Cooking Websites: Get To The Point
"Everyday above ground is a good day"--Scarface (1983) "Everyday you make it to your classes is a good day"--Will Klepper (2023)
Welcome back to the blog. I’m getting worse and worse at getting these out on time. I convince myself that I can work from midnight-2:00 am, get the whole blog done, and post it in the morning. I’m proven wrong every week. What’s the definition of insanity again?
I promise I’ll start getting these out more regularly on Wednesday morning. Seriously. I haven’t made this promise before right?
Now, can we please have a moment of silence.
Thank you.
I would now like everyone to raise a glass, preferably a margarita, to toast Jimmy Buffett. Our king has, unfortunately, passed on and I could not be more upset. Just 2 weeks after expressing my intense love for him and his restaurant Margaritaville Jimmy Buffett’s life has ended.
Side note: That was such a shameless plug. I’m so sorry Jimmy but you of all people know that I need to get more traffic to the blog.
Now that Mr. Buffett has died I have received a quest. This quest is not for the faint of heart and requires members of the the free races in the realm (free-men, elves, dwarves, and hobbits) in order to complete. One restaurant to rule them all.
If anyone would like to join me on my quest to visit every Margaritaville please let me know. I’ll be heading out in the coming days.
Week 1 of school is over. I made it to every class. Are you surprised? Cause I’m surprised. Was I 100% sober in all of my classes? I can neither confirm nor deny that and I plead the 5th. Rush week has given way to bid week which is not as busy but still not normal. I just need to get to next week where we don’t have events every goddamn day and I can watch movies every night. I’m a simple man.
I cannot wait for the NFL to start. Don’t get me wrong, I love college football and the Orioles are on fire right now so baseball is electric to watch, but fuck me am I excited to watch my Washington Redskins/Football Team/Commanders play this Sunday. If we win to the Arizona Cardinals (whose line is 3.5 wins this year): the season is on. If we lose to the Arizona Cardinals (again, a team whose line is 3.5 wins this year): the season is over, tank, go 0-17, and draft Caleb Williams in April. There is no in between. There’s just one problem. I’m going to be on a plane during their game. If my Southwest flight doesn’t have the game I will force the pilot to go faster and get me to Raleigh/Durham as early as possible.
One of my biggest pet peeves are the way cooking websites are organized. When I’m looking how best to air-fry chicken and all I need to know is what temp and time I don’t want to read all about where you found your chicken, I don’t want to read about your life story, I don’t want to read about how air fryers work, etc. JUST TELL ME WHAT THE INGREDIENTS ARE AND WHAT THE STEPS ARE. I swear it takes me 5 minutes just to scroll through all the bullshit and ads to get to what I’m looking for. It’d be like reading a blog about movies and having to read a bunch of personal stuff before getting to what you’re really looking for.
Wait a second….
Movie count for the year: 120
Documentary count for the year: 39
Movies
Drive (2011)
A holdover from last week. I’m sorry for everyone who was excited to read about Drive last week but, unfortunately, I ran out of time. Last week was just too damn busy with events and school and everything in between. I know I’ve already talked about him in a previous blog, but I just have to reiterate how much I love Ryan Gosling. The guy can do it all. He can go from playing a doll to playing a detective in The Nice Guys* to a football player in Remember the Titans** (he was the worst on the team though), to a stunt driver/getaway driver in Drive. I’ve never seen any movies by this director (Nicolas Winding Refn) but goddamn he’s got some chops. (Look at me critiquing professional directors like I know anything). Another thing: I love Oscar Isaac. He’s the fucking man and I’d watch him in anything. I was first introduced to him in The Force Awakens, but that’s because I’m an idiot and didn’t realize how many great movies he’d been in before starring in the only actually enjoyable Star Wars sequel Disney has released.*** Oh yeah, and Bryan Cranston! I always get excited when I see him because I feel like he’s had a cameo in a billion movies I’ve seen. He’s rarely a main character but he’ll come in and cook for 5-10 minutes. He’s always eligible for the Dion Waters award in my book. (Go listen to The Rewatchables if you like movies, this blog, and pop culture in general. ^If that link doesn’t work then try this.)
So Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks are also in this movie. They play crime boss partners who invest in Ryan Gosling’s character. But now I’m going to ruin this movie for you because this is all I could see when I was watching any interaction between their characters:
There. Now you have to see what I saw when I watched Drive. Did seeing Hellboy talk to Marlin about crime, loans, cars, etc. make this movie better or worse? I’ll leave that up to you.**** Also, as I was watching this movie I had to stop myself from laughing for picturing Albert Brooks as Marlin because the shit his character was pulling in this movie could not have been more different than the shit a clownfish dad pulls when he’s on a quest to save his clownfish son. So yeah, now whenever you watch Drive I hope you think of Hellboy, Marlin, Ken, Poe Dameron, and Walter White sharing the screen together. You’re welcome.
Ranking of the best drivers in movies:
Speed Racer (Speed Racer)*****
Ryan Gosling (Drive)
Baby (Baby Driver)
Tom Cruise whenever he drives anything
Dom Toretto (Fast and Furious saga)
Ricky Bobby (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby)
Lightning Mcqueen/Doc Hudson (Cars)******
Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver)
Elwood and ‘Joliet’ Jake Blues (The Blues Brothers)
Frank Bullitt (Bullitt)
No, But Really: Be prepared to essentially watch 2 different movies in 1. Halfway through the rug got pulled out from under me and it goes 0-60 in the blink of an eye. It’s a lowkey—>highkey movie with a brilliant performance from Ryan Gosling and a great take on the neo-noir/crime genre.
*You must watch this movie
**All time soundtrack
***Please. Please. Please don’t get me started on Kathleen Kennedy. She’s had an amazing career but has royally fucked up the Star Wars franchise.
****It made it better. So much better.
*****We do not recognize the Speed Racer movie. We only recognize the old TV show which is the shit.
******Is this allowed? Yes, I’m allowing it.
Scarface (1983)
Oliver Stone is a weird motherfucker. I could just leave it at that and move onto the next movie but I feel like I must explain. I think an easy comparison to make to Oliver Stone is Quentin Tarantino. He’s a great writer, he loves (but he might actually hate) violence, and is a weird cat. I know he didn’t direct this movie, (and don’t worry I’ll give De Palma his roses), but when I saw in those opening credits that the screenplay was by Stone I knew I had to strap myself in for the next 3 hours.* If you’ve seen Platoon or Natural Born Killers then you’ll know what I mean. Right off the bat it felt like a documentary to start combined with Top Gun. Let me explain:
Top Gun:
Scarface:
I keep telling you guys: My brain is weird. You’re just gonna have to get used to it because I’m gonna keep making these connections that don’t make any sense. Anyway, I’m debating between three things to talk about in the next paragraph. I could talk about how Brian De Palma is in his fucking bag during this film. There are some absolute money shots that I was applauding while I watched this alone in my room. Or I could talk about how hilarious it is in my mind that Robert Loggia plays a crime boss in Miami because I can only think of him as the guy who plays the big piano in FAO Schwarz with Tom Hanks in Big:
Or I could talk about how Al Pacino is a hilarious casting for this movie. 1. He was 43 years old supposedly playing someone in his mid-30s 2. He’s Italian-American and simply not Cuban.** BUT HE’S GREAT IN THE ROLE. I can only see Pacino playing Scarface and he’s become iconic. Hmm…
I can’t decide between these three so I’m gonna talk about Nas instead.
