled with emotion – there is a scene where Bradley is screaming but you can't see him with any emotion at all, comparing to Robert De Niro with his great supporting character here, his role as a father who has OCD is just brilliant and he really seems to do it just right. This is De Niro's best performance in quite a while and I think he is now in other level of Acting.
He is famous to lead and act in a way that will make every actor around him come alive because he just knows the method and how, he understands acting and how the camera works, he can make someone acting without their knowing, just like in Ragging Bull, De Niro asks Pesci "Did you fuck my wife?" both him and Scorsese did not tell Pesci that the script called for him to be attacked. So, if you think Bradley doing well with De Niro together, I think is because De Niro knows how to make Bradley to act with him. I really hope to see more of the relationship of De Niro and Jakie Waver, I think it could be more interesting movie to watch and they are much better Actors than both Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Copper. 
Oh, Jennifer Lawrence also nominated? Whats wrong with you Oscar? She is doing a good job but not really a Oscar worthy performance but then again, she is much better than Bradley. I don't want to make this to be a Bradley hate mail, so i better stop now.

Overall, Sliver Linings Playbook is a OK film, forget about the flaws, It has some good comedy moments, some great performances and is a fairly good film to watch  but I don't see it should get any Oscars – but then you never know because this could be the sliver lining film.

Django Unchained

Django is a black slave who is separated with his wife and gets his chance to save her  from the hands of a plantation owner Calvin Candie with the help of a German bounty hunter Dr King Schultz.

This is Quentin Tarantino's movie and I can say QT movies are all gangsters, from his debut Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds and now Django Unchained, no doubt it's funny and bloody and is the most entertaining movie this year for the Oscar anyway.

Like many spaghetti western before Django, espeically compared to Sergio Leone's classic like Once upon a Time in the West, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, QT makes his western gangster movie with a modern touch of James Brown music and plays with the humor like Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, “I watched my wife working all day to get 30 bags for you ungrateful sons-of-bitches and all I can hear is criticise, criticise, criticise”, you will never look at the Ku Klux Klan the same way again.

Surly the violence in this movie is a bit overdone but also well choreographed, it reminds me the gun battle shoot out ending of  John Woo's Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow II, also the relationship between Dr Schultz and Django are quite similar to Mark and Sung Tse-Ho (played by Chow Yun-fat and Lung Ti ), we all know that QT is the big fan of Woo, so I am sure when he wrote the script, he  thought about the movie like A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled, The Killing and Bullet in the Head more or less.  I remember in True Romance, a script written by QT, even tho it has been changed a lot by Tony Scott but if we look closer then you will see Clarence and Alabama are the past life of Django and Broomhilda.
 
I can't say this is the best movie of Quentin Tarantino, I think Inglourious Basterds was much more fun, or should I say Django is like a twin movie but set in different time zone? I think QT has been looking for a perfect representative for him in his movie and Christoph Waltz maybe just the guy, every director has a reflection of himself in his own film, Martin Scorsese has DeNiro and DiCaprio, Hitchcock has Jimmy Stewart, John Woo has Chow yun-fat and Wong Kai-Wai has Tony Leung.  An actor and director are like body and soul, and Waltz served QT writing  better than anyone,  he is like Quentin in a much gentle manner and funnier.

When you watch Django or any QT movie, you have to think like him and understand his moral. In QT 's world, you can not take everything so serious, you have to understand you are not watching Lincoin or Les Miserables, you are here for fun, to be thrilled. Don't ask any questions like why there was Australian Bounty Hunter and why QT has to play a part? Don't ask why the movie is so long and it should end 20 mins earlier? why there is so much blood? and why Django can shoot so well.
     
This is a QT BBQ Western chili sauce movie with rap and James Brown mix of Ennio Morricone's music blood porn with Uncle Tom on Acid, a real live Japanese Manga inspired by Playstation TV game. Why some people like to go to Strip club? because they like it!! Some people think this movie doesn't look realistic but I think this is far more realistic than Sliver Lining Playbook. Why I think QT movie is fun because it is.  I will not even talk about the N word? at least the N word he used in this film is much more reasonable than in Pulp Fiction, one thing will make the second half of the film more suspenseful is to make Samuel Jackson character's more quiet. It will make "motherfucker" more powerful and the dinner more scary.

