Haute Cuisine Film Review

About a week ago a new French-language film popped up in Netflix's on-demand service. The film, Haute Cuisine, is directed by Christian Vincent and tells the story of Hortense Laborie, a renowned regional chef who served as the private chef of French President. Originally titled Les Saveurs du Palais, Haute Cuisine is the fictionalized real-life story of Danielle Delpeuch, the private chef of Francois Mitterrand.

In the movie, Laborie (played by Catherine Frot) is taken from her farm (bed and breakfast) and asked to provide all of the personal meals at the Elysee Palace for the President. To do this, she has to learn to navigate the bureaucracy of the government and even more importantly, the kitchens and staff of the Palace.

I enjoyed how the film introduces the viewer to the palace, overwhelming us just as Hortense would be on taking on the position of private chef. The story interweaves between Laborie's time in the Elysee Palace and what we assume is present day at a French research outpost off Antarctica where she is the chef. All throughout we get a sense of the lead character's ability to win over those around her through her strength and skill. While I am fairly certain I wouldn't care for the meals prepared in the film, I can recognize the skill that must go into the preparation.

Haute Cuisine is funny and endearing and if you speak French or don't mind subtitles, well worth your time. Not a spectacular film based on a true story like the The Intouchables, but very good. I give Haute Cuisine 3.5 Mick Happies. Bon Appetit.

P.S. Short review this week. I have been spending my free time playing the full release of Path of Exile. If you aren't playing it or haven't tried, download it from the developer's website or through Steam. It is free to play and very good.

Quick DVD Movie Reviews

Over the last few weeks, I haven't been making much progress in the book I am reading, so no review of that this week. I also haven't been finishing any new games. What I have been doing is watching movies with my wife and daughter. What follows are some quick reviews of the movies we have watched on DVD from Netflix.

Oblivion - A science fiction action film set in the future where humanity has left Earth for Titan after aliens arrived and the fight to stop them devastated the planet's eco-system. Tom Cruise plays Jack Harper, a repair tech who keeps water harvesters drawing sea water to generate power. I enjoyed the post-apocolyptic visuals of future earth in this movie. The story also contains multiple thrilling movements along with several twists and turns. Oblivion gets 4 Mick Happies.

This Is The End - In the present day we are given a view into the life of several celebrities (playing extreme versions of themselves) when the apocalypse arrives. Starring Jay Baruchel, Seth Rogan, James Franco, Jonah Hill among others. I spent quite a while fast-forwarding this one. The story could have been interesting and funny, unfortunately it is over the top idiocy that is more a ego-vehicle for the stars than a actual story-driven film. Less then 2 Mick Happies here.

The Fast and The Furious - This past weekend we went for a double-header of street racing fun. The Fast and The Furious (2001) stars Paul Walker and Vin Diesel in a film about road heists of semi-trucks based in and around the world of Southern California street racing. Vin Diesel plays Dominic "Dom" Toretto, a tough racer with a police record is at the center of an investigation into a number of daring thefts. Big cars, loud engines and adrenaline. This was the film that launched a series of 5 sequels so far and is a thrill ride. The Fast and The Furious is 4.5 Mick Happies good.

The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift - This is the third film in the franchise and takes Sean Boswell (Lucas Black), is sent to live with his father in Tokyo after getting in trouble racing. Sean falls in with a crew of street racers headed by Han (Sung Kang), who teaches Sean how to drift so that he is competitive. The story follows the evolution of Sean and Han's friendship and the dangers of organized crime and racing in Tokyo. The visuals are amazing and the special effects are great - watching the special features on the DVD you learn just how good they were. This film introduces Han who is later in Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6. This is another adrenaline filled thrill ride and gets 4 Mick Happies.

Those are what has been on the tube the last two weeks. Definitely some good ones in there, but can't recommend avoiding This Is The End more.

