While watching wrestling last week, they gave a sneak preview of the new Ninja Turtles Cartoon that started last Saturday with a 60 minute premiere. I decided to watch it being a fan of franchise. Even when they randomly released an animated movie years back, I was at the theater opening weekend. It’s one of those nostalgic things that I haven’t let go of.
The new series is computer animated, which doesn’t mean much these days because everything is, but this show looks more like a video game. Being someone who has seen the turtles from the very beginning, this style was drastically different and I didn’t think I’d be able to get used to it. That lasted all of 5 minutes. The show was so good, and so well done, that I totally forgot about the new animation style and was wrapped up in the show. The show seems to be a total reboot and seems to focus on the early years of the turtles. Master Splinter tells them the story of their origin while also establishing that they are currently only 15 years old. The flashback sequences they do in the show are pretty awesome as well, as it switches to a totally different style animation, almost bearing the resemblance of comic book art. I didn’t really catch on that it was the “early years” until they introduced April, who is only a little girl in this cartoon (she may be a young teenager, they didn’t really say and its kind of hard to tell).
The fight scenes in the show are pretty awesome, using well timed slow motion occasionally (without being overbearing) to show special techniques. The premiere spends most of the episode establishing “The Krang” which is obviously a gang of villains run by the alien Krang. Don’t worry, right when I thought that maybe Shredder wasn’t going to be in the show, he is introduced at the very end.
Overall the show is well done and I actually found myself looking forward to the next episode, something I haven’t had happen watching a cartoon in years. If you are or were a fan of Ninja Turtles, be sure to check this out on Nickelodeon Saturday mornings. That’s right….Saturday morning cartoons!
Action 100 Continues: "Stone Cold"
Later this week, I’m going to be continuing my quest to make sure I’ve seen everything on the AOBG 2011 top 100 action movie list. I find myself at around number 62 with the next movie on the list being, “Stone Cold” starring Brian Bosworth.
I’ll probably have my take on this movie later in the week so if you haven’t seen it yet, you have some time to find this baby and check it out. The trailer for this movie looks totally sweet. It was always one of those action movies that slipped by me and I never ended up seeing.
Action Movie Review: "To Live and Die in L.A."
Oh my god…this movie was terrific. Out of all the action movies I’ve reviewed since starting this, “To Live and Die in L.A.” was the most fun to watch. Let’s take a look at the basic plot of the film:
Richard Chance and Jimmy Hart are United States Secret Service agents assigned as counterfeiting investigators in its Los Angeles field office. Chance has a reputation for reckless behavior, while Hart is three days away from retirement. Alone, Hart stakes out a warehouse in the desert thought to be a print house of counterfeiter Rick Masters. When Masters and his bodyguard kill Hart, Chance explains to his new partner, John Vukovich, that he will take Masters down no matter what.
I did some further reading about the movie before watching it only because the trailer looked so incredibly terrible. While looking through numerous websites, I found this review for the movie:
“William Friedkin briefly revived his faltering career with this sleek, bleak thriller of a pair of secret service agents on the trail of a counterfeiter. William L. Peterson is the hotshot protégé of a career agent killed by the ruthless, almost feral counterfeiting genius Willem Dafoe (Platoon). Now Petersen, teamed with the smart but still green John Pankow (TV’s Mad About You), is ready to twist arms, lean on criminals, steal, and even murder to exact his revenge. The harrowing chase through the streets of Los Angeles that climaxes on the freeway at rush hour, where Friedkin’s brilliant twist sends them heading the wrong way, careening through a sea of cars coming straight at them, is still one of the most breathtaking car chases ever filmed. Friedkin’s edgy crime thriller, stylishly shot in steely blues against hazy red and orange skies by Robby Muller (Paris, Texas), paints a very thin line between the good guys and the bad guys, and Wang Chung’s techno soundtrack sets the proper mood–jumpy and alienated. It’s a cynical and very brutal look into the world of law enforcement (adapted by Friedkin and former Secret Service man Gerald Petievich from his novel) and a cold portrayal of the power games between cops and feds, and cops and informants. John Turturro, Dean Stockwell, and Robert Downey Sr. are featured in supporting roles. –Sean Axmaker”
Why did I post this review? Because it makes this movie even better. This movie was absolutely horrendous yet 100% amazing! William Defoe plays the lead villain and is great. Here are a few notes that I took while watching this thing:
- The actor that plays the heroic cop sworn to get revenge is almost severely bow-legged, and he wears tight jeans and cowboy boots which only accents how ridiculous he looks. Plus he is supposed to be this bad ass with a loose cannon attitude, which makes everything he does and says in the movie, more hilarious.