Django is a summary of QT's movies, self indulge exercise. I wonder what he will do next? He did crime, war, kind of kung-fu, western movie. So, maybe a film noir like Hitchcock?

Tortilla - Spanish Omelette

Ingredients:

    2 eggs

    1 potato, cubed and boiled until half cooked 

    Half of onion, Chopped

    4 slices of spicy salami, chopped up or  dice bacon

    4 tsp of Aioli (garlic mayonnaise)

    Olive oil and Butter

    1/3 cup of flour x 2 tsp of Milk

    Salt to taste

Directions:
1. Put a frying pan with 3 tsp of olive oil and fry the chopped onion with 1/2 tsp sugar and butter, fry until the onions are fully caramelized.

2. Add in the chopped salami and fry with the onion.

3. Add the half cooked potato and stir with the chopped onion and salami, add 2 tsp of Aioli, pepper, salt and garlic salt to taste,  pan frying it slowly until the potatos are tender and fully cooked then take off the fire.


4. Mix  flour with Milk , beat 2 eggs together and then stir in the potatoes and onion mixture.

5.  Heat olive oil on medium heat in a small to medium non stick frying pan, and pour the eggs and potato mixture into the frying pan and give the pan a quick spin so the surface will brown evenly, this is important for the omelette to be crisp around the edges but we don't want it over cook, so carefully lift up one side and see if the omelet is slightly "browned" if so then it's time to flip  the omelet to cook the other side.

6. Place a large dinner plate upside down over the frying pan. With one hand on the frying pan, quickly turn the frying pan over and the omelet will “fall” onto the plate.

7. Place the frying pan back on the fire and put just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan, put the Tortilla back  in the pan and cook for other 20 sec and turn off heat and place the tortilla on the plate, remember this version of tortilla should be brown on both side and creamy in side, spread on some Alioi and sprinkle some dry parsley to serve.

 If you want to make a smaller  Tortilla, put less ingredients, or put more when you want to have it big. You can put anything you want inside, some people I know even put cheese, some like it dry inside and some like it soft, it is really up to you. Important thing is to make it tasty, the first time maybe is not good enough but I am sure if you keep doing it, someday you will master it and your Spanish friends will be proud.

Anna Karenina

All I can say is, Anna Karenina is a disappointment and a fail attempt to make a movie out of a great classical novel. I am very confused about what is the director Joe Wright want to show us, I can only see this movie is a mess. I was looking forward to this film, when I said film, I expected this film to be like "The Last Emperor", "Elizabeth",  "Gandhi" etc, but instead the director gave us a "Moulin Rouge on Absinthe MTV", it is totally out of control and led me to think they do the film like a theater just because they don't have the budget for locations. They keep changing the sets, I can't even focus on where and who they are, they show you a toy train turned into a backstage, then suddenly everybody are dancing and no, its not the ball room yet ... everything in this film looks fake and so is the emotions of the characters, all the actors acted like toys under the director's command, I assume. Jude Law is doing his best but since the whole setting of this movie is distracting, I can't see his experssion very well and for Keira Knightly as Anna is seriously a miscast, I see Keira acting her self and dress up like a Imperial Russian girl, but I don't see her as Anna at all. Yes, I  know she is not Meryl Steep but can she try to speak with Russian accent in the movie? actually not just her but everyone in this film.  I know they said don't ever compare the movie to the novel, but this is just way out of line. If they call this movie other name it could be better.  

Many people said the visual part is great in this film and I disagree,  the whole film is over done and lame, I can see the director is trying to experiment a new approach to Tolstoy but making a non musical dancing movie surely not a good idea. Maybe the director wants to show us how fake the Russian society was in that time and that's what Anna has to deal with? or maybe the director doesn't want us to compare this film to "The Age of Innocence"  that's why he has a stage play on film with moving back ground. I don't know how the Russian people will react to this film. Yes, the dress might look good but are they matching the time period? Wait I cant really tell because the restaurant now has turned into a bed room.

Anna Karenina is a story about jealousy and heartbreak but this movie makes me so jealous that Joe can have an opportunity to direct this film but I am sure I can do a better job than him breaking my heart. 

