Several of us went and watched Inglourious Basters a few weekends ago. While the thing wasn't completely unwatchable, it was still pretty fucking bad. This thing currently has an 88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which only makes me think that Rotten Tomatoes is completely worthless.

My biggest problem with Basterds--aside from the completely pointless bad spelling--was the fact that literally about 80 percent of the movie consists of conversations around tables. The movie starts with a Nazi Jew hunter and a French farmer sitting at a table. Then a junior Nazi war hero imposes his presence on a Jew-in-hiding at a table. Later, his superiors bring her to a fancy Nazi dinner featuring the Nazi that killer her family and lots of tables. The supposed protagonists have a conversation with some Nazis in a forest clearing and probably think about how much they wish they had a table. Hitler seethes while sitting at a table. The undercover Allies meet a double agent and exchange small talk for what seems like hours while sitting at a table. The Jew hunter takes the undercover Allies to a room, where he sits them at a table and offers his complete surrender. Then a theater burns down and the entire Nazi party, including Hitler, dies. End of war.

The entire movie felt like an extended cut of the terrible, terrible ship's mast conversation in Death Proof. Instead of action, we get conversation. Instead of substance, we get one liners. Instead of plot, we get monologues. I was bored with the first scene after a few minutes, and then the whole rest of the movie was more of the same.

But there were other things that simply didn't make sense. Why, for example, was the movie called Inglourious Basterds to begin with? The Basterds are a group of undercover Allies in occupied France who go around killing Nazis in all manner of gruesome ways, but the movie is much more about Shoshana, the Jew that escapes the Jew hunter at the beginning. She's the character the viewer can probably most identify with. And it's her plan that kills the Germans. For the majority of the movie, the Basterds seem like an afterthought, and they completely fail both times that they have a substantive mission to carry out; by the end, only two survive, and that's only because the Nazi that captures them decides not to kill them.

And that's another thing--why the fuck didn't that guy kill them? Throughout the movie, we are repeatedly shown what a ruthless, untrusting motherfucker this guy is. This is a guy that really thinks that Jews and rats are cut from the same cloth. This is a guy who mercilessly kills Jews and doesn't lose a wink of sleep over it. He doesn't just buy into being a Nazi, he fucking loves it. He relishes it. In this regime, he is given complete freedom to be his sadistic, murderous self. So when he, at the end, decides that he's going to switch sides just because he wants a house on Nantucket, it doesn't make any fucking sense. This guy doesn't want a big house surrounded by old money, he wants a basement torture chamber and an endless supply of pseudo-people to play with. And why--after demonstrating that he's essentially a human lie detector--does he decide that he's going to give the good guys all his weapons and let them tie him up? It's not clever or ironic, it's lazy.

This is a movie so ineptly made that it somehow manages to make Brad Pitt--an actor I can't recall ever not liking--and makes him a one-note caricature. And here again, it's not funny or clever, it's just lazy. And unentertaining.

To review: if you want to see endless table-based conversation punctuated by pointless gore and violence all carried out by characters with absolutely no substance, then this is the movie for you. Otherwise, stay the fuck away.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Movie Reviews , Rants

The other day, I noticed that there was a new restaurant on the East Side that claimed to offer a seafood and sushi buffet. Being a fan of seafood, sushi, and buffets, I decided I had to check this out. To my surprise, chelsadilla--normally a vehement anti-seafood advocate--was really into the idea of trying it out, especially when we read some stuff online indicating that they had several non-seafood options.

The food at Oysy isn't the best I've ever had. The crab legs were cold (intentionally, I think), some of the sushi had been sitting out too long, and the non-seafood options were limited, although I think chelsadilla wasn't disappointed by the place. On the other hand, this place had all-you-can-eat crab legs, all-you-can-eat sushi, and mounds of other food.

In addition to the crab legs, the raw bar featured peel-and-eat shrimp and oysters on the half shell. Other offerings included an entire buffet counter that seemed to feature pretty much just whole baked fish fillets and the obligatory giant hunk of roast beef. There seemed to be two soup choices (an udon variety and your standard miso). To my surprise, the place even has frog legs. Chelsadilla brought some to our table. I had a bite. They were terrible, but I can't say if that's because they were frog legs or if it's because they were frog legs prepared at an all-you-can-eat seafood place.

Aside from getting some tempura shrimp and vegetables--which were awesome--I bypassed almost all of the non-sushi options. As I mentioned, some of the sushi seemed like it had been sitting out too long, but that only applied to the pieces I got on my first trip. i think that might be more a result of the fact that we came in well before the dinner rush. Those first pieces might have been left over from lunch. Later, when more people started showing up, the sushi chefs started continually making fresh sushi, and they were all at least passable.

