Film Review: The Way Back (Blu-Ray)

After a seven year break, Peter Weir returns to the big screen with a film that is reminiscent of some of his best work - unlike his previous film of 2003, "Master and Commander", which was unusually loud and fast paced. Weir's greatest films include, in my opinion and in this order, Fearless, Witness, The Truman Show and Dead Poet's Society and The Way Back fits right in as yet another captivating, beautifully shot character drama. Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell and raising stars Saoirse Ronan (Atonement, The Lovely Bones, Hanna) and Mark Strong (RocknRolla, Body of Lies, Sherlock Holmes, Kick-Ass) lead the cast in a story about a group of men who escape Gulag 105 during WW2 and their 4000 mile walk to India. There is some dispute whether the story is actually based on real events or not which is actually irrelevant for the enjoyment of the film. The first half of the film is dark, bitter and strangely claustrophobic, spaninng the arc from introducing the characters to escaping the Gulag and making their way to Mongolia. At this point, the film visually opens up, colours brighten and the second half is truely breathtaking, with some of the most beautiful cinematography (courtesy of Russell Boyd who also filmed "Master and Commander") I have seen in the last few years. Many directors would have pushed helicopter shots and a bombastic soundtrack à la "Lawrence of Arabia" down your throat, but Peter Weir maintains his almost underplayed style and sticks to quiet, intense scenes, carried by the exquisite cast which holds its own against the magnificent backdrop of the Mongolian wastelands, the Gobi Desert, the Chinese Wall and the Himalayas.

The Blu-Ray does the beautiful images justice and is worth every penny. Extras include a Making of, Interviews and some Deleted Scenes.

7.5/10 - Peter Weir is back to top form and this Blu-Ray should be in every good collection.

Food Review: The Royal Oak, Paley Street, Maidenhead, UK

The Royal Oak is one of ten pubs in The UK which hold a Michelin star. The pub is located on a quiet country road near Maidenhead, providing ample parking. As you step in you get that nice feel of an old traditional English pub that has been refurbished to today's standards. The first difference you notice is that there aren't that many beer pumps at the bar (I spotted only two to be precise, one offering London Pride and the other an Ale I did not recognise). As you move through to your table (booking recommended!) you may then notice the wine fridge and the wine bottles lined up on one wall (if you know your wine you will notice a couple of Chateau Petrus and Chateau Mouton-Rothschild among them). The tables are pub style without table cloths and overall you begin to get the feeling that you are in for a fine meal in a relaxed atmosphere.