Slow Braised Pork Belly

This is what I call "The Magic Dish", if you don't like to eat pork, this dish might change your mind and if you love pork, then you will love pork even more.  The way the pork falls apart and the fatty bit melts in your mouth like a jelly candy. The Chinese call it Dongpo Rou and the Japanese call it Buta no Kakuni, the difference is the wine they are using but basically the same. I know many people especially the women who want to watch their weight, when they hear the word "pork belly or pork fat" will run away. The good news is, really the fat bit is not such bad thing, some even say it is good for the skin, I will say anything is better than margarine, just try to wash it away from  frying pan you will know how bad that is. Some people say animal fat is bad for the heart, I will say if you eat it everyday maybe, but every once in a while I don't see it can really make your heart so bad. Now a day everything is bad for you, don't eat this and don't drink that. If people listen to that, might all end up dead because of depression, why not just try a good dish every now and then, it won't kill you but only makes you happier, beside this is a easy cooking, everyone can do if you have a bit of time. Try to cook this dish for your pork eating lover, this will make them love you to death, not a bad way to go.


1 kg/2lb pork belly, cut into 8cm cubes
3 tbsp sugar or more to taste
4 slices of fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 small red chilli – optional
1 star anise
1 tbsp cinnamon powder
½ cup soy sauce
5 tbsp mirin/optional
3 tbsp Shaoxing wine/Sherry or Sake 
Water

To serve
2 sliced spring onions
English mustard

Heat a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add soy sauce, sugar, mirin, sake and some water, bring it to boil then put in the pork, put in all the fresh ginger, garlic cloves, 1 small red chilli, star anise, cinnamon powder and stir to coat the pork for 1 to 2 minutes then add enough water to cover the meat. Bring to the boil again, and cover it with a aluminum foil, or the Japanese will use a wooden lid called  Otoshibuta (cut a sheet of aluminum foil that covers the diameter of your pot, fold the edges up into a circle so that the lid fit inside the pot), then simmer very gently for about an hour. Check the sauce, the sauce should taste a bite like a Christmas cake, you will taste the sweet star anise and cinnamon, but everyone tastes it differently so you can adjust the taste to your liking, if not sweet enough, add some sugar, if not salty enough add some more soy sauce, add water if its too dry, cover with the aluminum again to let it simmer for another  hour, until the pork is meltingly tender. Then boil down the sauce until thick and syrupy. Remember, the key is simmer, give it a time, watch a good movie when you are cooking this, go on facebook and tell people about my Blog.., ok now the hour is up, your pork should be ready. Now you know the basic, next time you can do it your own way, put different kind of sugar ? or even cola? want it a bit sour and add some vinegar.

Now is ready to serve the pork pieces with some sauce and a scattering of spring onions. As you eat, add a little mustard if you like.

Sometimes I put fresh Shiitake mushrooms and bak choy in the pot for 3m ins before I serve this. It will give the pork a nice flavour and green color. This dish is just like life itself, add flavour according to your taste, make it sweet, make it lovely and melt in your mouth, give it some color and do it slowly otherwise if you burn it then you might have to do it all over again.

Ang Lee

"Selecting the ingredients is like the pre-production work and the filming, and actually cooking the food is like the editing”  - Ang Lee 

Ang Lee's story is a love story. A love story with his family, a  love story with his wife and of course a love story with his films.  One of the stories is about dumpling. When "The Wedding Banquet" which was Oscars nominated for best foreign-language film, the night before he was to fly off to Los Angeles, Ang made 200 dumplings and kept them in the refrigerator so his children won’t starve. Ang Lee is a good man and a good father, he understands struggle and that's why his film is filled with compassion, "Brokeback Mountain" is not just a film about romance of gay cowboys in love but is about the true feeling of human being and pain. We can see ourselves in his film.

"There's a private feeling to the movie, an intimate feeling. I think eventually everybody has a Brokeback Mountain in them. Someone you want to come back to. And, of course, some people don't come back."

 

In Ang Lee’s film, you can also find that his characters are persistence or even stubborn, rather it is Chu in "Eat Drink Man Woman", Elinor Dashwood in "Sense and Sensibility", Li Mu Bai in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Bruce Banner in "Hulk", Jack Twist in "Brokeback Mountain" , Wong Chia Chi in "Lust, Caution", Pi  In "The life of Pi".  They take risk and devoted and Ang trying to show us  that our believe and the sense of crisis is part of adventure and challenge, it could be a marriage, sexuality, love, taste, identity, tiger or just a stolen sword.