I love Nas. I think he’s one of the best rappers of all time and if you don’t agree with me you have to get on board that he’s one of the best lyricists of all time. And one of my favorite albums of all time is Illmatic, Nas’ debut album. His DEBUT album! Some of you reading this might not be into rap, but trust me when I say that Nas went 10/10 on this album. Just hit after hit after hit. He’s still cranking them out too. It’s tough when your debut is so good because everything that comes after is compared to the first. Think about Jordan Peele. I talked about him in one of the first blogs when I wrote about Get Out. Ok, so where am I going with this? Oh yeah. One of the songs on Illmatic is called “The World Is Yours.” If you’ve seen Scarface you’ll see this mantra everywhere (including in the last shot which is just *chef’s kiss*). Both Nas and Tony Montana are on the quest for wealth, legacy, and an empire and they both believe they deserve it. If you believe that “the world is yours” then you have do anything and everything in your power to make it true. Nas, please don’t go kill anyone or become a drug lord, that’s not what I’m saying.
So there, “The World Is Yours” by Nas was inspired by Scarface and is honestly seems like a great way to live your life. I mean, not if you’re Tony Montana, but in general.
Boom. Connected.
Also, if you’re looking for more discussion on Nas go read Shea Serrano’s books: Hip Hop (and Other Things) and The Rap Yearbook. His website is also hilarious.
Ranking of Lonely Island Songs (don’t judge):
I Just Had Sex
I’m On A Boat
Jizz In My Pants
Jack Sparrow (This is where I first heard about Tony Montana and the reason I made this ranking)
Threw it on the Ground
Natalie’s Rap
Rating of how racist it was to cast Al Pacino as a Cuban: 3/10 (RDJ in Tropic Thunder is a 0/10, all of the Puerto Ricans in West Side Story are 8/10, Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s breaks the scale.)
No, But Really: This movie isn’t on the Mount Rushmore of mob/crime movies but deserves a mention. It’s not perfect but you’ll be gripped the whole time from the first long, 360, take from De Palma. The acting is magnificent as well. Now that I’ve already mentioned Shea Serrano in this section I’ll mention him again. He writes about Scarface in his book Movies (and Other Things) (Another fantastic book) and says:
*INSERT SCARFACE QUOTE FROM SERRANO.*
I can’t find the quote. Fuck. But go read the book and watch the movie anyway.
*I love long movies, but this is the reason it took so long for me to watch this. Same goes for Braveheart, Apocalypse Now, Heat, and Casino. I will get around to them. Trust me.
**There will be discussion of Hollywood fucking up casting for a century (because only white people were given jobs) in future blogs. Get ready Mickey Rooney and Natalie Wood.
Tenet (2020)
Good lord. Christopher Nolan took those comments about how he fucks with time and stepped it up a notch. I know most people watched this movie and came out of it with a billion questions. Most importantly, their main question was: “Uh, what the fuck just happened?” Now, knowing this going into the movie, I locked in and paid as close attention as I could and…still came out a little confused but honestly not as bad as I thought. Nolan is just an unbelievable filmmaker/director. He has complete command and control over his films down to the very detail. Not one thing is out of place and everything serves a purpose. All I’ve got left to see by him is Insomnia, and considering that Tenet was on my watchlist for 3 years and Insomnia isn’t even on my watchlist, it might take 20 years for me to get to it. I’ll make sure to keep you posted. When I think of Nolan movies a few things come to mind:
Ranking of things that come to mind when I think of Christopher Nolan:
1. The guy is obsessed with time.
2. Every single character is the best looking person you’ve ever seen in your life.
3. They’re great movies.
4. Hans Zimmer.
5. How muchThe Prestige is underrated.
6. How great Heath Ledger’s Joke is.
7. How much I miss Heath Ledger
8. How much I love Michael Caine
9. How Tom Hardy never wants to show his face in anything ever.
10. The Interstellar theme:
This was the first “big” movie to come to theaters during/after COVID and it makes sense since it was Chris Nolan. But guess what? (And if you already know about this feel free to skip this part) The way Warner Bros. handled this whole Tenet situation is why Oppenheimer was released by Universal (and thank god because otherwise Barbie and Oppenheimer would’ve both been Warner Bros. movies and we wouldn’t have gotten the whole Barbenheimer phenomenon.) Anyway, during COVID, Warner Bros., now Warner Discovery, (don’t get me started) decided to put all of the movies they had in the can onto HBO MAX right away without releasing them in theaters. Thankfully, Christopher Nolan is a film purist and insisted on releasing Tenet in theaters. God bless Christopher Nolan. Movie theaters still aren’t in the clear just yet, especially with the strikes still ongoing, but they’re hopefully getting back on track. A message to movie studios: figure it the fuck out. Please and thank you.
