I have never seen the stage version of Phantom, but I was always kind of curious what it was all about. The movie was basically enjoyable, but I can imagine that seeing it live on stage has got to be really magical. I don’t know anything about Andrew Lloyd Weber, but he was the producer of this movie, so he must have had a whole lot of influence on this movie (and I assume he was happy with it). I think that unlike Chicago, this really suffered from its transition to the screen. There were lots of musical numbers which were filmed nicely, but there was lots of distracting cuts and camera movement that I felt ruined the nice visual arrangement of some of the large-scale musical numbers. Also, the phantom’s theme had some kind of drum and guitar track that really made it a tad on the cheesy side. The acting was all overly dramatic, but I guess that’s how it’s supposed to be. Emmy Rossum is very good, but she seemed too skinny for an opera singer, and although elegant, I kept thinking “Disney” whenever she was on screen. Overall, I can’t say I really enjoyed anyone’s performance except maybe Minnie Driver who plays (surprisingly well) an opera diva with an out-of-control ego.

Another disappointment was the over-processed sound and singing. Every time there was a duet, it seemed like I was listening to a canned performance that was recorded in a studio and processed with some kind of software. I know it’s pretty tough not to produce a movie musical without doing a ton of sound processing, but it was so smooth that it lost a lot of impact. The large musical numbers (such as “masquerade”) didn’t suffer from this so much, which was nice.

Ironically this movie kind of makes me want to see it on stage, but I’d recommend avoiding this on screen. I was humming the music the night after I saw this (because the songs are really great), but there were just too many flaws. Sorry! 2/5 stars

I thought this movie looked really creative from the ads, and although it wasn’t everything I had hoped for, it was a real pleasure to watch. I think the biggest downfall of this movie is that it is a compilation of three books, each of which contained a very short story. The movie is not very long, so what happens is that the characters don’t really develop at all. They are quickly forced from conflict to conflict, and the movie never settles down very often. That might be part of “the point”, however, so I can’t criticize it too much for that. The other downfall is that I was expecting some really ingenious puzzles and inventions (I guess I extrapolated from the ads), and there was really nothing amazing in that area. The solutions to the puzzles were too fantastic to be truly impressive (for my tastes).

Now that I’ve got all that bad stuff out of the way… I’d first like to say that although I normall dislike Jim Carrey, he was absolutely the perfect man for this role. He was funny and did a great job. The real star of this movie for me, however, was the design! The sets, the costumes, the props, the cinematography… it was all first-rate, and everything really tied together. It was really effective at portraying a near-reality with a twist. Very creative. If not for some random out-of-place cameos, I would have felt completely absorbed into the environment. Stay around for the first part of the end-credits, too.

Since comparisons with Harry Potter seem somewhat inevitable, I have to say I prefer Harry Potter, just because the characters are so much more interesting. This movie is fairly superficial overall, but the final monologue by Lemony snicket gives a great message, which makes the movie not a depressing one, even though its characters do have to endure a series of unfortunate events. I give this movie 3/5 lemony-stars.

This is my “minced apple sauce” recipe! It has been met with enthusiastic approval from my Thanksgiving crowd two years in a row!

This was a result of my first effort to make apple sauce, which I did off the top of my head. It turned out to be not like how it’s really done, but instead it is a truly unique kind of sauce. The uniqueness comes from its consistency: rather than being a mushy sauce, it’s more of a saucy pile of tiny minced apple pieces.

This recipe involves an insane amount of chopping. It will probably take you 30 minutes to peel, cut, and mince the apples to serve 4 people. Then the cooking takes about 20 minutes. Obviously if you’re only cooking for one person, you can accomplish this in about 1/4 of the time, so give it a shot. People will ask you: are you out of your mind? Why didn’t you use a food processor? Well, I tried using a food processor after getting that question a bunch of times and the difference is subtle but evident. With the food processor you can’t get the minced pieces as small as you can if you do it manually with a knife. It is just not possible. The trick is being efficient and neat with your cutting!