We started with a Hendricks & Tonic and ordered a Scotch Egg (£3.50) and Rabbit on Toast (£3.25). The latter was simple and yet very delicious, with a nice crunchy base, some sea salt and topped with rabbit meat that reminded me a little of French Rillette (although not as greasy). The Scotch Egg was clearly prepared with home-made sausage meet and a quails egg, yolk slightly runny - a perfect interpretation of a classic snack. While we enjoyed the "Ouverture", we were studying the menu which was a bit different from the one we had seen online. We learned later in the evening that the menu changes very frequently (the menu was indeed showing the day's date) dependent on availability of seasonal products, etc. Most starters range from £9.95 to £12.95, with one exception, English Aspargus with a soft boiled gull egg, pea shoots and Hollandaise (£19.95). I decided to give that one a try and wasn't disappointed with the fresh, crunchy green asparagus, moistened by the gull egg (which had a bright orange-red yolk and a pleasant mild taste) and cleverly spiced up by the pea shoots. My friend David ordered Wood Pigeon, Ham and Middle White Pithivier with green peppercorn sauce (£10.50), which was described to us as a "Pigeon Wellington" - a UFO shaped pastry sitting in a nicely balanced peppercorn sauce was filled with perfectly cooked pigeon breast, wrapped into an aromatic dry-cured ham: a great dish and the better of the two starters. Since we had ordered a very nice bottle of red (Chateau Crozet-Bages 1998 for £150 - we had the last bottle!) we gave the very appealing fish dishes (£21 to £32) a miss and had a meat feast: David ordered the Peppered Haunch of Denham Estate Venison with Creamed Spinach and Sauce Poivrade (£25) while I went for the Cornish Spring Lamb Cutlet, Braised Shoulder and Kidney, Chump Potatoes and Roasting Juices (£28). The venison was cooked medium-rare, as ordered, and came with a lovely thick sauce, full of flavour. We both agreed though that the lamb was the better dish since there was just more to it: the pink lamb shank was tender, juicy and of such quality that even the thick strip of fat enclosing it was very enjoyable; the shoulder was as delicate and yet full of flavour as you can wish for and the kidney just melted in your mouth. The juices were indeed just that, so rather than a thick gravy the chef bathed the meats in a wonderful concentrated lamb jus that was so good that I had to fetch the spoon from the potatoes to wipe the last bits of sauce from the plate... By that time I had already eaten much more of the warm home baked bread than I was planning to, hence the spoon! Impressed with the quality of the food, we were now looking forward to our dessert (£8.50 to £10.50): we ordered Cox Apple Tarte with home-made Vanilla Ice Cream and Warm Vanilla Rice Pudding with Bramley Apple Doughnuts - both were very much in the "Comfort Food" category, with a no-frills approach but flawless execution. The Cheese board was looking very appealing but we were both pretty full by that time and gave it a miss. Strangely, the list of Digestives was as unimpressive as the Wine list was exclusive: in comparison to the wonderful wine list that includes some rare vintages of the greatest names (at prices of up to several thousand pounds, but yet significantly cheaper than in most other Michelin-starred restaurant) just as well as more affordable yet appealing bottles from as little as £20, the Digestives list is rather uninspired and somewhat short.

9/10 - The Royal Oak offers beautiful food (predominantly prepared from locally produced ingredients), a great choice of wines, friendly and efficient service and a nice relaxed ambience, all at a very reasonable price. I will certainly come back!

Food Review: Toan, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

As promised in my Mikuni review, here is the second of my two favourite restaurants in Frankfurt: Toan is the Vietnamese owner and head chef of the restaurant of the same name - in his kitchen he produces some of the most gorgeous food you will find in Frankfurt, certainly not the most complicated and sophisticated dishes, but nevertheless offering wonderfully combined flavours and aromas in a great variety. If you haven't tried Vietnamese food before, imagine Thai food taken up by about 20 notches... You will find spicy dishes, owing their heat to red chillies of various "seriousness", but also a large range of mild or medium spiced dishes, fragrant from lemongrass, coriander, mint and many other aromatic ingredients. Soups are even better than in Thailand (Tom Yam fades to insignificance next to some of the Vietnamese soups) and the salads are not unlike the ones you can find in Northern Thailand, but yet different and often more delicate.

The restaurant's website is in German only, unfortunately, but the standard menu and the suggestions menu are available in Vietnamese, German and English. Here are my top favourites: Canh chua tôm, an absolutely unique and irresistible soup; Pho, the traditional rice noodle soup with beef - best enjoyed as a main course if you're not too hungry (or binged on too many starters already); all of the dishes listed under "Cold Appetizers" - the salads (and the summer roll is basically a rice noodle salad rolled into rice paper) are all in their own league and all worth trying; the baked sole which is served with a ginger sauce - even most of the best Italian restaurants in Frankfurt will struggle to prepare a better sole; Bo La Lot, grilled beef in lot leaves, a mild but again very aromatic dish; and from the suggestions menu: Muc nuong toi, spicy grilled squid, served with a crushed black pepper, salt and lemon dip; Vit quay sot me, duck with tamarin sauce - simple, but very well prepared; and Ga nuong la chan, grilled boneless chicken legs with lime leaves, served with mixed veggies and garlic rice. The online menu is missing page 2 from the suggestions menu (probably because it includes frog legs, which may upset some people) but includes another gorgeous dish, stuffed chicken legs with tamarin sauce, an absolutlely brilliant dish. These are just my personal highlights though because they are either very difficult to find elsewhere or just especially well prepared - you will also find classic curry dishes, stir fries, chicken saté, spring rolls, etc. which are also very good. Ah yes, and my oldest daughter and I disagree on the best pudding (there isn't much choice but these two are very nice): grilled banana in coconut milk (my favourite) or Banh bi, a sesame / coconut ball with vanilla ice cream.

