RESTAURANT REVIEW Lunch Splurge
I decided to kick off my 2008 Boston Restaurant Week experience with lunch at Grotto with a couple friends. Grotto, one of Beacon Hill’s high-end Italian restaurants, looks unassuming enough from the outside; the restaurant is below street level and, like its name implies, is quite cave-like once you get past the heavy purple curtain at the entrance. Inside, the red brick walls are peppered with paintings done by local artists, and chandeliers and a fancy wall mirror juxtaposed against the red-piped ceiling (complete with greasy rag) give the place a funky, almost hip vibe. A glance around the small dining area made it clear that we were the youngest patrons there; perhaps Grotto entertains a younger crowd for dinner. The service, while not extraordinary, was decent, and the atmosphere relaxed, although a bit noisier than what I expected.
MOVIE REVIEW Paranoia, Innocence, and Skateboarding
Few films (that I’ve seen, at least) achieve what Gus Van Sant’s latest work, “Paranoid Park,” accomplishes with such elegance and ease. If the disjointed, hand-wound montage of San Francisco traffic in the opening scene isn’t enough to foreshadow the lack of order and peace in our hero’s young teenage life, then certainly it’s the haunting soundtrack. Or, you also have the eerie shift in lighting when Alex (Gabe Nevins), America’s John Doe of troubled teens, escapes to the seashore to write an epic letter. Then you consider the fact that the majority of the scenes shift in and out of focus, sometimes barely giving the viewer any clue as to where the scene is actually taking place. This is where the success of<i> “</i>Paranoid Park” triumphs beyond other films about the difficulty being a teenager: it is as though all the elements (artistic and practical) conspire together to make the viewer <i>feel</i> like Alex. We truly <i>see</i> and <i>live</i> as Alex is seeing and living.
INTERVIEW How to Lose a Movie Set in Vegas
A few weeks ago, I sat down with the charming Jim Sturgess, the up and coming 26 year old British actor best know for his role as Jude in the Beatles musical, “Across the Universe.” In the upcoming film “21,” (based on the book <i>Bringing Down the House</i> by Ben Mezrich) Mr. Sturgess plays Ben Campbell, an MIT student who uses his math acumen to win millions playing blackjack in Vegas. During our conversation, Mr. Sturgess talked about what it was like playing a character who is based on a real life MIT alum, Jeffrey Ma ’94, filming in Las Vegas, and working with Kevin Spacey. Below is an excerpt:
MOVIE REVIEW ★★ ½ Spices Alone Do Not A Curry Make
The ingredients are more than tasty: exotic curries, a spicy relationship with a business partner or lesbian lover, a secret marriage, a generational culture-clash, and a televised cooking competition involving Indian family-owned curry restaurants, all set in Glasgow, Scotland. From this tantalizing stew comes “Nina’s Heavenly Delights,” a flavorful romantic comedy during the first half that soon stumbles and struggles and winds up undercooked.
INTERVIEW MIT, Vegas, Hollywood
In 2002, Ben Mezrich released Bringing Down the House, the story of how a group of MIT students counted cards to win millions playing blackjack. Later this month, <i>21</i>, the movie based on the book, will be released. Recently, <i>The Tech</i> sat down with Mezrich and Jeffrey Ma ’94, who is the real life basis for Ben Campbell in the film. Below is an excerpt from the conversation.
BOOK READING Sharp and Familiar Ethnic Experiences
Jhumpa Lahiri isn’t the sort of writer who shies away from her heritage. Her writing is replete with details of the Indian-American experience, peppered with references to Raj Kapoor and salwar kameez, because she writes about what she knows. But to say that her stories are primarily about an ethnic-American experience seems to severely limit the scope of Lahiri’s writing. Her stories aren’t about immigrant families, but families in general. On March 4th, in front of a crowd that was spilling out of 32-123, Lahiri reinforced this resistance to the labels that frequently hamper writers such as her. She offered the audience a writing style that is crisp, discerning, and instantly recognizable to anyone who has struggled to reconcile generations and cultures, but also, parents and children.
CD REVIEW SM & Jicks Make Art Out of ‘Trash’
I’m a fanatical appreciator of absolutely everything Stephen Malkmus has ever created, but such laudatory devotion should not be taken as accepting passivity on my behalf. I like his past efforts in very different ways. Pavement, the band with which Malkmus attained the status of “Clown Prince of Indie Rock,” seems (analogously, of course) like a silly but sexy teenage girl next door. Malkmus’ literary and sardonic ramblings, inextricably combined with the expert sloppiness of the rest of the group, shouted, “We don’t give a fuck, and we’re damn good anyway.”
The Best Concerts of March 2008
March can be a pretty bleak time for music in a college town like Boston. This is true for a number of reasons. It’s halfway through the semester, so students are stressing out and staying in. It’s right around vacation, so they’ve got less to spend on extravagant tickets. Most importantly, every week, there’s at least some school on Spring Break, which means a large population of the city up and vanishes.
THEATER REVIEW ‘SubUrbia’ Captivates
Dramashop’s production of “SubUrbia” was an incredibly enjoyable and searing performance of Eric Bogosian’s original play. It shows an extremely affecting view of young adult angst which viewers can easily relate to.
