Stream a Little Stream

I love Kindertrauma's Stream Warriors posts because they tell me what disturbing, non-sucking movies are available to watch instantly on Netflix. I think I'll be a copycat, as is my wont, and start my own series of streamer reviews.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is the equivalent of walking into a fabulous-looking mansion and discovering it's littered with human shit. A bunch of classless English gangsters with increasingly repulsive revenge tactics and the lead gangster's tormented wife gather at an opulent restaurant for dinner every night, where their Gautier-designed costumes change with the color of their environment to synch moods, the wife goes to great lengths to continue an affair with a patron, various adorable poochies wander outside, and a bleach blonde eleven-year-old sings soprano at the sinks before the gangsters torture him into unconsciousness:


The movie is gorgeously shot and staged to clash with the base, grotesque behavior of the characters. Having the good silver out doesn't matter when Tim Roth is vomiting on it. With all the slicing up and stripping of dignity that the gangsters do to the undeserving, it makes sense that the movie ends with the wife forcing her husband to cannibalize the roasted corpse of her murdered lover. Bon appetit! Three and a half stars.


Otesanek, a bit of horror/surrealism from the Czech Republic, is about a childfree couple who, because the husband is stupid enough to carve a tree-stump baby in jest while his wife is in shambles over their dual sterility, and because the wife's batshit-crazy waves are apparently strong enough to animate objects, become parents to a flesh-eating tree monster. No tenant in their building (or meddling visitor) is safe, even after the parents have locked the monster in the basement; a neighbor tot "adopts" the monster and keeps it fed, which at one point involves leading the pedophile who's stalking her to his death (she accomplishes a lot in a day).
She also has to work to outsmart a prophetic fairy tale that says her elderly neighbor will lay the death smack on the monster with a garden hoe.

I think the theme of the movie is parenthood as a disease. The ever-growing tree stump monster is disgusting, violent, and uncommunicative, and is ruining its parents' marriage and already meager sanity, but the parents' love and devotion hang on and ultimately cause their deaths. The monster's appetite is never satisfied, it leaves skeletal remains in its wake, and it ends up in cahoots with another child, the only one who really understands him. Sounds like the suburbs to me! Three stars.

Hurricanes and Goslings

Welcome to an informal late Friday night/early Saturday morning version of cocktails & dinosaurs because I don't blog enough, I have a stomach full of fabulous Foodswings nachos and a cold refreshing Indian Pale Ale.

Celebrity News:

• Ryan Gosling is a real life hero, but that was way back in June so let's move on. (via EV Grieve)

• January Jones is apparently a terrible person. I'm still trying to figure out who she is and why I care.

• Jimmy Fallon is a psychic that predicted hosting Saturday Night Live in 2011 all the way back in 1998. This video gives me chills. I nearly took a baldwin in my pants.

• If you had any question at all as to whether or not Nick Cave was the sexiest man alive, I think this letter to MTV should put them all to rest. (via kottke.org)

• Taylor Momsen is retiring from acting... (looks like someone has been getting career advice from Amanda Bynes.)
  But seriously, I can't believe the girl who taught me how to shake 'n bake has chosen to no longer share her unique gift with the world again. Come back, Taylor, we need you! I have a tofu cutlet that needs a crunchy exterior and you're the only one who can show me how.
  

Celebrity Feud of the Week:
Okay, so get this... Anthony Bourdain comments on a few Food Network chefs/cooks in a recent interview with TV Guide and happens to call Paula Deen "the worst, most dangerous person to America." Not completely shocking considering she's the woman who gave us the recipe for bacon cheeseburger meatloaf in a world where childhood obesity has nearly tripled in the last 30 years and heart disease remains one of the leading causes of death.
She responded with,"You know, not everybody can afford to pay $58 for prime rib or $650 for a bottle of wine. My friends and I cook for regular families who worry about feeding their kids and paying the bills . . . It wasn’t that long ago that I was struggling to feed my family, too." Interesting, how she turned Bourdain's comments about the American health crisis and her "unholy connection with evil corporations" into a conversation about feeding a family on a budget, which last time I checked a classy rice and bean dish was a lot cheaper and healthier than a hamburger topped with a fried egg and bacon and sandwiched between two donuts, but I've been proven wrong before.
Bourdain's point remains valid. She's selling a lifestyle and it just happens to be a lifestyle that's killing millions of Americans.

Blog of the Week:
Have you ever lost a pen or found a pen? Well then, I've found the perfect blog for you! I found your pen

Stupid Movie Idea of the Week:
Okay, so... Mushroom cut from No Country for Old Men and Leather Face from Texas Chainsaw Massacre meet in a sort of When Harry Met Sally kind of romantic comedy.

Recipe of the Week:
VEGAN Deviled Eggs (via vegansaurus)
I cannot wait to make these for my next party!!!

To all of our Northeast American/ Canadian readers, stay safe this weekend as Hurricane Irene works her way up the coast we can't afford to lose either one of you.