My Movstraviganza

Sooo…. between vacation, snow, a trip to Arkansas and a trip to Michigan I don’t really work anymore.  For my clients this is not necessarily a bad thing as I am not messing up their matters but leaving them to my staff.  Coupled with the disjointed work schedule it is my wife’s “busy season” which as near as i can tell goes from November until May.  Bottom line is that I have been left with a large amount of time on my hands.

I like to see movies.  My wife likes to see movies.  But there are a lot of movies which we cannot see together because she does not like anything:

1. Two stressful;

2. Too violent;

3. Too filthy;

4. Too stupid…

You get the idea.  So I like to see movies and they release a lot of movies during the holidays.  Apparently not a lot of good ones.  Over the period I have seen:

Nebraska (with my wife);

The Hobbit Movie (with my adult “sort of” sons);

The Hunger Games Movie (by myself);

Wolf of Wall Street (by myself); and

Inside Llewyn Davis (by myself).

Not a million  movies but a lot of movies.  A lot of people find seeing a movie by yourself to be a weird thing… a creepy thing… a...a…. Mike Becker thing.  But I like it.  I don’t have to worry about whether the other person is having a good time and I can walk out if I want to.  In spite of my stomach difficulties I ate buttered popcorn and drank water.  I only walked out on one.  So here is the short and the short of it:

Nebraska:  Good but not great.  Heartfelt.  Bruce Dern should not win an academy award.  Will Forte surprisingly good.  It was kind of draggy but had nice message sort of… but was overall just relentlessly sad…

The Hobbit:  The Hobbit.  It had great special effects, was better than the first of the three movies and reinforced that they should not have made one book into three movies.

Hunger Games: “Catching Fire” was well done, true to the book and frankly made “Nebraska” look more like a dystopian future.  The movie is saved by Jennifer Lawrence who you can look at forever and who can really act.  If you have the heart for it, rent “Winters Bone”.  It is a better use of your time but I read these books.  I cannot wait to see the third one where if it is like the book I will be cheering shamelessly for Katniss Everdeen to die.

Inside Llewyn Davis:  I saw it for the music and because it was the Coen brothers.  It is a really well done, stupid move.  The main character is just a self involved, dick.  He shits on everyone and everything pursuing a career that is really not a career.  It is well done in that it seems to catch the spirit of the Village and the folk scene, before Dylan came, was brilliant and killed it.  Justin Timberlake who I hate, shows again just how talented he is.  If you saw the trailer, you saw every funny line.  If you're not a fan of the music or the Coen’s miss it and if you love the music, catch the Showtime special with T-Bone Burnett gathering musicians to do music of the similar period.  It is awesome.  

Wolf of Wall Street:  I walked out.  3 hours long.  How many times can you watch someone snort coke off of a strippers breasts?  How many times can a they say fuck in a movie?  506 times according to Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/the-wolf-of-wall-street-drops-506-f-bombs-setting-a-new-record-20140103

The movie, reflecting on it had some brilliant scenes but Scorsese was just relentless in remaking “Goodfellas” complete with diCaprio narrating just like Ray Liotta.  It was exhausting and sad and not interesting enough to last three hours.  It was lovingly filmed but I just felt stupid sitting there and it is really hard for me to feel stupid.

Sooo… all of these movies are missable but… all  have some merits.  I think “American Hustle” is next.  Maybe things will get better.

Dallas Buyers Club: The Diner Movie Review

Sooooo…. The Diner Review likes to go to the movies and there has been a reasonable amount of hype for “Dallas Buyers Club” which was released Friday.  It stars Matthew McConaughey and has Jared Leto as a costar and is… not a feel good film.  I have no question that McConaughey will be nominated for Best Actor and the timing is clearly geared towards the Oscars.  He has always been kind of a pretty face, more than a powerful actor and this is his bid and it is a pretty strong one.

People are saying he plays the roll of a red neck but that is really not fair.  He plays the roll of the worst kind of piece of shit, amoral, white trash, Texas bigots and in saying all those things I have mentioned all of the characters moral strengths.  This is not a movie for the morally squeamish and it opens with what appears to be a hazy threesome at the rodeo and although I do not consider myself a prude it is uncomfortable in every aspect.  

His character is clearly sick but not worried about it as he is an alcoholic drug abusing electrician but… he passes out, goes to the hospital and the beautiful Jenifer Garner as a doctor working with another doctor and they diagnose him with HIV and AIDS and tell him that he has about 30 days to get his affairs in order and do the right thing and die.  Based on what you have seen of his character you are certainly, at that point, hoping he dies quickly.

But he responds with defiance and the story starts to get interesting as he finds the medical community is clueless, money driven, and rather then helping him to get better is actively working against him.  The story tells the shameful back story of the rushed development of the AIDS treatment AZT and how those trials, for cash, distorted the picture for many victims and indeed killed some patients early. Although the movie does not get into South African Aids denial, there is a great article explaining the issues with AZT and reading it will help you to understand part of the horror outlined by this movie.

http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/abazt.htm

At the hospital he meets Leto’s character Rayon and there is no question Leto is going to be nominated for an award as well.  He was the dark troubled boyfriend in the orgininal MTV series and Claire Danes vehicle “My So Called Life” and I had not seen or heard from him since that time.  He appears in the second hospital scene and his “Butch and Sundance” relationship with Matthew McConaughey is the heart of the movie as Leto’s character is a drug addicted transvestite.  I had no idea, until I wrote this that Leto was also in "Fight Club".

