Quantum Forest

After our 1998 expedition to India, we gained a bit more appreciation of Indian food. Hobart has four or five Indian restaurants, with Annapurna being probably the best one. Anyway, we have not had Indian food for a while and we decided to order this time from that Tandoor and Curry House (101 Harrington Street, Hobart). The food used to be very good and this time we ordered simple and mild dishes: Lamb Korma and Palaak Paneer. However, it seems that they have changed chef or something like that; the food was pretty ordinary, the Palaak Paneer quite spicy and we both got heartburn. Not recommended anymore.

And the movies

Last weekend was—as any weekend—horrible on terms of TV programs, so after putting Orlando in bed we just started watching our copy of the twentieth anniversary edition of E.T. the extraterrestrial Twenty three year later the movie is still magical for me and, embarrasingly, I still get emotional when E.T. say goodbye.

On Sunday I decided to watch The girl in the café, which was broadcasted by ABC. The previews of the movie promised something a bit different and funny: it starts with a socially disfunctional public servant (Bill Nighy—for some obscure reason I have a weak spot for him) meeting a mysterious low-key girl (Kelly Macdonald) in a café, with the background of G8 summit negotiations. Unfortunately, as time passes the movie becomes a propaganda medium and very incredible. The movie promised much more than it delivered.

This reminded me of some (relatively recent) movies that I had really enjoyed, in no particular order:

• American splendor: a mix of fiction and reality portraiting the life of comic book author Harvey Pekar. Paul Giamatti does a superb job as Harvey. Movie web site, Rotten tomatoes reviews and Amazon link.
• Sideways (link to IMDB): another movie with Paul Giamatti, this time working with Thomas Haden Church. A drama with comedy overtones, or a comedy with drama touches. Movie web site, Rotten tomatoes reviews and Amazon link
• Being John Malkovich: interesting, funny, weird. A real treat. Rotten tomatoes reviews and Amazon link.
• Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind: I find Jim Carrey really boring as a comedian, but I think he does a great job as a ‘serious’ actor. A very intense movie about the value of our memories and of each part of our lives, even the most painful ones. Would you erase parts of your life because they were too painful to remember? Movie web site, Rotten tomatoes reviews and Amazon link.
• The Royal Tenenbaums: A very funny and carefully made movie. The cast is great and really matches the characters. Incidentally, the use of Futura font across the movie is excellent. Movie web site, Rotten tomatoes reviews and Amazon link.

I should probably prepare a list of older movies that I still like (coming one day, maybe soon).

Working with Tim and quote

We have almost finished adding content to Tim’s web site, including a PDF version of his book. We have implemented the whole site using Textpattern. Yes, this is a shameless plug to get Tim’s site indexed by search engines.

Finally, the quote of the week:

Rehab is for quitters—Unknown.

Filed in miscellanea, movies, quotes, tasmania, web