Required Equipment:

• cutting board
• chef’s knife
• peeler
• skillet

Ingredients:

• 4-6 gala apples
• about 1 cup of water
• some cinnamon
• optional: brown sugar

Procedure:

• Cut out the cores of the apples by cutting the apple into four pieces, making cuts around the core. This will leave you with two medium sized pieces, one large piece, and one small piece. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry too much about it.
• Try to create pieces of about the same proportions as the small pieces by cutting the large and medium pieces.
• Line up the wedges so they are layed out side-by-side so they can be cut all at once with the same knife stroke.
• From here on, feel free to use your own efficient cutting technique, but be prepared for a ton of cutting.
• Cut each wedge as finely as possible. I usually get pieces that are at most 3mm thick, so I truly mean as finely as possible. Try as hard as you can to keep the slices in a row so they will be easier to cross-cut.
• Now turn the pieces around and cross-cut them as finely as possible. The result will be a whole lot of tiny little ’sticks’ of apple.
• I can’t think of a way to neatly and efficiently cut the pieces at this point, so I resort to simply chopping them with a rocking motion of the chef’s knife, chopping over the entire collection of pieces until there are no pieces larger than a 3mm cube.
• Repeat the preceding steps for every wedge of apple. It will take forever, but it’s worth it! Feel free to put the minced apples in the skillet but don’t turn it on just yet. The minced pieces will turn brown due to the exposure to the air, so don’t worry about that.
• After you’ve got all the apples minced, turn on some low heat under the skillet. Add some water a tiny bit at a time. This is like making risotto… add a bit of water and stir it occasionally. Add more water when it looks like the water has evaporated. In addition to stirring you should also try to mash the apples with the back of your spoon (don’t do this with a metal spoon or it will ruin your skillet).
• After about 15 minutes, throw in some cinnamon to taste. Also, try some brown sugar if you think it needs it. Stir heavily until the cinnamon traces disappear.
• At this point, it’s up to you when to stop throwing in water and stirring. 20 minutes total (5 after the last step) should do it, but don’t let all the water disappear, leave some traces of moisture before serving.
• This sauce is way better if it is served right off the skillet. Hot!

Finally, Mozilla Firefox gets its big break! They held a fundraising drive a short while ago so they could place a full-page ad in the New York Times. All who donated $30 ($10 for students) would get their name in the ad in very small print (there would be thousands). I donated $10 (I’m sort of a student), and waited eagerly to hear about the ad. It turns out they raised so much money that they placed TWO full pages! I am really excited for the Firefox people. I started using Mozilla about two years ago, and I started using Firefox probably about one year ago, and I’ve been keeping an interest in how they are progressing. I really think it’s nice to have a browser developed by folks who just want to develop a kick-ass browser, not to hold onto a monopoly (IE). If you look really close at the ad, you will see my name! It’s listed alphabetically by last name.

Feel like being humbled? Try taking this US Geography test that you would have passed in 4th grade:

http://www.urgames.com/games/geography-game-usa

Feel like being really humbled? Try the Africa geography quiz! All the quizzes are available here:

http://www.urgames.com/quizzes

With news of the upcoming fare hike, one has to think: there must be something the MTA can do to fix up their budget. Am I the only one who wouldn’t mind more advertising in the subway? I think subway ad defacement is pretty funny most of the time, and the ads (defaced or not) give you something to look at while you’re waiting for the train. I saw a New York 1 news report about the subways in Japan and they have ads everywhere in the subway system. They even have projectors on the train that project an ad (video) on the tunnel wall outside the windows as the train travels!

This movie was… incredible! Okay, now that I got that easy pun out of the way, I will try to rave about the movie without using the word “incredible” (not easy, for such an aptly-titled flick). I’ve seen all six Pixar movies and each one is fantastic and thoroughly polished. The Incredibles is witty, unique, and extremely fun. Not to mention a technological marvel!