Healthcare, Re-reads and Peggle

For the last few days, I have had some sort of viral issue with my sinuses. According to the Urgent Care physician I saw, this happens and there isn't much that can be done. Apparently the test to determine if something can or can't be done is to tap or put pressure on your face (over the eyebrows, dead center between the eyebrows and on the cheek bones below the eyes). If it is uncomfortable/painful and you already are stuffy/drippy, etc. you might have an infection. Otherwise, stuffy/drippy stuff in your head that moves around when you lay on one side or the other may just be something viral that will have to just run it's course. Notice all of the ifs and maybes here? It seems like a lot of guess work.

It doesn't help that all of it just dehydrates you like a mad-man (or woman) and makes your eyes all scratchy so playing games/reading/looking at the world is not nearly as much fun. The doc prescribed a steroidal nasal spray to reduce the inflammation and said he would leave a note in my file that if I called with pain they would call in an antibiotic prescription without me needing to come back to the clinic. Now on to healthcare.

Working for a company that provides health insurance options, I have what is called a high deductible plan with a Health Savings Account (a pre-tax funded by your own money - or company contribution - account for healthcare related expenses). This means I pay every bit of the health costs until a meet a deductible ($3000 for the family) and then I pay 10% of costs until I reach out of pocket maximum ($4,500 I think). While paying all of the fees, I still get the insurance negotiated rate for any health services. Sounds normal, right? Guess what a 1 hour visit to Urgent Care (where I saw the doc for 5 minutes and most of the time was spent filling out my paperwork) and a 30 day supply of Nasonex from the pharmacy costs at "negotiated rates"? $308. A $167 for the office visit and $141 for the prescription.

It probably didn't help that right now is open enrollment for benefits at work and my annual premium for health insurance is going up $250 a year over last year. The max pay increase I am eligible for is 1.25%, so basically after taxes my raise will cover the health insurance increase. Yay!

So what does this have to do with re-reads and Peggle? When I am sick, I have more free time on my hands than usual because the family won't come within 15 yards of me (except the dog, but she is a kindly idiot). Unfortunately, I don't have much will to do anything. After trying to watch Eureka! on Netflix, continue to read Reamde and play ShadowRun Returns, I found myself mainly reading Twitter and playing Peggle. Twitter reminded me that Leigh Butler is still finishing her A Memory of Light (spoiler-filled) re-read over on Tor.com and when I popped over there I was instantly sucked in (again). I don't know if it's the fact that I have already read the books so that this is just refresher or the witty commentary, but in my unhappy state it is easy to follow and the posts can be read in 10 - 15 minutes (perfect amount of time between nose blows).

And that brings us to today's review of re-reads and Peggle - since I don't think you care about the best way to blow your nose without killing your family with germs review. Re-reads, and there are many of them on the internets - especially at Tor.com, are when someone summarizes what happens in a book and then comments on it. They tend to provide insight into how the story relates to other books or pick out foreshadowing and other easter eggs in the story you might have missed. Each post tends to cover one or more chapters of a book (there are also re-watches for TV shows and movies out there). I find that they are like being in a book club without a) having to have book club people to deal with and b) having to do any "homework" for the club. You get to read other people's opinion on the story, get some interesting insights that you might have missed when you read the story and the comments on the post are usually amusing as well. I highly recommend finding one based on one of your favorite books or series. Leigh Butler's Wheel of Time re-read is very good and nearly complete and I highly recommend it if you like Wheel of Time. I am even mulling over doing a re-read here on H. Beam Piper's Space Viking - so maybe watch for that (plus the book can be found for free so you could read along).

On to Peggle. If you have lived under a rock, don't play games or generally don't like fun - you might never have heard of Peggle. Peggle is a fun little game from PopCap Games (yeah those Plants vs. Zombies folks). It has been around for YEARS and is on just about every platform you can think of including mobile, PC and console. The gist of the game is a physics-based puzzle pinball/pachinko variant where you shot 10 balls at little lighted pegs trying to clear all of the orange pegs before you run out of balls. If you hit enough pegs on a shot, you can earn an extra ball. Or if your ball hits the moving bucket at the bottom of the screen you can also get an extra ball. I had a pachinko machine growing up, so this brings back fond memories.