- There is gratuitous male nudity in the movie including a full frontal view of the bow-legged cops entire set.
- A masterful collection of terrible lines. Here were some of my favorite quotes:
–Richard Chance: Guess what? Uncle Sam don’t give a shit about your expenses. You want bread, fuck a baker.
–While a cop is chasing a suspect:
Card Counterfeiter: Why are you chasing me?
John Vukovich: I don’t know, why you running?
Credit Card Counterfeiter: ‘Cause you’re chasing me.
-Richard Chance: You know what this is?
Thomas Ling: What’s the game?
Richard Chance: It’s no game. Just walk.
Thomas Ling: Why?
Richard Chance: Why? Because if you don’t, I’ll blow your fucking heart out!
-Richard Chance: [to Vukovich] You ain’t my partner! You ain’t even my fucking friend. In fact, let me give you a little piece of advice: you better get your ass into protection, baby! Because you ain’t shit on the streets! You understand that? You ain’t got the nuts! Kiss my ass! Pussy motherfucker!
I could fill a page with the amazing lines in this movie. It was almost like watching “Grand Theft Auto:Vice City” in movie form.
- There is a repeated effect that they use in the movie for the multiple people that get shot directly in the face. The effect looks as if someone fills a water balloon with fake blood and then just throws it at the actor’s face.
- Perhaps one of my favorite scenes in the movie, (without saying who or giving away spoilers) a character in the movie gets shot in the face from 4 feet away, by a 12 gauge shotgun. A friend of the person that got shot finds him laying there and shakes his body screaming, “Talk to me!!”
This movie was terrific. If you are in the mood for a doozie, I suggest finding this movie and watching it…fast! “To Live and Die in L.A.” is totally on my list of all time best cheesy actions films.
Sale Items Added To Etsy Store!
We just added a bunch of items to the Etsy store this morning, make sure you check out the sale/clearance section. These are single items so its first come first serve, they will go fast!
Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story
I have to admit, I’m sort of excited to read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new book, “Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story” due out on October 1st.
This is apparently the first step in Arnold’s comeback and is something that he felt he needed to get out before returning full force to the movie scene. Everyone is well aware that Arnold had an affair with his maid and a kid resulted from it. In this new book, not only does he go over his incredible rise to fame from the very beginning, but he apparently will be addressing that entire embarrassing situation with the maid. Quite frankly, I don’t really think its needed. When it originally happened, you couldn’t go anywhere with a TV and not see something on it. He handled it correctly at the time, didn’t really address it, and kept quiet. Like most things, the story fizzled out and it’s not something people really think about. I’m not sure why he needs to bring it back up, but it will be interesting to see what he has to say.
Never-mind the maid story, the rest of the book should be fascinating. From being born in a small village in Australia, dominating the word of bodybuilding, conquering the movie industry, and then becoming Governor of California-there can’t be a dull moment in this book. I’ll be ordering it this weekend, I’ll have a review of it once I finish reading it (which may be a bit, I’m not the fastest reader).
Buffalo Day Off.
Nicole and I love our getaways. Its great to see different cities and to see what makes each one special. We share a mutual respect for architecture and we both love to see how different cities live. While being in Chicago we both realized that, even though being in a major city like Chicago is great, we prefer a “medium” city. For me especially, coming home to Buffalo is always a relief. I love this city for so many reasons. When we go away on vacations, we always take one extra day off to recoup before going back to work. We decided to use this day to go exploring downtown on our bikes. Ever since my step dad gave me his old Italian race bike, I have really taken a liking to biking. I bike all over now even if the car is available.
We ended up taking the tour at Buffalo’s City Hall mainly because they told us that by doing so, we would be able to get into areas that we normally wouldn’t be allowed to see, and because its free. We’ve always wanted to check out the observatory on the top floor, but its only open during business hours on week days, and with both of us having jobs, that makes it a bit difficult to get to. The tour was humorous as the guide was an older gentleman who really didn’t seem to know all that much, but he had a knack of pointing out the obvious while making it sound like he was super educated. It was amusing. City Hall was actually really interesting and the tour was, for the most part, worth it. The views from the observatory were amazing. Another thing that was surprising was that we were with an actual group of tourists and one of the girls on the tour just moved here from out of state for a job! When you’re from a city that has been on the decline for over 50 years, it’s nice to see an actual change happening as more and more people rediscover the area.
After the City Hall trip, we took a rode down Main Street to the new noodle bar called “Kaydara“. I have to admit, I wasn’t excited about going to a noodle bar, but this was pretty awesome. The food took forever to come out, but it was really well prepared and fresh. I will definitely be coming back here.