Toan is located near the Frankfurt Zoo and easily reached by Underground (U6, U7 to Zoo) or car (if you really can't find a parking space in the road, go to Parkhaus Zoopassage. Prices are very moderate given the quality of the food and there is a good choice of Cocktails. I have never looked into the Wine list but if you're interested just post a comment and I will check it out next time I go.

9/10 - I have tried a good number of Vietnamese restaurants, including "extensive research" in Vietnam, and this is as good as it gets - I dread the day when Mr. Toan will retire!

Food Review: Mikuni, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Mikuni is one of my two favourite restaurants in Frankfurt (the other is Toan, a brilliant Vietnamese restaurant - a separate review will follow). Mikuni, located at Fahrgasse 91, is conveniently located between Konstablerwache and the Museum for Modern Art. Its interior is typical for a Japanese Izakaya, in other words rather bleak. There is a Sushi bar with about 10 seats, I guess about 25-30 seats at bare wooden tables and a little Tatami area (I have been told that you pay a little extra to sit there, which may well be true given that I have never seen the area being used). The food however is fantastic - the two Sushi masters operate behind the bar and prepare the best Sushi within a 180km radius (Düsseldorf is just outside that circle and there are some serious competitors there). The seafood is always fresh, of the best quality and served in very generous portions - unlike in the typical "escalator" type Sushi restaurants, where you get a big box shaped machine-produced rice parcel with a thin slice of pre-cut fish on top, at Mikuni you have to look for the comparably small hand-formed and hand-warm rice ball (ever eaten Sushi straight from a fridge? The thought alone makes me shudder) under the massive slice of fish. The Toro (fatty tuna belly) is probably the best you find in town, the Unagi (grilled eel) a must (it will be warmed briefly before being served, so go for it first), the Hirame (Fluke) best enjoyed with lemon and a pinch of salt... ah, I could go on but you probably get the picture.

Mikuni has much more to offer than just Sushi though - beyond the obvious (Sashimi, Donburi, etc.) there are a large number of typical Izakaya snacks (as a starter or to go with your Beer, Sake or Shochu), ranging from standards such as Edamame (green soya beans) and Wakame Kyuri-Su (seaweed and cucumber in mild vinegar) to more exotic dishes for the daring, involving ingredients such as Nato (fermented soy beans - a very acquired taste), grated yam root (very mucilaginous which can be challenging for some) or squid intestines. Of course you will also find classics such as various types of Kushiyaki (aka Yakitori), grilled fish, Tempura, Soba, Udon and so on. If you have tasted your way through the menu, ask for the daily specials, which are written in Japanese on individual pieces of paper behind the bar; you will be rewarded, dependent on seasonality, with wonderful specialities - amongst my favourites were White Aspargus with Miso Sauce, Japanese Cucumber with Miso Paste, Fresh Oysters with a special Japanese sauce, half a grilled Head of Hamachi (Yellow Fin Tuna), Lotus Root and Pumpkin Tempura (with salt and lemon) and - very special - Monkfish liver, pressed into a sausage form, sauteed, cut into slices when cooled down and served in a light vinegar with cucumber.

Drinks range from green tea (free refills), Japanese and German beer and wine to Sake and Shochu. Prices aren't cheap, but then again they never are with good Japanese restaurant. If money is a problem stick with your Yo Sushi and Sushi Circles of this world because you won't be enjoying going back to these after you tried this original Japanese food. Alternatively, go at lunch time and enjoy a cheap "Mittags-Sushi", which comes at 12 or 14 Euro I think, including a Miso soup.

9/10 - Great value for money - I do go there once per week, and I miss something if I don't!