To add a little variation to the game, on each level you are helped by a Peggle Master (a character with a special power up) who, once you hit one of the two special green pegs, will let you use their power for a turn or more. The power-ups might be spooky ball, where the ball falls off the bottom of the screen only to reappear at the top to drop through again and take out more pegs (very high scoring). Or the Fireball that shoots straight and wipes out any pegs in it path. Or Zen ball, that nudges your shot to a more favorable outcome before you fire.

This is a simple little puzzle game that rewards you for placing the ball trajectory just right. There are 50 main levels in the Adventure mode of the game and then many challenge levels to beat as well. There is also a sequel, Peggle Nights, if you beat everything the game has to offer. I also like that Ode to Joy is played when you beat a level - a great way to celebrate. Warning though, the levels go by quickly but you might just keep playing and playing. I have picked it up thinking to do one level only to look up and 45 minutes are gone.

There you have it. If you are sick, try finding a re-read to remind you of one of your favorite books or pick up Peggle, kick back and shoot some pegs. I give Peggle 5 Mick Happies. Until next time...

Firefly/Serenity Spoiler-Free Review

As a Science-Fiction fan, it is surprising how long I waited to sit down and watch Firefly, the space frontier TV series from Joss Whedon. Over the past year, I have slowly watched all of the Firefly episodes on Netflix on-demand and then followed it up with Serenity, the full-length motion picture sequel to the series.

Firefly is the story of the crew of a Firefly-class spaceship, Serenity, traveling to frontier planets in human-controlled space. Earth is only mentioned as where mankind came from but is never shown in the series/movie. On Serenity, we have Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), his first officer Zoe Washburn (Gina Torres) and her husband - the pilot Hoban "Wash" Washburne (Alan Tudyk). The rest of the crew includes hired gun Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin) and ship maintenance expert Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite). Also on board is a companion, a kind of escort/courtesan that carries a level of prestige in the future, named Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin) who rents one of Serenity's shuttles. There are other characters added to the ensemble cast over the course of the series as passengers come on-board Serenity.

The crew of Serenity travels between planets and terra-formed moons to trade, do commissioned jobs or smuggle. The controlling government of the area is called the Alliance, having taking control a few years in the past after winning a civil war. A war that Mal and Zoe participated on the losing Independent planet's side. During the show, Mal tries to steer his ship clear of the Alliance and keep himself and the crew off the government's radar.

Firefly does a great job of mixing wild-west feel with space opera elements. You really feel that the crew is working on the fringes of society and just barely scratching out a living. There are also great tension moments brought on by the various bad-guy elements brought into the story. While the tv series is fairly episodic, there are some underlying story threads throughout and these are expanded on and brought to a satisfying conclusion in Serenity.

I can understand why the series and film have such a wide following and why fans were so upset when the show ended after only a few episodes (only 14 episodes were made plus the movie). Luckily, the show did get a follow up movie and has had several prequel/bridge and upcoming comic/graphic novel tie-ins created to expand the story (similar to what was done for Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer series).

Hands-down my favorite character in the series is Kaylee and the way she blends optimism with capability (in how well she keeps the ship humming along despite sometime difficulties in getting parts) - Jewel Staite does a great job in this role. The other actors/characters are also good with Nathan Fillion a believable Captain and Gina Torres very good as his strong 2nd-in-command. The stories are often fun, adventurous and tension-filled. Serenity, the movie, expands things even further in scale and scope while remaining tied tightly to the story-lines that developed throughout the series.

Realistic, gritty, funny and sometimes poignant, Firefly and Serenity are a must watch if you are a space opera or science fiction fan. That they are continuing the story in graphic novel/comic format just means there will be more story to enjoy in the future as you will want to keep coming back to these characters and the setting. Firefly and Serenity get 4.5 Mick Happies. Now if only they would make a Mass Effect-style game set in the universe either letting you travel about like the crew of Serenity or even a more combat-oriented game set during the civil war. I would play it without a doubt.

P.S. Researching links for this review I found out that Steven Brust (a very good author - read the Vlad Taltos series) wrote a Firefly novel, My Own Kind of Freedom, that was ultimately not approved/released, but is available for free via download under a creative commons license from his website here.