CONCERT REVIEW Liars With No Age
I don’t think anyone will ever understand Liars. I was fairly certain that I had a decent grasp on them for a while, but all that was blown to pieces this past summer when they released their self-titled fourth album. To call that album a disappointment would be generous; to call it a disaster might be more appropriate. Their 2006 album <i>Drum’s Not Dead </i>was by far my favorite record of the year, combining droning guitar anti-melodies, terrifying lyrics, and — most importantly — unrelenting, pounding drums layered upon more and more drums to yield one of the heaviest records I had ever heard. Most of the tracks eschew traditional rock song structures in favor of a more stream-of-consciousness approach that is just as unsettling as the music. And so when<i> Liars</i> came at me with a bunch of mediocre three-chord pop songs, I almost had to cry.
MOVIE REVIEW ★★★ 1/2 High School With a Side of Prozac
If you’ve seen the trailers for “Charlie Bartlett,” you’re probably expecting the movie to be a comedy in the style of “Juno,” as I expected when I went to a screening a few weeks ago. Instead, I found a rather serious drama with a few comedic elements. When I asked first time director Jon Poll about this, he explained that this is how the studio chose to market it. In fact, the original script was even darker and was made “warm and funnier with Gustin [Nash].”
MOVIE REVIEW Makeshift Movies With Heart and Soul
When all the tapes in the video store get erased, an employee and his friend decide to replace them by re-shooting the movies on a shoestring budget. These two geniuses, played by Mos Def and Jack Black, crappily recreate a slew of classic movies including “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Ghost Busters.” Their hilariously lo-fi remakes, replete with cardboard special effects and overacted catchphrases, become an unexpected hit with the locals. Soon the whole town is onboard with their movie reinterpretation scheme, acting and producing remade hit after hit.
CONCERT REVIEW Languid Songs for Languid Lovers
Last week’s double bill at the Museum of Fine Arts brought to the stage two seemingly different, yet equally brilliant acts. I’d never witnessed such a divided audience before: young women and French-Americans anticipated Keren Ann’s silky alto and crisp guitar, while middle-aged men — some reeking of marijuana — patiently awaited Dean & Britta’s washy wall-of-sound. Personally, I was more of a Keren Ann fan, but nonetheless loved Dean & Britta’s set of laid-back tunes.
CONCERT REVIEW The Chan Marshall Musical Revue
Earlier tonight, seated at The Orpheum, I couldn’t help but think of an old Toothpaste for Dinner comic. This particular installment of the Web series featured the author sitting at a desk writing a letter, which read: “Dear Chan Marshall of Cat Power, SHUT UP. Love, Drew.”
MOVIE REVIEW ★★★★ Something New in Romanian Film
These days, even when its subject is abortion, it’s hard for a film to be genuinely affecting, or even feel new. But Cristian Mungiu’s astonishing “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” insists on confronting abortion with a kind of honesty and force that will leave even the most hardened viewer a little dazed. And yet it would be too easy, and unfair, to label 4 months as simply an “abortion movie”; it would have been easy (and probably even successful) for Mungiu to construct the kind of gritty, mildly simplistic abortion movie most of us expect. But 4 months extends itself beyond any of these expectations and attempts something much more ambitious: to represent a harrowing day in the life of a Romanian college student in a way shatters the separation between film and viewer, and provides us with life, in its truest sense. It succeeds and it feels very, very new.
BOOK REVIEW The Error of Our Ways
Does anyone believe that humans are rational? Or are we nothing more than victims of our impulses and emotions, careening randomly from one bad decision to the next like a drunken rodents? In a loosely strung collection of simple experiments, Sloan Professor Dan Ariely argues in “Predictably Irrational” that we behave in ways that fall short of rational, but are highly systematic.
MOVIE REVIEW ★ Stupid Premise and Bad Writing
Marshall Lewy’s “Blue State” is a romantic comedy that misses the mark completely. It is neither romantic nor funny and features a horrible premise. Here are some of the film’s major flaws:
MOVIE REVIEW ★★★ Go Get Lost In Bruges
I have to admit that I have a considerable dislike for Colin Farrell … and can you blame me? Surely if you sat through “Miami Vice,” you cannot. Thankfully, Farrell departs from roles such as Bullseye in “Daredevil” and whoever the hell it was he played in “S.W.A.T.” to take on a role that suits him much better in this new film, “In Bruges.” Even Mr. Farrell would probably have to agree with me that there are few words for how terrible some of the films he has participated in are. When speaking about his “In Bruges” character, he hints at what might have gone wrong in earlier roles, remarking “[It’s] nice to not have to pretend to be cool.” It seems that Farrell has changed his ways and it can only be for the better.
CONCERT REVIEW Spice Girls Are Back!
Think back to 1997. Who were the five coolest, sexiest women of that year? If you were in the vicinity of TD Banknorth Garden last Wednesday night, the answer would have literally popped out at you from every Union Jack mini-dress and four-inch platform shoe in sight: the Spice Girls, of course, and they’re back. Young women who were barely ten years old when the attractive, feisty quintuplet released their first single (the now timeless “Wannabe”) came out in droves to watch the resurrection of Posh, Baby, Sporty, Scary, and Ginger after a ten year hiatus, which started in 1998 after Geri “Ginger Spice” Halliwell left on claims of exhaustion and difference of opinion.
BOOK REVIEW Not Your Average Travel Guide
I decided to graduate from MIT a semester early so that I would have a few months off before graduate school, and now that my break is here, everyone keeps asking me what I’m going to do. Travel? Here’s the thing: I’m not a huge traveler. Sure, I like going places, but I usually get so stressed about planning the trip and how much it’s going to cost that I avoid it. And I think wherever I go, I need to spend enough time there to make it “worth” it, thus adding to the expense and hassle. Well, it turns out I’m not alone: James Samans has written a new travel guide called <i>Spontaneous Tourism: The Busy Person’s Guide to Travel</i>, for people like me.