Rating of much I love Robert Pattinson in this movie: 8/10 (Twilight is a 2/10, Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire is a 7/10, The Batman is a 10/10).
No, But Really: It’s not among my favorite/best Nolan films but it certainly is better than the reviews it received. You just seriously have to pay attention to every little detail. Turn off your phone, watch it by yourself or with friends who will be quiet and won’t interrupt, and watch it on as big of a screen as possible.
Docs
Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History (2017)
When I added this docuseries to my watchlist I assumed it would be all about the iconic film soundtracks from history. What I got instead was The Rock talking to me about how the music that came out of the Kent State shootings changed a generation. Now, if you’re wondering how Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is related to the Kent State shootings all you have to do is look at the credits. He produced the docuseries. Anyway, this series is 8 parts and each episode covers a different era in American history (MLK’s assassination, 9/11, Kent St/Vietnam, Hurricane Katrina, The Moon Landing, Stonewall/LGBT movement, Women’s rights movement, Fall of the Berlin Wall*). Unfortunately (fortunately?) I either wasn’t alive or I was too young to remember any of these events. I do, however, listen to a lot of music and love learning more about history. Also, all of these era/events are still relevant today and some are even ongoing, so it was definitely timely.
I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries about 20th century history and not much about times before then. For this reason I start thinking about how someone from 18th or 19th century would react to how the world is today. Would they freak out? Probably? Definitely. Would they be chill? Probably not. How can we answer this question? We don’t have a time machine (as far as we know) and we haven’t found a caveman frozen in ice like they did in that one Scooby-Doo episode yet.**
So how do we answer it? We must look at the next best thing. We explore noted the scientific text that answers this very question: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. If you haven’t seen Bill and Ted’s stop what you’re doing and go watch it.*** Now, by this point, you know that I hate spoilers so I don’t want to talk about Bill and Ted’s too much, but all I’ll say is that, maybe, just maybe, people from the past would be chill. “Be good to each other. And party on dudes!”
Ranking of people I’d send to go meet the aliens when they come (they’ve already came):
The Rock: One of the most likable people on Earth. Very large and can defend himself if needed. Is bald. Aliens are bald so they’ll be able to bond.
Tom Cruise: Is one of them. They’ll greet him with open arms.
Tom Hanks (pre-2019): I don’t want Hanks pulling any weird shit like he did in Elvis. Just go be America’s Dad and charm the aliens.
Tilda Swinton: I just get the vibe that Tilda would love to go meet some aliens and probably has before. She’s just weird but in a good way.
Brad Pitt: Would have those aliens speechless. Have you seen Brad Pitt recently? Or anytime from the last 30 years? Man is fine as hell. He’ll do just fine with some aliens.
Ranking of people I wouldn’t sent to go meet aliens:
Any TikTok personality: Self explanatory
Sigourney Weaver: The aliens would be terrified of her. Have you seen the Alien franchise?
Daniel-Day Lewis: He’d go all method and pretend to be an alien or something. Too much
Matt Damon: I can’t explain why I just think he’d get himself killed
Tom Cruise: See previous entry.
No, But Really: This is a solid docuseries that ties together music and 20th century history. I’m sure if you lived through these era/events it would be even more enjoyable but it was something I could put on when I was making dinner or cleaning my room and still get everything I needed out of it.
