Media Archives, page 4

Books, Music, Movies, and more

La suite de l’auberge espagnole

L’auberge espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) was one of those cute movies I saw the trailer for, and thought, “That looks interesting,” but never ended up seeing. At least not until I discovered it in Stephanie’s DVDs collection. And even then it was a while before we were both in a movie watching mood and finally decided to see it together. I was really surprised at how creative it was, how multilingual. We tend to watch a lot of French movies, but this was a strange hybrid, with dialog in both French and English (not unlike the two of us).

L'Auberge Espagnole movie poster
L’auberge espagnole

Last night we finally saw the sequel, Les poupées russes, (The Russian Dolls) which picks up with most of the characters 5 years later—centered loosely around one of them getting married in Russia. It was also good fun and allowed us to vicariously travel between France, Britain, and Russia. Definitely recommended for a lazy weekend afternoon.

Les
Les poupées russes

Update, April 27, 2014: Last night we went to see the 3rd in the series, Casse-tête chinois (Chinese Puzzle), at the Sundance Kabuki Theater. It was opening the San Francisco French Film festival, which meant after the movie there was a Q&A with the director of all 3 films, Cedric Klapisch, and the lead actor, Romain Duris!

Casse-tête chinois movie poster
Casse-tête chinois

Incredibly, Stephanie even managed to score a photo with Romain! We never do that sort of thing.

Stephanie with the French actor Romain Duris
Stephanie with the French actor Romain Duris

Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis

Thanks to the San Francisco Film Society’s French Cinema Now, I got to see Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (roughly translated as “Welcome to the Land of the Shtis” or alternatively, “Welcome to the Sticks”) the second most attended movie in France (after Titantic), beating out La Grande Vadrouille which was released in 1966! Think what you will of France, but that’s quite an accomplishment in any country.

Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis poster

Considering that its humor lay largely in the linguistic differences between French and the Ch’ti dialect of northern France, the subtitles were excellent in conveying the hilarious gist of things. Highly recommended if it comes to a art theater near you. Or if your partner is French.

Library Blogging

Jason Griffey, an LS friend of mine from grad school (part of our original blogging cabal) has just written a book called Library Blogging. How friggin’ cool is that?

Library Blogging by Karen A. Coombs and Jason Griffey

That should probably get him into the SILS alumni hall of fame!

My hummus recipe in print!

Two days ago I got an email from Mi Ae Lipe who told me she’d included my Roasted Garlic Hummus recipe in an “organic fruit-and-vegetable cookbook” called Tastes from Valley to Bluff: The Featherstone Farm Cookbook. She self-published it to “provide flood relief for some of the hard-hit southeastern Minnesota farms:”

A portion of the cookbook’s proceeds will go toward the Sow the Seeds Fund. In August 2007 many farms in southeast Minnesota, northeast Iowa and southwest Wisconsin, including Featherstone, were in ruins after storms and heavy flooding devastated the area.

Featherstone turns out to be a cooperative CSA, just like Capay Organic’s Farm Fresh to You that I’ve been writing about lately.

Anyway today I got my copy, and holy cow, it’s thick! Nearly 400 pages long. For a collaborative, self-published cookbook, I found the recipes contained within—organized by both season and produce, with lots of supplementary sidebars—to be quite professional. I’m looking forward to flipping through it for culinary inspiration.

Here’s how it looks:
Tastes from Valley to Bluff: The Featherstone Farm Cookbook

And here’s how my recipe looks in print:
Justin's Roasted Garlic Hummus recipe in Tastes from Valley to Bluff: The Featherstone Farm Cookbook

Thanks Mi Ae!

Things I didn’t like about No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men

I remember thinking the the trailer was ok—but that this wasn’t the type of movie I’d be able to watch with Stephanie. And then the reviews started pouring in, and then the Oscar nominations. I think it was this sentence that finally caught my attention:

No Country may be a masterpiece, but it’s a cold-blooded one, perhaps too much a splatter fest and a museum piece for Oscar voters.

Over the long weekend Stephanie wanted to do some shopping, so I took the opportunity to take myself out to a movie. I’ve been really curious about There Will Be Blood (a movie I might could get Stephanie to come along for), but the timing wasn’t right, so I decided on No Country.

I have to say, it’s not a bad movie. It’s crazy well-made. If you haven’t seen it and want to, you definitely should. I just didn’t like it. And I want to tell you why. This may well be the only negative review of “No Country for Old Men” that exists. Anywhere.

This is the point where you should stop reading if you want to see the movie.

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