Having done a fair share of computer animation, I can tell you this movie is groundbreaking. This has the best fabric effects I’ve ever seen, as well as top-notch water and fire effects. Another innovation seems to be the hair effects. Monsters Inc. had really impressive fur effects, but The Incredibles takes it another step by simulating shoulder-length human hair with stunning accuracy. Especially impressive: the wet hair in one scene and slightly mussed-up hair in others. Okay, maybe you need to be a CGI junkie to appreciate stuff like fabric and hair, but I think the whole movie had the most beautiful visuals of any animated movie I’ve ever seen. Hands-down. The characters are highly stylized, but they look real, and so do the environments, which are painstakingly designed to the littlest detail.

This movie is fun for the whole family It’s rated PG due to some explosions and violence, but I don’t think anyone ever dies on screen and there is certainly no gore or anything like that. The voice acting was perfect, for lack of a better word (trying not to use the I-word), and the characters are really enjoyable to watch. This movie is full of humorous gags and it even has a fairly controversial underlying theme regarding “mediocrity” and “fitting in”. The plot is memorable, interesting and fun. Go see this in the theaters while it’s still out, because you will really want to appreciate the quality of the visuals. 5/5 Incredi-stars!

The problem with interesting things is that they are not always going to be interesting. What is it about your favorite music that you’ve loved for years that keeps you listening? What sets it apart from that album that took you by storm and was then forgotten soon after?

Just when you thought it was safe to rent a movie… The Stepford Wives!

Maybe it’s because it starred Nicole Kidman, who is probably one of the best actresses around, but I thought this movie would be at least “so-so”. Unfortunately, this was just plain bad. There are some scenes of impressive acting on Kidman’s part, but otherwise, this movie was superficial, rushed (maybe over-edited), and completely unbelievable. Matthew Broderick is the central male character, and it’s hard to blame him for any poor performance because I don’t know how anyone could have made his lines seem realistic. Bette Midler and John Lovitz both have throw-away supporting roles, and Christopher Walken and Glenn Close have little opportunity to show their stuff. For anyone expecting some redeeming value in the fact that all the wives are stunningly attractive, just keep in mind that this movie is PG-13.

Stay away from Stepford! 1/5 stars.

For whatever reason I was really anticipating The Real Gilligan’s Island on TBS. It turned out to be pretty entertaining! If you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically “Survivor: Gilligan’s Island”. They have two Gilligans, two skippers, two millionaires and their wives, etc., and every day they eliminate one of the two so that in the end there is only one of each castaway left on the island. They do challenges much like Survivor, and they even have a Jeff Probst rip-off hosting the challenges.

Like most reality TV, the reason to watch is the chemistry between the people. The millionaire couples are probably the most interesting. One couple is relatively young, 40 and 35, they are the Stearnses. The other is a bit older, 47 and 45, and they are the Beavenses. The Beavenses are very conservative, extremely homophobic and not especially nice. The Stearnses, on the other hand, seem totally cool They are worth over $500 Million somehow, and they still seem like fun people to hang out with. Mindy Stearns is really stunning (get Mrs. Howell out of your head, this one looks more like Heidi Klum), a former TV personality, and Donna Beavens is a loudmouth bitch, the source of plenty of tension on the island.

In case you were wondering, the two Gingers are really movies stars. They got Rachel Hunter and Nicole Eggert! Rachel Hunter seems like she is really more than just a pretty face: she was very emotional when one of her teammates (Skipper) collapsed during the first physical challenge, and she has been extremely personable. Not at all like the original Ginger. And yes, there are two farm-girl Mary-Annes. Watch tonight, because one of them gets eliminated at the end of that episode!

Here is the official web site: http://www.tbs.com/shows/therealgilligansisland/

Malkovich! Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich Malkovich! You’ll get that joke after you see the movie

This was an incredibly original movie! I don’t know what Charlie Kaufman (the writer) has to smoke to come up with this kind of stuff, but I might just have to try some. This movie stars John Cusack, Catherine Keener, Cameron Diaz, and John Malkovich. Cameron Diaz is completely unglamorous and not the kind of character you would expect her to play, but she plays it very well! John Cusack is a puppeteer who is struggling to make his living doing what he loves (puppetry). I don’t want to ruin any plot that you haven’t already heard about, so I’ll just say this: this movie was definitely one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen, and I loved every minute of it! Absolutely brilliant, this movie is not to be missed. 5/5 Malkoviches.