The worst part of the whole thing was the dessert. There was one offering that was completely unidentifiable. Based on chelsadilla's reactions to it, I wonder if it was actually meant to be eaten. The cheesecake I tried was, frankly, terrible. And there were these little chocolate-looking cake things that were actually coffee cakes that I hated but chesadilla liked.

When we left Oysy, we were full and happy. The food was, on the whole, fairly decent. I think that the price was a little steep--right around $20 per person. I'd have to give it a value ratio of about .8--it's closer to being worth about $15 to $16 a person. If I were in the mood to completely gorge myself on food, I'd happily pay $15 more and go to Samba. I don't regret going to Oysy, I'd go there again if I was with people that wanted to, but I don't think I'd seek it out.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Restaurant and Bar Reviews

I'm not sure exactly who's idea it was, but chelsadilla and I decided that we had to go to Le Tigre Lounge, like, now. So, given that we had a bunch of people willing to go out but no particular idea about what to do Saturday night, we suggested it. Everyone was down, and we set off for parts unknown.

For those of you who aren't as hip and with it as me and my group of friends, Le Tigre Lounge is in an extremely dilapidated strip mall directly off of the Beltline on Midvale. It's next-door neighbors are an auto-parts store and a Mexican market. Further down the parking lot is Taqueria Guanajuato (pronounced by Mr. Vice as "takwERia gooanajoowato"), which I've been told is the best Mexican food in town (we couldn't verify that claim on Saturday because Taqueria Guanajuato closes at 10:00pm). It's a cash-only establishment, which we didn't know. That meant that we had to hike to the nearest ATM, which involved running across Midvale, traipsing through a little wooded area, and arriving at a BP where the cashier was behind bulletproof glass. Still, that all went off without a hitch, and, after nearly stepping out in traffic, we were able to get to the business at hand: exploring a new bar.

As the name suggests, Le Tigre is all about the tigers. Though I was initially disappointed because there wasn't a large, dead, stuffed actual tiger near the entrance as we'd been told, there certainly was no shortage of tiger paraphernalia. In fact, there was a clear overabundance of tiger shit everywhere. In addition to the numerous portraits of tigers, there were tiger-print lampshades and tiger statues in essentially every direction. There was even a giant picture of Tony the Tiger right when you walk in. It's good times.

We got there kind of early, so the place was fairly empty. The people who were there were older, laid-back types. More jaded observers might have called them alcoholic burn outs. As the night went on, though, a more varied crowd came in, but the place was never packed and it was never too loud to hear what your friends were saying, which I value.

The drinks were strong, and the fact that it wasn't crowded meant no one felt guilty ordering more complicated drinks. Chelsadilla got a sweet brandy old fashioned on her first round; I got a white Russian. PH got a bloody Mary, and I think she liked it.

We sat towards the back at what appeared, at first glance, to be a giant table. We realized once we were sitting that it was actually a piano with a bar built into the outside edge--I tried to imagine what sort of terrible lounge-y performances this piano was party to. Of course, there was a giant stuffed tiger spread out on top of the piano. It was cute.

We'd heard that the owner of Le Tigre hand picked the jukebox music and that the most recent song was from 1985. I think that's bullshit--there wasn't a song on there that was recorded after 1969. Still, the music was fun and fit the atmosphere perfectly. And it was never too loud.

One of my main concerns with going to Le Tigre was that we'd read that there was a strict no-cursing policy because, as that article noted, at Le Tigre, it's all about the class. We were never called out on our cursing, though I think we were fairly careful about it.

Another concern that popped up as the night went on was that the bartender--who may or may not have been the owner--had two small greyhounds behind the bar with him. I'd never seen a dog in a bar before, and it was strange. But the bartender later came out and assured us that the dogs were cute and not disease-infested. I was reassured.

We called it a night fairly early, but I think everyone had a good time, and I know that I can't wait to go back. I don't think I'm going to have a problem finding people to join me, either.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Restaurant and Bar Reviews

I was watching TV tonight, and, due to the fact that I wasn't watching stuff off the DVR, I had to sit through commercials. I hate commercials, but I'm sorta glad I did this time, because something hilarious happened. This commercial came up that was clearly one of those extremely low-budget ads for some extremely sketchy pseudo-company. Then it cut to this screen:

That's right--they want you to call their website. Or they named their company after the website, which, unless you're Google or Yahoo, just seems like a bad idea. Plus, also, how large is the target audience for this ad? How many people are in this situation where their car's been written off and they think they got a raw deal? And of those, what percentage is watching HGTV at 8pm on a Monday? This ad is a failure no matter how you cut it.

Anyway, yeah. Other than that, i had a great weekend, Halloween was awesome, I spent Sunday lazing about the house, and now it's the work week again. I really think that every third week should be a vacation.

Posted by Ismael Tapia II at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)| Filed under Existential Nonsense , Funny Shit