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| These dumplings were solid. I forgot to take a picture of the noodles because I was too busy eating them…because they were delicious. |
To end our afternoon on the town, we wanted to grab a glass of wine somewhere. Unfortunately every place we tried was not quite open yet. So we decided to go to “Caffe Aroma” near our house, a small cafe that has wine, beer, and coffee. Its a great little spot. They had a sign out front promoting hot rum ciders which totally won us over. We were able to have those outside on this cool crisp afternoon. It was really awesome.
To cap off the day, we stopped across the street to the new Gelato place, “Gelateria Luca.” The woman that owns the place was there, and she offered us samples of the Gelato before making a decision. I didn’t need samples, if I see mint and chocolate, I have made my decision. Nicole had the toasted almond. It was really tasty and while sitting there, the woman gave us a sample of some Italian cookies she just pulled fresh from the oven and they were warm and delightful!
Our day off in our city was great and was the perfect way to end our mini vacation. If you are ever coming to the Buffalo area, feel free to ask for some suggestions!
Back from Chicago: Continued
We took a lot of pictures on our trip, so to avoid gigantic posts I’m splitting it up a little. The next thing we decided to do was head over to “Millennium Park”. I had been here before but Nicole and Molly hadn’t. We went there and saw “The Bean”, and walked around exploring the gardens etc. The park was really busy and there was some sort of electronic music thing going on. It is definitely a place to check out if you are in the city.
More gratuitous Chicago shots after the jump, if you’d like to see.
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| People play in the water. I find it sort of gross. |
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| A cool little spot in the middle of a big garden. |
The same day we did the park, we also went to Chinatown. The Chinatown in Chicago was pretty lame. I am aware that generally they are all the same, weird shady products, skeptical foods and food handling, and plenty of cheesy trinkets, but the Chinatown here was pretty small and wasn’t all that exciting. San Francisco ‘s was way cooler.
My favorite part of any big city is the little neighborhoods around the downtown area. Wicker Park was cool and I wish we were able to have spent more time there exploring. Nicole and I want to go back to be able to spend more time in areas like these. There was another place on Nicole’s Urbanspoon account called “Big Star”. This place was really cool. It’s a cash only place so be prepared for that, they did have an ATM on site. The place served really awesome tacos and had a great selection of beer and top notch booze. We were there at around 3pm and the place was packed. They had a big outdoor area and the front of the place was open faced. Riot Fest was the same weekend in Chicago so there were definitely concert goers on the premise.
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| Nicole enjoyed a refreshing margarita… |
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| …while I enjoyed a crisp Racer 5 IPA. |
Wicker Park was a cool area. It was loaded with all sorts of shops, some commercial, others unique and local. Molly and Patrick had heard of this place called “T-shirt Deli”. It was a gimmic place that wraps your shirt in paper like a sandwich and then they give you a bag of chips. Funny concept, terrible shirts. They were so bad, we were in and out in like 5 minutes. We left Wicker Park with way more left to see, so we will have to go back.
We went to another little place in uptown Chicago called “Hop Leaf”. I looked it up on beeradvocate.com . I couldn’t get any pictures while we were there because it was so dark, but it was worth going to. It was a lot like the “Blue Monk” here in Buffalo, in fact, it was almost the same. The place had really great food and great tap selection. The bottle list was more like a novel. At this point, I was super happy because I did not get to indulge in as much beer as I would have liked. There was a great little beer garden out back that we were able to eat in, but it was so incredibly dark that I could even see the menu yet alone get any pictures. The Blue Monk in Buffalo makes better food.
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| Taken from Hop Leaf’s website. 5148 N. Clark Street, Chicago IL. |
Uptown Chicago was pretty cool and was another area that I wanted to check out in more detail. Molly and Patrick grabbed food at a popular destination called “The Wieners Circle”. It’s a dive but the intrigue lies with the foul mouthed African american ladies that will insult you any chance they get. They were indeed graphic and filthy, to the point where I don’t feel right posting exactly what we heard them say, but it was hilarious none the less. Unfortunately the food was disgusting, Molly and Pat could not finish it. Luckily I passed on the experience knowing that we were headed to “The Hop Leaf” after, but it was something I originally wanted to do and try. If I didn’t discover Hop Leaf, I would have eaten this food also.
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| Taken from “The Weiners Circle” website. 2622 N.Clark Street, Chicago IL |
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| Just ordered…..(Thanks to Molly and Pat for allowing me to post these pics!) |
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| …..after tasting it…. |
Back From Chicago: Part 1
The Chicago trip ended up being a lot of fun and we ended up doing most of the touristy things that I hadn’t done in past trips there. I normally hate doing touristy things, and I still do, but it was still fun.
