Recent Films :: Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds
★★★★★★★★★☆ (8.9/10)



I stared at the monitor for approximately 5 minutes to figure out how many stars I’m gonna stamp on this title. What a DAMN GOOD FILM. Watchmen, the best movie I’ve watched this year was a while back and the impact is fading. Current impressions tend to overwhelm the impressions in the past (right?), so I had to be careful. They’re both really different movies but shot by 2 directors that share common tastes in differentiation. Definitely one of the best films this year....

People into Tarantino films probably know what to expect from him or at least assume how it’s going to play so I’ll just save a whole page on that….Just one thing I have to mention is the style isn’t exactly the same and some criticize this but I think it completely makes sense. What you expect from him is still here but more remixed into the era we’re in now. What’s a director without various perspectives?


One thing that got me pinned to the screen was the weird intensity. One out of the bunch: Just 2 men talking in a wood house located in the mountains of France. They’re just talking. I don’t know WTF it was I had chills run down my spine a couple times. I’m (still) guessing it’s the camera movement + situation….or it could be Christoph Waltz. This guy’s nuts. But it got me nervous the whole scene, and I still don’t know why. I guess the way Tarantino portrays “whats next” is just genial.

Must watch.

Promotion = :: Coca-Cola + Ice + Lady

Coca-Cola, known for their blubber guaranteed sugar liquid is promoting their money tree right now with a twist. I'm sure most of you experienced this before, the ice flakes that form out of nowhere when you popped a can of soda. They made that a product and it's pretty damn cool. These ideas are something you brainstorm on a napkin and just scribble out coz you ain't pulling it off...but I guess crazy ideas do work sometimes with a little research and experimenting (and doe).


The concept is "Ice in your bottle". Opening the cap will form ice in your drink for a short period to keep the temperature cool for a longer period but it only lasts a few seconds. There's a trick though.
What you do is pop the cap to let the gas out a bit and twist it back on. Rotate it upside down for a while and back. In a few seconds an flakey ice bar will form in the center and you're set. It's also got ice flakes on the surface to drink along with.


That was cool and all...until I noticed a lady standing beside me with a mop. I thought she just walked by during her duty to see all the dumb-found people wandering around the vending machine but there was no sign of her leaving. One problem I experienced during the process was when I opened the cap after the Ice form thingy the coke burst out a bit. I had to wait a while till it chilled. And then there's this lady. So I asked. And it turns out she's on duty alright, but only in that specific area around the vending machine coz a lot of people spilled half their coke on the floor....she even told me some popped their coke to the roof! I guess that's one flaw coz now a lady has to stick with the promotion on each vending machine....But luckily there's only a few in HK right now and most are sold out, and it's seasonal so it'll only be a few weeks of hell for the lady.



You should try it once but I forgot the locations.

Survival Cooking.05 :: 麻婆豆腐四川風（家庭走辣版）

After deciding the title for this post I started typing the content and hit a dead end on the 2nd sentence....So I backspaced the hell out of there, crossed my arms and just stopped.

WTF is 麻婆豆腐 in english? Directly pronounced from Japanese/Cantonese (like in between) it'll sound like "Ma-bo Doufu". But that doesn't really translate coz we still look like a bunch of pigeons. The chinese characters in english would mean....Numb..biOld Lady Bean Curd.....That sounds like a diss so that prolly ain't right. It was a waste of time trying so I just Wiki-ed the damn characters and got.....

...Mapo Doufu

Ok Mapo Doufu it is. The whole dish basically is Bean-curd with minced beef and spicy pepper sauce. The origin comes from a Pock-marked old lady making a bean-curd dish, so the name ended up being 麻婆豆腐. MA-PO DOU-FU. Anyways you can check her out later if you're interested. So the title for this post is "Mapo Doufu Sichuan Style" (マーボーどうふシセンふう　かていソウラーばん）

A bit long already so I'll make things short. There are many ways to make MAPO DOUFU but things should be kept nice and simple at home so you can ditch the fancy stuff like chili flakes and rice wine. What you do need is garlic, fermented black beans, chili broad bean paste(豆瓣酱), chili oil, spring onions and minced meat(can be pork or beef).↓


Just throw them all in, cook a bit, dust some salt, add few blocks of bean-curd and you're done. Don't need to add any extra water because the pork and bean-curd provides enough moist. Just one thing to note is not to smash the bean-curd too much or it'll turn pasty...which I almost pulled off.

The taste was pretty good. Not as spicy as I preferred. It's gotta be lip-numbing spicy if you label it "Sichuan Style". The people in Sichuan would beat the shit out of me if I served this, so 6 it is.

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

Epoch :: Coffee Bar & Desserterie

This cafe was buzzing around recently so some Colleagues and I went to see what the fuss was all about. Home to a HK Barista champion introduced last week on radio, sporting illy's, was more than expected. They really do know what they're doing with their illy's the cappuccino was off the hook. I ain't shelling out anymore doe to SB or PC unless I'm desperate. The pastry was pretty good too. The Orange Chocolate Dome (above) was better than expected but not overwhelming. You can taste the orange...a bit, but you can't even call it an accent. The chocolate and coating was really good though, but just doesn't live up to its name.



We had lunch there with a bowl of Risotto and Cream soup, which I forgot to snap because the hunger just took me over. All in all a great place to chill, we almost forgot lunch time was over.

