Of movies. tv, restaurants, Anzacs and music

I was thinking of dividing this into a number of posts, and that may still happen, but let us kick into things and see what happens.

My current rant consists of the commercialisation of Anzac Day. There was blanket coverage of various ceremonies, documentaries and 'we will remember them' ad nauseum on Friday. It will come as no surprise that I'm against war - but my major issue with the coverage was not so much the glorification, as the lack of perspective. All of the doco's were focussing on the 'heroics' of people running around in the line of fire, killing gooks/krauts/*insert offensive racist epithet d'jour*, without critiquing the twats who were sending them there. There is no-one out there who would describe the British generals in WWI as 'competent' particuarly those in charge of the NZ/Aus forces. So why not rip the crap out of them? Why focus on a bunch of ignorant displaced kiwi's who had never been out of the North/South Island who figured they were supposed to run into a hail of lead?

My other major problem with Anzac Day as it stands, is the insistence that it was the beginning of our nation. WTF? Stoically running into bullets at the behest of a bunch of dumb Brits doesn't sound nation defining to me. If a number of them had point-blank refused to leave the ships due to the stupidity of the operation, then yeah I would support that as nation defining. The fact that our government was so happy to send our youth over to fight a war is, I guess, noble, but selling it as everyone has to do their duty and go fight Harry Hun? Nah, not buying it. That way leads to radicalism and chauvinism (in its original meaning), which brings to mind a current conflict. During WWI/II this led to white feather postings (also see Marillion), but to my mind that would be a far better definition of a country - separating us from England.

This does raise questions as to what could define NZ as a country. I'd suggest something from: Sir Ed climbing a mountain; an early All Blacks team; John Walker; Peter Snell; possibly Katherine Mansfield; Colin McCahon; Douglas Lilburn. Aside from the sports examples, which do typify New Zealands focus, the others are all examples of where NZers began using their own voice, rather than reflecting a British focus.

Hmmm that rant went on a bit. Oh well, no major surprise there :)

Movies wot I watched over the weekend. First up was Charlie Wilson's War. First up, I avoided watching this at the cinema as it has Julia Roberts. And she is, as usual, mindblowingly bad and ugly. The best thing I can say is that she is a fantastic example of horrendous casting. Aside from that the movie is interesting and does critique America (sort-of). It's a lot better than I thought it would be, and largely enjoyed it. Philip S Hoffman and Tom Hanks work well together. It's like a hollywood version of Syriana (Syriana-lite). 7/10 (when I was expecting a 3/10).

I've already reviewed I bought a vampire motorcycle, so #3 was 'Conspiracy' which looked at the Wannsee Conference where the Nazi's sorted out the Final Solution for the Jew's. My there were a lot of capitals in that sentence! Brilliant performance by Ken Branagh as Heydrich who was running the meeting. At times a bit disconcerting hearing the British accents, but a fantastic movie. And should be compulsary for all budding meeting managers out there. Nicely laid out giving people the opportunity to complain, then gradually either pulling them in or bullying them in to get a consensus. Superb. Almost in real-time as well.

We went out to Charlie Bills for dinner on Saturday for S's birthday. It had a great write-up the other week. But all in all I can't say I'd rave about it.

Entree: Hot smoked salmon on a sweet potato parmentier, with an apple and cashew nut salad and curry vinaigrette The salmon was excellent, really good subtle smoking, but was over-powered by the curry vinaigrette which was disappointing. Even if it hadn't I'm not sure how well the two flavours would have combined anyway.
Main: Bûche de chèvre and basil pesto pastry parcel with manuka honey roasted pumpkin and cumin lentils This was very good. Nice strong flavours from the pastry parcel without being overpowering, and the lentils were excellent and added to the flavour nicely.
Dessert: Sweet cream cheese soufflé with cassis poached pears, spiced cake and hazelnut ice cream Yup this was great. Probably the best of the three.
Service was fine, food was good. But it was all lacking something. The entree smacked of the bad aspects of fusion, and the main was lacking a wow factor. Although I was impressed that their limited menu they had a vege option and a fish option, so half of the entree and main menu wasn't red meat. Cool.

Music: just been posting stuff overseas, the new Sam Flynn Scott, Shihad and Odessa. So I might review them soon. In the meantime I should review the new Mesuggah and Dimmu Borgir. Maybe later.

me xxx