You can read more about our trip after the jump if you’d like to…
On E.Ohio Street there is a breakfast place called ‘Yolk”. Nicole and Molly had places to eat saved on their Urbanspoon accounts, and this place was on Nicole’s list. We arrived on a Sunday morning where we stood outside to wait the 45min-1hour projected wait time. The menu items looked amazing, and it totally looked like a place worth waiting for. There were so many things on the menu that looked amazing that its unfair to chose even a few to spotlight. Check it out here. We were able to sit outside in a beautifully gardened area on an amazing sunny morning. It couldn’t have been better. I ordered the Carnita Egg Sandwhich which was pulled pork sauteed with a pineapple mango salsa, topped with goat cheese and a fried egg on a pretzel roll with home fries and fruit. Nicole went with the Irish Benny which was an English muffin, corned beef hash and sauteed tomato, topped with two poached eggs and homemade hollandaise sauce. Molly had just created her own omelette, while Patrick ordered one of the more ridiculous/awesome items, “The South Beach”. This consists of a half of a pineapple, filled with yogurt, diced pineapple, fresh strawberries, granola and walnuts. As if this weren’t enough, it also came with a giant muffin. This food was awesome, and the portions were truly american. We loved this place so much, that we went back for breakfast the second day because there couldn’t possibly be better breakfast anywhere else.
For the next touristy thing, we were headed for “Navy Pier”. There was a ridiculous amount of things at this destination to keep people of all ages occupied. With a giant Ferris wheel and tons of carnival like trinket shops, Navy Pier is definitely a place that you go to once, and then have no desire to ever see it again. The city views at this place made it worth while, especially from the top of the Ferris Wheel. The pictures we snapped are a little washed out because we went during prime sunlight. One of things we really wanted to do was the architectural boat tour down the river, through the city. If you ever go to Chicago, I highly suggest doing it as you get to see some magnificent views of the city. Its about 30 bucks a person for an hour ride. There is also a bar, so if you are like Nicole and I and prefer doing most activities with a cocktail in hand, then its a definite plus.
Travel Log: First full day of our Chicago Trip
Yesterday was totally ruined for us with that air plane ordeal. It had to have been one of the worst airline experiences ever, but on the plus side, I’m glad it was discovered and that we didn’t die. There was a pressure leak in first engine and it was leaking fluids. They told us that it would be a half hour wait…..4 different times…..every half our…which equals 2 hours. This wait would not have been too bad had they not all packed us onto the airplane first. I could have gotten some food, maybe a beer, and dealt with the delay. But no. We were just sitting on the airplane the entire time. Nicole read an entire book, while I made it through a majority of my book:
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| A pretty decent read if you find David Byrne interesting. Otherwise you will find it insanely pretentious and you won’t make it through more than a few pages (like Nicole). I have enjoyed most of it so far.
We arrived in Chicago around 8-ish and there was no way we were going to make our dinner reservations at a roof top place for dinner. I was already annoyed. We arrived at our hotel room shortly after getting off the Rosemont exit on the Blue line. We are staying at the Hyatt right around the corner from the subway station, and I honestly can’t believe how nice the hotel is. It looks like its from the future and there’s a sushi bar with fire places. It’s one of the more unique hotels I’ve stayed at.
We dropped off our things and we immediately took off to get downtown. This day was terrible so there was only one way to deal with that. Pizza.
 We had read awesome things about this place when researching pizza in Chicago. I’ve had Chicago style pizza in past trips here, mainly ordering to a hotel room from a local mom & pop place, and it was really great. This was my fist time going to one of the more “famous” pizza destinations. We were able to sit right down when we arrived and we ordered the “The Malnati Classic” Pizza. Nicole is right. If you go somewhere that has a great reputation, and they have a menu item that they point out as being the best thing they make, just order that. The pizza takes 30 minutes to cook, its something that’s just understood. These pizzas take time. The Malnati Classic is made with lean sausage, extra cheese, vine-ripened tomato sauce, on a butter crust. It was really good. I figured it was just going to be pieces of sausage. No. It was like a gigantic sheet of sausage that covered the whole top of the pizza. The one thing I noticed from the other Chicago style pizza that I had eaten years back, was that it was not as thick (cheese wise). Not that I needed more cheese (I need to diet as soon as this trip ends). The pizza was really good. I consider myself an expert on pizza, and have a history making all types from the many pizzeria jobs I’ve had and my continued pizza making at home. I give this place a solid 8 out of 10. Very good.
 It’s supposed to rain all tomorrow so we are going to be doing most of our outdoor things today. I’ll be bringing the SLR for some better pictures.
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Chicago Bound
Nicole and I are in the airport on our way to Chicago. I should have some really great pictures from this trip as we plan on getting a lot in. More to come, go Bills!
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