Film Review: Get Carter (1971)

I think few people would disagree with me that Mike Hodges' first feature film, both written and directed by him, is also his best film so far - he is certainly less remembered for the 1980s Flash Gordon (sing: Flash, ahaaaa) or the sadly overlooked A Prayer for the Dying (1987). His latest fictional feature film was I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, released in 2004 and starring Clive Owen, which 33 years after his debut seemed like a faint memory of what once was, plotting a similar story line as the 1971 classic did, but without having the same impact or, frankly, even playing in the same class.

Get Carter is a classic in its own right. The brilliant Michael Caine starrs as Jack Carter, a killer working for the East London mob, who travels to his home town to revenge his brother's dead. The film is mostly filmed on location in Newcastle, which in the early 70s provided an extremely bleak and rather depressing backdrop for Carter's search for revenge (some would say that Newcastle hasn't improved much since - I will stay well away from that one!!). There is nothing charming about any of the gangsters in this film - Carter lives in a world of filth, corruption, hate and violence, which was quite a tall order for the early 70s: until then, few gangster films, if any, have been so rough-edged and gritty. The film includes some very memorable lines and images (I don't want to give them away so see for yourself) and has aged very well. The DVD looks reasonably well (only a few shots, including the opening shot, look a bit dodgy) but the sound could do with a bit of a clean-up job. Perhaps MGM or someone will sponsor a 40th Anniversary Edition...?

8/10 - Highly recommended if you like the Gangster film genre and don't mind the violence (which is not very graphic)

Food Review: Bengal Lounge, Farnham, UK

So here it finally is, my first restaurant review. The Bengal Lounge, located in Wrecclesham just outside Farnham, Surrey (approx. 35 miles Southwest of London) is my favorite 'Indian' restaurant in the area (if you wonder why I put Indian in inverted commas, just focus very hard on the name of the restaurant and try to figure it out. Hint: the clue is in the first word).  Together with a good friend who shares a common interest in good food I have sampled quite a number of curry houses in the wider Farnham / Guildford / Farnborough area (I was indeed introduced to almost all of these by said friend), but this one does offer the best food, especially when it comes to vegetable dishes. Check out the menu on their website (follow the link above) to get a feel for what's on offer at what price - this isn't the cheapest in town, but it is worth every penny! I would strongly recommend the Bengal Chattpoti (spicy chick peas, potatoes and half a hard-boiled egg - the best starter on the menu IMHO) or the Maas Biran (Bangladeshi fish with caramelized onions) as a starter and my favorite main dish is the Chicken Tikka Rezella, tender pieces of chicken in a thick lamb mince sauce with fresh green chillies - I'm salivating as I am writing this... The best part though are the veggie dishes: Bada Gobi, stir-fried cabbage with fresh green chillies, is divine, the Sag Bhaji (spinach) is beautifully dry (as opposed to swimming in oil as so often in other curry houses) and yet full of flavor and the Shatkora Dall, lentils with the shatkora fruit, a bangladeshi bitter lemon, is an acquired taste but I absolutely love it!

The service is friendly, the ambience pleasant and we have never been served a bad dish, despite our rather experimental ordering (I wouldn't dare ordering Honey King Prawn or a Bengal Fish Curry in most other curry houses I have been to! The prawns by the way were surprisingly tasty, but with the tangy taste of Tanzanian honey, which is not everybody's cup of tea...)

Ah yes, and here's another exception: this is the only curry house where I have a pudding almost every single time I go: Zorda Shemai - a home-made dessert made from vermicelli, milk, dried fruit and spices. I know, it sounds lame, but it's great - not too sweet, not too filling, very nice!!!

9/10 - I would drive 50 miles return, once per week to dine there!

Film Review: Source Code

First of all, apologies if some of the things I am saying in this review are a bit cryptic, but I want to stay true to my ambition to give away as little of the plot of a film as possible - and especially with this film I wish I could have watched it without having seen the preview before.