And then as Rayon:

He through research and conversations and lucking into a disreputable American doctor in Mexico develops a treatment regime (you have to suspend your disbelief a little based on what you have seen of  McConaughey’s character) starts importing legal drugs which promote wellness, and treat some of the symptoms of the disease and he lives.  For a long time anyway.  And he keeps developing and refining treatment, with some slip ups on the way as the FDA and the medical establishment battle to stop and discredit him.  The movie gets his name because he sets up a “Buyers Club” because it is of course illegal to sell drugs but he would instead sell memberships and then supply people for 400 bucks a month.

As the movie runs towards it’s inevitable (at that time) conclusions, you are left with a nice portrait of the evil influence of money on the medical establishment as well as a portrait of the beauty and strength of people and how even the most useless, despicable people can lead changed lives.

This will not win the best picture but both Leto and  McConaughey will be nominated for best  supporting actor and actor respectively.  You should go see this movie but dont go planning on feeling good about anything when you leave.

Highway Tacos

Sooooo... during the summer I drive to Michigan a lot.  I believe in the Ballad of Lilly and Lola I regaled you with tales of an idiot eating their way north.  Their are many ways to northern Michigan but the fastest way, "as the crow flies" is to buzz up 55 to Joliet, shoot on 80 across the remainder of Illinois (South Chicago), zip across the northern most portion of Indiana (from Gary to Michigan City and then hit Michigan and head up Highway 31.

The problem is the first part.  That first stretch from the river in St. Louis to where it hits 80 in Joliet.  It is at best a wasteland of corn and wind and that it only during the time when the corn is growing.  The rest of the time it is wind and soybeans or wind and dirt.  It is a miserable 4 hours plus no matter how you cut it.  Last weekend when traveling home from #Beckerwedding (more on that later) I decided that since I was driving home by myself, I had gotten a late start and because I wanted to ruin another shirt that I should find every taco place on that strip of road or thereabouts.

I think it is pretty well established that I give too much.  I do too much for other people.  I extend myself in really unbelievable ways to do tremendous acts of savage kindness which are too many to be listed and frankly I would be embarrassed by their sheer volume but there is no question that no one gets more of this unbelievable sacrifice.... than you people.  So as i am driving and ignoring calls from work, emails from work, cried of help from work, injured people on the highway, monsoon warnings, deadly heat and the sad fact that I left my Ray-Bans up in Michigan I am typing in Google searches of "Street Tacos" along with a city name.

I have come to think of "street tacos" as two corn tortillas, overlapping with any meat (other than ground beef which is verboten) along with some onion, cilantro and a lime wedge.  That is the street taco.  Sadly there is no Wikipedia definition of "street taco" but I am going to stand by my definition.  A lot of interesting things come up but when traveling at high speed along the highway and avoiding deer and occasionally people you cannot read too closely.  Hy the way... this is another way I give too much.  DO NOT TEXT AND DRIVE.

Even when you have the whole day it is difficult to eat tacos too many times.  It wears you out.  They burn.  They got processed (sometimes unhappily by your body.  They can kill you.  There, I said it.  When booming over highway 80 and stiffing the toll booth lady for a dime I came across a place in Joliet called Ricos.  All i read was "it is in a silver trailer behind the SuperMercado.  What could possibly go wrong.  With the iPhone I got my directions and off I went!  The Google Maps gave me a stupid way to get there but that happens.  I got there and BOY did I get there.  I arrived around 11:30 to a full parking lot and had to jockey.  there were anglos around but not too many and I spotted the trailer and knew I had done well.

It was... beautiful.  I watched the two gentlemen in front of me order their lunches and tried to gain my bearings.  There were tubs of sodas from other countries and the menu was half in Spanish, half in english.  Everyone around me was speaking Spanish and I had read about their pork tacos and I ordered them and stood around,  pretending to stare at my phone as life teemed around on the parking lot.

My tacos came up and she put them in a styrofoam container and put them in a plastic grocery bag and I hopped in my car and was on my way.  Twisting out of Joliet and back onto 80 I sampled my first one and it was chewy, spicy perfection.  I had an iced tea which I needed to gulp and I got my big allergic sweat on as I got on 55 and headed south.  This place is about 3 minutes off the highway in Joliet.  I will be back.

Then I decided to double down.  I tried to find something in Springfield and if anyone has a place for street tacos in Springfield, I want to know about it.  Striking out on "the Google" I then tried Bloomington which was just a little too close but.... what the hell.  There were a couple of places but ultimately I chose La Carniceria.  It too was awesome.  Three more tacos Pastor that looked like this.  

Not Everyone is crazy about tomatoes on their street tacos.  These were good and they were served with a green (verde) and a red sauce.  I have found generally that the green sauces are  milder.  These too were OUTSTANDING!  One of the sad casualties of the outing was my WEATON T-Shirt but there prices a man has to pay for this type of searching and eating for the benefit of other people.  Trying to find highway tacos... my white whale... my quest.... as I said... I give too much.  Google map these things.  You dont need me to do it.  When you head north on 55 to Chicago or points further north... think tacos... this delicious and enjoy and thank you hard working diner reviewer.