*Had a trivia question tonight about what Reagan told Gorbachev to tear down in his 1987 speech. It wasn’t the hardest round. We still only got 2nd. By one point. I hate losing trivia.
**Why do I remember this???
***There’s also 2 sequels. Bogus Adventure is pretty sub par but still enjoyable I guess? Face the Music is actually very fun and better than I expected.
Run Ricky Run (2010)
The only reason I watched this is not because I’ve been back on my bullshit and watching 30 for 30s like it’s my job but because we talked about Ricky Williams’ historically bad contract in my Sports Econ class. This was by far the most different 30 for 30 I’ve ever watched. With the early 30 for 30s you can clearly tell that ESPN is still working out the formula but this felt even more different. Maybe it was the fact that is was filmed over the course of 4-5 years but is only 50 min? I can’t really put my finger on it. What was cool was that it felt like a home video being made by amateurs rather than professionals. Again, I can’t place my finger on why this was kind of cool but there you go.
One of the thing that stuck out most to me about this doc was just how far America, and sports in general, have come in terms of drug use. 20, shit even 5, years ago, being caught with weed on a drug test made athletes public enemy #1. Promising careers were interrupted (shoutout Josh Gordon, what a year 2013 was)* and the public images of these athletes were tainted forever. Nowadays, and I don’t know about you all, but things seem a lot more chill. I mean, the NBA doesn’t test for it anymore because they know that every player uses it. The NFL has relaxed a bit, but, in true NFL fashion doesn’t want to unban weed unless they get something in return from the players in their collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The NFL can be a real dick sometimes. Think of something you, as a fan, want to see. I’ll give you some examples: alternate uniforms, alternate helmets, throwbacks, celebrations, taunting, etc. Basically all of the things that makes the game more fun to watch. So what do the owners do to meet fans’ wishes? Makes all failed 4th down conversion automatically reviewable. Thanks you old bags, that’s just what we wanted.**
Ranking of the biggest LOSERS in the NFL:
Dan Snyder
John Mara: cried about how he was “sick and tired of the taunting” so he got the rule changed. Crybaby.
Roger Goodell: No explanation needed
Jerry Jones: Hasn’t won shit since 1995 and still makes people believe in the Cowboys and wants people to treat him like God.
Hue Jackson: Quite literally the biggest loser. Went 1-31 in 2 seasons as Browns head coach. I’d love to know why they thought he’d turn it around after that 1-15 season.
Russell Okung: Have you seen this guy’s transformation since leaving the league?
Wild.
The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers: They were founded in 1976 and proceeded to lose 26 straight games. At least they were wearing those sweet creamsicle jerseys while they did it.
Cowboys fans: See entry on Jerry Jones
Anyone who actively roots for 2 teams: This is illegal.
The 1940 Washington Redskins: They lost 73-0 in the Championship game against the Chicago Bears which is the biggest scoring margin of all time. Tough looks but not as bad as the worst college loss of all time.***
No, But Really: Certainly not my favorite 30 for 30 and not in my top 15 but Ricky Williams is undeniably an interesting guy whose story is worth learning more about.
*14 games. 87 receptions. 1,646 yards (that’s 118 per game). 9 touchdowns. First team all pro. Pro bowler. Fantasy STUD.
**I love you though Josh. You saved us from that bad, bad man Dan Snyder. Take us to the promised land.
***222-0. Yes, you read that correctly. In 1916, Georgia Tech beat Cumberland 222-0. Look up this game and read about it.
The stats are hysterical to look at.
Laugh out loud funny.
-Fuck Dan Snyder
—Documentary on HQ coming next week, also probably 12 Angry Men
—-Bruuuuuuuuuuce
——Tailgate beers don’t count
Also, the irony of complaining about how far you have to scroll on a website...
I'm going to go with Encino Man in lieu of the Scooby Doo ice man. Under-appreciated classic from the Pauly Shore era that has made it impossible for me to watch Brendan Fraser without seeing a caveman.