Epoch

会心の一撃 :: in・清水灣

沖縄出身のわたくしですが、本格的に香港で住むことになった時はやっぱり海が気になっちゃう。そりゃ沖縄で今までの大半を過ごしたんだから自然に比べるわけですよ。で初めて香港の海を拝んだ時は、ハッキリ言ってド汚えって言葉じゃあ収まらない。茶色と言えばまだ聞こえがいい方で、冗談抜きで言うと、失礼だが、ウ●コ色だった。それ程吐き気がした。そんな所で弟がある日「釣りに行く」とぬかして行った。時々自分も生意気にも釣りに行ったが、まあ、茶色い海で釣れそうな魚を釣ったって感じで驚かなかった。そんなある日ですよ。弟が釣りから帰ってきてすんげえ勝ち誇ったツラしてたので真っ先に写メを見せてもらったら



んめっちゃ釣れとるやんけ！！！

香港の海（しかも岸で）こんだけの種類は聞いたこともないのでかなり結構チビッた。挙句にこんなもん↓



まで釣ってくるし。ウツボって・・・・キんモ。オレも舌を巻いた。

最近の「香港海新清対策」（今更）の効果かもしれないが・・

こんど清水灣行ってくる・・マグロ釣ってやる。

モンバー :: Central

日本で今モンハンが熱い中、先週モンバー食ってきた。 Monster Burgerの略ね。今つけたけど。


Been craving for burgers since I set foot in HK but couldn't find any decent ones back then. McD's is the way to go here but luckily HK somehow realized it ain't the only way to go and opened a few more in these few recent years. Now there are countless burger restaurants and I'm on a mission to try them out before the metabolism slows down as the years tick away. Prolly gonna recommend a few in a post later this month but here's one I checked out recently, Monster Burger. There's one in Admiralty and Central. If you want some space to sit around in Admiralty's the way to go. The one in Centrals only got few tables so most people order take outs.

Anyways, the putty on this one is huge. HUGE. And when it's double it won't stack up properly, like in the photo....The putty on top kind of slips off the stack so you'll have a hard time biting in. The taste is alright but the buns are a turn off. There are better choices but I'll compare them in a post later.

Monster Burger (Admiralty)

Recent Films :: Public Enemies

Public Enemies
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)


Just my 2cents: When it comes to gangstaer flicks the character development and atmosphere takes a big role in determining whether the 2 hours in the theater is worthwhile or a just a big waste of 1/12th of your valuable day. Not all popping and herd clashes.

This film didn't really catch my attention. There hasn't been a decent gangster film these years and Public Enemies wasn't really cutting it.

Johnny Depp is a different story.

The only reason people in HK purchased tickets to this movie was probably because of Johnny Depp and I'm one of them. The story was pretty appealing when you actually go through it but the directing was kinda slow. Props to the sound production though the gun shooting scenes were pretty good and the gun fires echo beside your ears. BGM is cutoff during these scenes to express realism and every detail of the bullets could be heard. If they shot 100 bullets 300 sound waves prolly bounced through your ears with each bullet popping off through someone or something. Not as many bank robberies as expected but, how many different ways can you film a bank robbery back in the 30's?

A really "real" film with Johnny Depp as an extra bonus. Can prolly go check him out coz he prolly won't be doing these kinda flicks in a while coz Tim Burton really likes him.

A :: M

Got myself some new AM's (alain mikli) to replace my current A-Look. Been looking for a pair a long while now...The ones that cut it cost a liver so there weren't many choices and this one wasn't an actual choice as well, but I'll explain later.

The ones in A-Look are cheap but...cheap. Not sure how they pull it off. Every single frame in there's got a factor that just bugs. A nice frame but ridiculous stripes. Nice colors with an absurd frame. Nice frames AND colors but they just HAD to stamp a bigass Logo on the side.

Mikli's got some nice frames and colors but most can be a bit too exaggerated in style. ....And Price. Some plastic frames can go up to 900USD (88,000円) or 490USD (48,000円) like this one...(frame only). I ain't in hell gonna pay that much for a plastic frame glued with metal pins, but out of a generous route (and limited choice) I was able to land this one with 9/10's of the pie cut out of the plate. The style is not exactly me but damn I can't ask for more.

Recent Films :: Up

Up
★★★★★★★★☆☆(8/10)



Woa, almost a month since the last post.Leaving out the lazy part, I think there's 2 reasons for blogs without any posts.(Depending on the type of blog and I'm not digging up excuses here).

1. Same shit different day
2. Too busy

The thing is, the main point for this blog is to keep record of what I've been doing in my usual routine, spill some comments and might as well share it if anyone is interested. It's not like I'm going to share everyday of my life. (I'm not digging up excuses here). So, that out of the way, regarding the 2 points(↑) it's kinda both here. The same shit I'm into is work being busy along with other personal stuff and it wears me out by the time I get home. So I decided to go watch a film I've been looking forward to for a while on a free weekend.
↑↑↑↑↑Up↑↑↑↑↑ by Pixar

It's kind of scary to think it's been a year already since Wall-E. SHIT, it's been a year already since Wall-E....

Anyways, Finding Nemo has been the benchmark for my impressions on 3D animation, coz that's the only animation I think is worth a 10(out of 10). It ain't a 10 if it ain't Nemo material. No Nemo No Ten. So as you can see Up doesn't quite live up to Nemo material but it is STILL A DAMN GOOD FILM.

As usual the character development is top notch and the attention to every detail possible is, well, payed attention to and executed very well. There's just something different with Pixar's rendering that makes everything look beautiful. On one side everything is well developed and the humor just gets into you but on the other side, I think Pixar tried to balance the movie to older audiences as well and threw in a lot of tear breakers, which I think doesn't cut it for kids, and IT IS suppose to be a kids movie. no? I guess Pixar is universal now...but it felt kinda odd. There was a little girl beside me asking her mother if the movie was over yet or not and there was only 1 part in the movie that made kids laugh out loud (vs the giggles). The rest were all grown adults laughing. So I'm not really sure about the balance here.

All in all I had fun so I shouldn't be complaining much.