After the brilliant "Moon", Source Code is Duncan Jones' (David Bowie's son if you must know) second feature film, and boy is he pushing the boat out with this one! Source Code is, just as Moon, a Science Fiction film. And, just as Moon, the Science Fiction aspect of the film is pretty much irrelevant. Jones is extremely ambitious in his film making, because he combines an intelligent plot with the exploration of big ethical issues and deeply emotional character development. And he succeeds in all three. The one mistake you must not make is to question the Science in the Science Fiction too much. One of Jones' underlying premises in Moon is actually scientifically plausible: there is a wide-spread view that Helium-3 is present in significant amounts on the Moon and there is a wide-spread view that it could potentially be used to enable nuclear (cold) fusion. You may not have watched Moon yet (what are you waiting for - get the DVD or Blu-Ray!), so I will not elaborate on why the second underlying scientific theme is much less plausible, at least with our current understanding of the human condition. In Source Code, the underlying scientific principles are a bit wobbly and the biggest mistake is to think too hard about the science and ignore the more important aspects of the film over it. I think the best way to make this film work scientifically is to imagine that the scientist in the film have actually just begun to understand a phenomenon and are misinterpreting it quite badly. Just imagine Marie Curie as she experimented with radiation - if she had actually understood what she was dealing with from the beginning, she certainly wouldn't have died from the consequences of radiation exposure. So, if you're looking to pick holes into the science aspect of the film, don't bother and go back to re-watching Star Trek Voyager for the 10th time. Otherwise enjoy the carefully developed plot progression, the strong performances provided by all lead actors (Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright), the powerful soundtrack by Chris Bacon and, most importantly, explore the emotional and ethical dimensions that the film invites you to consider.

7.5/10 - watch this if you liked Moon, Inception and I, Robot.

Film Review: North by Northwest (Blu-Ray)

I never had the pleasure of watching North by Northwest in a theatre, but with the 50th anniversary release of the film on Blu-Ray, I am getting close - watching the remastered film on my home theatre setup made me appreciate the film even more than before. This has always been one of my favorite works of Alfred Hitchcock - it's very funny (this is probably one of Cary Grant's best performances), very suspenseful, fast paced, beautifully shot, featuring a great score written by the wonderful Bernard Herrmann and sporting two of the most memorable action scenes in film history (I don't want to spoil it for you in case you haven't seen the film, so let me just say crop duster and Mt. Rushmore). The Blu-Ray release looks fantastic - the colours are vibrant, the picture is as sharp and crisp as can be expected from a film shot in 1959 and the remastering is very successful in avoiding that artificial, overly smooth look you often find with remastered films; in the contrary, the picture shows a good level of fine granularity that you would see in a non-digital projection as well. I wish much more recent films (such as Heat) would have received that kind of treatment before transferred to Blu-Ray!! The soundtrack (presented in TrueHD 5.1) blows you away as Herrmann's score is opening up the film with a horn section only bettered by the soundtrack to Cape Fear (by the same composer). The extras are plentiful and very interesting, including a brilliant Audio Commentary by the screenwriter Ernest Lehman (84 years old when he recorded the commentary), a 90 minute documentary on Cary Grant (many Non-English people may be surprised to learn that the "American Icon" Cary Grant was really born in Bristol, England), a 40 minute Making of, a 60 minute documentary about Hitchcock's style and finally a 25 minute feature with contemporary directors including William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) and Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy 1&2). One of the best Blu-Rays I own!

10/10   It doesn't get much better than that, highly recommended!

Film Review: A Single Man (Blu-Ray)

Colin Firth is George, an English Professor living in Los Angeles. It's 1962, the Cuba missile crisis is looming and George has just lost the love of his life, Jim, in a fatal car accident while being away from L.A.

A Single Man was co-written (an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's novel) and directed by Tom Ford, an American fashion designer who previously worked for Gucci and is now running his own fashion label (Colin Firth is of course wearing Tom Ford gear in the film). This is Ford's first film, as a writer, producer and director. That bio made me expect the worst and I was very pleasently surprised. A Single Man is a beautiful, sensual, sad and romantic film: slowly paced and yet fully capturing your attention, you feel compelled to step into George's emotionally upset world while he is trying so hard to convey the image of control on the surface. The fact that George is homosexual is mostly irrelevant; this is the portrait of a lonely man who lost his love of 16 years and stands at a breaking point in his life.