"Nothing stands still. That's important in my movies. People want to believe in something, want to hang on to something to get security and want to trust each other. But things change. Given enough time, nothing stands still. I think seeking for security and lack of security is another thing in my movies."

Some say his movies have strong father figure, but i see his movie is even more about a Child, finding his way, the impact and the conflicts between old and young, east and west, animal and men, believe and disbeleive, you can see that they always want to find a home, somewhere they belong and developing their inner self during the process and discover the "new" identity, rather this identity is good or bad but it is something "belonging" to oneself. You can notice his development in "Lust, Caution" or "The Life of Pi" even "Sense and Sensibility".

 

After he finished film school, he was down and out unemployed for six years. During this time, he was a  stay at home full-time house-husband,  but with his wife’s support and understanding, Lee did not abandon his dream to be a film director but continued to generate new ideas and wrote several screenplays during this time.  Ang is not a traditional man, can you imagine this now world famous director, was the same man years ago, cooking in the kitchen, doing laundry and making dumplings for six years at home?  At the same time, this Struggle of him also became his inspiration that became his films, without his persistence and devotion , today "The Life of Pi" won’t exist. Time and time again Ang says that he would never have succeeded without his wife - Jane's love and trust, but Jane said "I did not support him, I just left him alone". At one time, Ang wanted to find a job quickly, but Jane disagreed. She simply would not let her husband go out and find just any job, because Jane trusted Ang and believed he was made to be a genius film director - only his time had not yet come. Jane is right of course.

 

Meryl Steep

She is one of the greatest actor in the 21st century and the most nominated Actress in Academy Award  history. She's not afraid to take on challenging roles, from a lesbian to Italian house wife,  then turn into the PM of Great Britain. She is well known for doing different accents, in her latest movie The Iron Lady she ......., ok,  it’s hard to write about Meryl Steep. Not because there is nothing to write about her but because most things about her career are already on internet and magazines, there are no gossip about her and no scandal, she doesn’t take drugs, she is still married to the same man after 36 years, she’s often talking about her family and how she does her own ironing and not being spoiled and she will tell you that she likes to being a mother...

“Every single decision I make about what material I do, what I'm putting out in the world, is because of my children.”

“Sometimes with my children, I remember exactly how I felt as the child in this situation, not just how it feels to be me.”

She will tell you how to live with honour and dignity and how to make your parents proud, she said she is a great pretender and an expert  to pretend to be an expert to be a pretender and how woman are natural born actors -

 “Women are better at acting then men. Why? Because we have to be. If successfully convincing someone bigger than you are of something he doesn't want to know is a survival skill, this is how women have survived through the millennia”

She is educated and talented. Meryl worked with many great actors and directors and friend with many of them and you know she is a very positive person who is down to earth,-

"I have a very good life - I'm lucky enough not to be deprived."

"Expensive clothes are a waste of money."

"I get nervous calling myself an artist. I feel I'm more like an interpreter or a violinist, you know."

She is  incredibly intelligent and her beauty is not just her look but as a human being and often has wise advices, -

"Listening is everything. Listening is the whole deal. That's what I think. And I mean that in terms of before you work, after you work, in between work, with your children, with your husband, with your friends, with your mother, with your father. It's everything. And it's where you learn everything."

"The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy."

"There's no road map on how to raise a family: it's always an 
enormous negotiation."

She has her own point of view and not afraid to express them with  gentle comment, -

 “I love Chinese movies and don't get enough of them in the United States and that's why people hold film festivals to make others aware of films in other countries,”

"It would be nice to have a woman President. I think half the Senate should be women, half of Parliament, half the ruling mullahs. But that will never happen, darling!"

I wish someday I can talk to her in person,  I will keep telling her jokes because I like her smile and laughs but if she don’t like my joke then I hope she won’t give me the look as she is in The Devil Wears Prada or The Manchurian Candidate and the Doubt, those aren’t very nice faces and almost scary, I do hope that she will give me a smile like the one she gives to De Nino in Falling in Love or let me wash her hair as we are in Africa, I want to tell her that I think she could make Evita a better movie like she makes Julia Child come alive again, if she is my violin teacher than I am sure now I could play it very well like she did in Music of the Heart and I want to tell her how great she is to be Lindy Chamberlain, I want to talk more about her but just in case she is reading this right now, she will say:

"Enough people write about me every day without even interviewing me."

Dear Meryl Streep, I better shut up about you now.