Memento

So far I've only reviewed relatively new movies. I felt like I needed a good reason to start plowing through a bunch of old ones, because frankly, there are too many of them. But I think Memento has a good excuse. I just watched it for the first time (I usually wait until I have at least two good reasons/recommendations to watch a movie, and until recently I only had one), and it's really good.

A quick summary: the main character has a mental disorder where he can't form new memories, so he has to keep track of things by writing notes to himself. Also, he's trying to track down and get revenge on somebody. The consequences are, unsurprisingly, fascinating. Also, the order in which the story is told puts normal movies that mix things up with flashbacks to shame. It really requires you to pay attention but it works perfectly.

Maybe you've already seen this film, but if you haven't, take a look. It's unique and extremely well done.

Cost: 4/5
Payoff: 5/5
(Rating explanation.)

Profundity

"We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation."

"I am a part of all that I have met."

"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it."

So, I've been idly wondering about why the most profound-sounding statements often have no real meaning. Here's why:

Learning things is fun. Specifically, that moment when you realize that you understand something is fun - or it would be if you could pin it down. In my experience, it usually takes quite a while to get from almost understanding something to fully understanding it, and a lot of that process isn't all that entertaining.

But somewhere at the beginning, when you still only almost understand it, is the moment when you realize that you are about to understand whatever it is. At that point, well, you know what's coming next, and it's pretty exciting. That's the best place to be, and that's where meaningless quotations can take you. Meaningless quotations are great because they seem like they are describing something that is fundamentally true yet was hidden from your understanding. They make you feel like you nearly understand those secret truths.

In reality, what they are expressing is either some obvious idea that you already know, or some utter nonsense. But they work because the obscurity of their messages makes them seem like new ideas. They take you to the point of near-comprehension not by leading you to the edge of new knowledge, but by dressing up an old edge as something different.

Let's take the above quotes, which I picked pretty much at random from Google, as examples:

"We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation."

So, this is using a subtle redefinition of "treachery" from its usual implication of intent, to make the statement that "people make a lot of mistakes" seem like a new idea.

"I am a part of all that I have met."

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, this must be some meaning of the word "am" that I was not previously aware of. It's the same deal as the last one - the meaning of words is warped a bit to make this ("people interact with stuff") seem like a new idea. By the way, I'm not blaming whoever originally said or wrote these things. It's the people who repeat those words because they seem profound who are at fault.

"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it."

Let me just say that I find it amusing that this is my randomly-picked last quote. (By the way, this one is tricking your mind by making you agree with the obvious first statement, thus making the second statement seem new to you because it sounds kind of like it opposes the first one. (Not you specifically, but whoever thought it was a good idea to post this on the internet. (I don't think I will ever get tired of nested parentheses. :))))

Curry

I like curries, so at some point I decided to try to make some myself. I pretty much failed at imitating restaurant dishes, but I did eventually home in on a curry-like dish that I think is pretty good. Here's the "recipe". I highly doubt it will be very useful to anyone (except for me, in case I forget it), but whatever.

Ingredients:
Rice
Chicken Breast
Mushrooms
Broccoli
Oil
Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste
Thai Kitchen Coconut Milk
Fish Sauce
Soy Sauce
Lime Juice (unsweetened)
Sugar
Ginger

1. Prepare the rice however you like. I like white basmati rice. 2.5 cups is a good amount.

2. Wash and chop up the broccoli and get it ready to steam. I don't know how much broccoli to use except that it's this much. When the rice is done, steam the broccoli. I put it in a steamer insert in a pot with 1cm of water, and it takes 7 minutes to steam from the moment I turn the pot on high.

The broccoli in the picture is not yet chopped.


3. Wash and slice the mushrooms. I usually get mushrooms such as those pictured. I recommend getting more than 16 though - maybe 24.


4. Start the main pan. Fry maybe 2 tablespoons of curry paste in a bit of oil for a couple minutes. It doesn't really matter. Then dump in a can of coconut milk.

The picture shows only some of the coconut milk added. Put it all in.

Mix it up and let it simmer a bit.


5. Add a little bit of soy sauce. This is maybe one shake if the bottle has a standard small aperture. Add maybe 5 shakes of fish sauce, and a couple tablespoons of lime juice. Also, throw in a couple tablespoons of brown sugar.

This step requires you to taste it. The sauce should be spicier, sweeter, sourer and fishier than you think it should be, because the chicken and vegetables will dilute the flavor a lot.


6. Put the mushrooms in the pan. Then dice the chicken (1lb to 1.5lb), and add that too. The chicken is the only thing you're cooking in the pan that you care about not overcooking, which is why it's basically last. You want to cook it at medium heat, with the sauce right around the boiling point, for about 4 minutes. Make sure to stir it around a bit so every side gets cooked.

Also, grate a stick of ginger approximately the size of a large thumb into the sauce while the chicken is cooking. If you have some random spices such as cardamom lying around go ahead and throw them in too.


7. Add the broccoli. Serve with rice.


This dish is fairly spicy for a dish, but not for a curry. Also, it is a very friendly spiciness. I wish I knew the actual quantities of things I put in, but unfortunately the best I can do is pictures. Ah well.

Iron Man

This is the first movie I've seen in a theater in a long time. I went because I noticed multiple friends praising it in their internet statuses. I don't even remember this ever happening before.

Anyway, I didn't really have any idea what Iron Man was about except that it was an action movie, and had at least one fancy explosion in it. (I'm becoming ever more convinced that having no expectations about a movie going in is a great boon.) My intel turned out to be correct - it was an action movie, and a very good one. There was relatively little corniness and a fair amount of awesomeness. The best part by far, though, was the humor. There were a ton of hilarious lines, and Robert Downey, Jr.'s main character was amazing. (Actually, I would call the action scenes the worst part of the movie. The rest was just so good.) Overall, this was a fantastic movie, and if you have any kind of tolerance for action movies it's well worth seeing. Thanks to the people who (somewhat inadvertantly) got me to see it!

Cost: 1/5
Payoff: 4/5
(Rating explanation.)