The film is beautifully shot and scored and Colin Firth delivers a stunning performance - his subtlety, the nuances in his play, conveying deep feelings with so little effort, earned him an Acadamy Award nomination in 2010 (he lost to Jeff Bridges, who got the award for his performance in Crazy Heart - not undeservedly, I may add), of course followed by winning the award one year later for "The King's Speech". Firth carries the film, but he is supported by the brilliant Julianne Moore and two young talented Englishmen, Matthew Goode (Match Point, Watchmen, Cemetery Junction) and Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy, The Weather Man, the Channel 4 programme Skins, and soon to be seen in the prequel X-Men: First Class). Tom Ford has given us a beautiful work of art - I am looking forward to his future work!

The Blu-Ray provides very good picture and sound quality - this is obviously not a disc to show off your home cinema system, but I think it's still worth the upgrade from the DVD. Only extras are a 16 minute "Making of" and an Audio Commentary by Tom Ford.

7.5/10 - watch this if you liked American Beauty. If you felt uncomfortable watching Brokeback Mountain or My Own Private Idaho, get some therapy to sort out your homophobia and then watch this film.

Thoughts on Biofuel

There is a lot of press coverage about Biofuel in Germany at the moment because the German government has decreed the introduction of E10 Super Petrol, petrol that contains up to 10% of "Bio-Ethanol". Diesel already contains up to 7% of Bio-Diesel, again as the legislative powers in Germany require. So you would expect the press to comment on the somewhat problematic strategy to fuel your 4 litre engines with "Biofuel" while there are still Millions of people dying of starvation, with the most basic food prices steadily increasing, right? Well, a few journalists are actually picking up on this aspect - the majority of newspapers though are reporting about the danger of the high percentage of Ethanol in the fuel causing damage to those beautiful high-powered engines and the additional expenditure that drivers have to endure since they rather buy the normal fossile fuel based petrol.

The BBC reported in 2008 already that fresh water is going to become scarce at some poitn in an article about salt water based agriculture; estimates on current water consumption to produce one litre of biofuel range between 750 litres and 14,000 litres (future technolgies promise much better ratios, but this is based on current production from sugar cane, rape and soya seeds, etc.); food prizes keep rising, and particular for maize it's been established by various sources that costs have increased at least partly due to the increase in biofuel production from maize; although engines have become more fuel efficient over the last twenty years, these efficiencies have been pretty much balanced off by people driving bigger cars with bigger engines (couldn't find the data for Europe but this chart is probably rather representative - you do actually have to wonder whether the trend for Europe would look worse, albeit perhaps on an overall lower level, since the recent popularity of SUVs). And yet German politicians insist on increasing the share of biofuel, supposedly to "save the planet". Any laws to help increasing actual fuel efficiency (e.g. by providing much stronger incentives to drive fuel efficient cars)? No. Any real intent to introduce a nationwide speed limit on the German Autobahn? God no, this is the land of Porsche, Audi, BMW and Mercedes!!

In light of the recent events in Fukushima, Japan, the German public have sent a signal to the government through regional elections that they want to get out of Nuclear Power. Mind you, these are the same people that elected that same government only a couple of years before, knowing that they were most likely going to extend the lifetime of nuclear power plants in Germany. You also have to wonder whether these people had already tried to influence the nuclear agenda by buying electrical power produced solely from renewable resources (no, NOT biofuel, this would be sun, wind or water) - given the spread between 24% of people voting "Green" and only 6.6% of people actually buying "green" electricity in the state of Baden-Württemberg, this seems to be another area where people are not really putting their money where their mouth is. So it looks that unless some catastrophic event is somehow going to turn people against biofuel (and I don't mean the possibilty that their car engine may not perform as well, which many people actually do seem to rate as a catastrophic event) this complete nonsense will probably continue, with the German government proudly reporting on it's success to increase the share of biofuels.

It should be noted that Germany is following an EU directive in this matter which requires a 10% share of biofuel by the year 2020.