Movie: Out of Africa

Marvelous grown-up love story about a woman who finds herself running a coffee farm in Africa, and the professional hunter who she falls for. Great acting, spectacular photography. A chick flick that guys will appreciate (safaris and struggles in the Veldt).

Movie: Dark Water

Descent into madness. No, it's really not a fun concept to contemplate. Start with a lady finding a new (as in "another", not "fresh") apartment in a bland, mundane, decaying part of NYC. Add a missing girl, ambivalent clues about her existence, a curious child, vandals, and a plumbing leak that won't quit, and let all that slowly push her over the edge. ...or is something supernatural going on? Whatever the truth of the ending, it's not a recipe for a good time.

Doesn't help that the key tragedy in the plot was all too similar to a real-world crime that ended somewhere I worked. Look up Kali Ann Poulton if your morbid curiosity is too much, and you don't mind movie spoilers.

Movie: I, Robot

Good meaty sci-fi high-action flick for when yer in the mood for such a thing.

Not to be confused with the book of the same name by Issac Asimov, which features the same "3 Laws of Robotics", a robopsychologist named Susan Calvin, references to "positronic brains", and a whole lotta pontification about what the 3 Laws really mean in the real world. Really, they're not even close.

Food: Wild Wings Cafe

Jalapeno Cheddar - very pleasant moderate hot (not to be confused with "medium"), with good pepper and cheese flavors. Texture and moisture are very appealing.

Hot-lanta - slightly sweet, nice flavor. Hot. I mean beads of sweat rolling down my face, fight-or-flight visceral aggression inducing, lips swelling, gotta-fight-thru-another hot. Worth the price paid the next morning.

Music: Okie Dokie (The Orb)

After leaning toward pop, The Orb leans back to their nifty off-center, melody-agnostic, found-sound, sleepy-eyed surrealism that I like so much. Pieces are still short, unlike the groundbreaking 40-minute Blue Room that grabbed me years ago.

Listeners expecting melody, harmony, and rhythm should buy other material. This is more like observing a Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol art exhibit while eating a great big bowl of your favorite ice cream after a really long nap on a sunny afternoon. ...with mosquitoes.

Movie: Pride and Predjudice

The best love story I've seen on film. A little hard to follow due to the fast complex dialog (turning subtitles on helps) - but such is a witty intelligent work. Excellent work all around. Emerging from the social issues, earnest worries, hearts broken and mended, and sheer confusion, it is pervasively funny - few films have kept me chuckling for so long.