Die Welle (The Wave) A German film that's NOT about WW2

Die Welle (The Wave – 2008) – Die Welle, literally The Wave, comes to us from Germany. This thriller tells the story of a high school teacher's misguided attempts to teach his class about the dangers of fascism and blind allegiance. The film's story takes its cues from an American Novel titled The Wave by Todd Strasser, which is in turn based upon a supposed real life experiment at a Palo Alto high school. The movie centers on a high school class taught by the “cool” teacher; a punk rock singing, anarchist, activist, who's tasked with teaching his students about autocracy for one week. When the teacher presses the students for examples of fascism, they make it clear they're tired of hearing about the atrocities of the Nazi regime in Germany, that it's time to move on, and nothing like that could ever happen again in Germany. The teacher takes this as a worrying sign to show the students exactly how easy it is to get wrapped up in a movement, and he sets about creating a fascist system in his classroom for the week-long project. What happens next is somewhat expected, however nonetheless shocking, and incredible, as the project spirals out of control. This movie captures the need for people, especially teenagers, to feel like they are part of something bigger, and more important, than themselves.

Brick - Neo-Noir detective film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Brick (2005) – The first film on this blog that you wont need subtitles to watch, is Brick. Brick, in this case, is a reference to 'bricks' of heroin, large amounts, packaged for the dealer to break up and sell. This movie has a bad guy, called 'Pin,' as in kingpin, that is chauffeured around in a full size van, where he sits in a chair, next to an end table, with a lamp. He has a lamp in his van, and it's on a table. Come on, style alone warrants a viewing. This is a modern take on the film noir genre, or "neo-noir," set in high school in the mid 2000's. Brick was made for something in the area of $500k. That's nothing for a movie these days, and it manages to not only be effective, but get a 79% on RottenTomatoes, and a 7.5 on IMDB. It has some of the snappiest dialog in recent memory, and one of the funniest fight scenes in a long long time. It's a movie you can watch back to back and still enjoy it the second time. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great here, surprising all of us who only knew him as the kid on that horrible TV show. The kid can act, that's for sure. You can expect to find more of his movies on this blog as time goes on.

Oldboy - Korea's greatest mindfuck movie

Oldboy (2003) – "The truth will set you free." That is the driving force behind Chan-wook Park's masterpiece, Oldboy. Oldboy is a Korean film about revenge, and the consequences of full disclosure. Is it always better to know the truth? Oh Dae-Su, the films protagonist, is the man seeking revenge. He was abducted off the street, and imprisoned in an apartment-like cell for more than a decade. He doesn't know who kidnapped him, or why; but for fifteen years Oh Dae-Su conditioned his body to be a weapon, and enacted a plan to escape by chipping away pieces of the wall. During that time he had no human contact, and he learned that his wife was murdered and he was framed for it. Oh Dae-Su passed the time watching television, and obsessing over his condition, while slowly losing his grasp on reality. Then one day, he woke up outside, totally free. Again, there seemed to be no reason why. What follows is one of the single greatest 'mindfuck' movies ever made. It follows Oh Dae-Su on his violent and bloody five day journey to put the story together, piece by piece, and to figure out the who and why of his captivity. By the end of the film, Oh Dae-Su comes to realize that the truth doesn't always set you free, and has to make a choice between knowledge and ignorance. Definitely watch this if you haven't seen it, and check out the other two films in director Chan-wook Park's loose 'Vengeance Trilogy,' Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), and Lady Vengeance (2005).

Irreversible - Possibly the greatest movie ever you will wish you never watched

From time to time I figure I will point you in the direction of some great things you might not know about. Great things like this little gem of a movie... What could be better than a movie with a very moving 9 minute long forcible rape scene? All kidding aside, rape is a horrible crime, and this movie does effectively convey exactly how horrible it is.

Irreversible (2002) – This is one of those movies, like Requiem for a Dream, that is really really good, without being entertaining. You watch it, you get sucked into it, but you never enjoy it. Irreversible tells the story of one tragic night, in reverse chronological order, similar to Memento. The movie is heartbreaking, and shocking; revolting and beautiful, all at once.The beginning of this film has some very disorienting camera work, as well as barely audible tones under the soundtrack designed to discombobulate you, so break out the Dramamine before you watch it, or you might feel a bit car sick. This movie has a gay S&M club, a broken arm, a very realistic head bashing scene, and a forcible rape and beating, all in the first half. But the violence isn't what drives this film. Instead it's the characters that really make this movie work. Much of the dialog is improvised, which would easily ruin a movie like this, but since Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci are a real life couple, it fits perfectly. By the end of this movie, which is the beginning of the story, you feel a profound sense of loss. You see the characters at their most carefree, utterly in love, and you know that everything will be taken away from them. See it on a first date, and ask her if she's turned on, after all, it's in French...

Bang Bang Shrimp Tacos Bonefish Grill Style

BANG BANG SHRIMP

If you've ever been to Bonefish Grill, chances are you've eaten, and obsessed over their “Bang Bang Shrimp.” If you haven't ever been there, I'll let you in on what you're missing. The shrimp are served mainly as an appetizer, on a bed of lettuce, garnished with scallions. The shrimp are deep fried, and have a spicy, tangy sauce on them. They're delicious, and addictive. A quick Google search of the recipe brings up over 250,000 results. That's a lot of people trying to recreate the secret recipe. Several people I know have tried to make these themselves. Add me to that mix. I wanted to make shrimp tacos that were a little less ordinary, and figured that would be a perfect recipe to try. I didn't look through all 250k+ recipes to figure out how many different versions there were, because, as it turns out, they're all very similar. They differ a little here or there, but the gist is the same in most of them. I found one I liked, tweaked it, and loved the result. This is what I did...

Step 1: Go to the grocery store. I'm leaving out everything you need to do before then. Here's what you need for the meal...

The Shrimp - Shrimp. I used a bag of frozen, peeled, and deveined shrimp. They're not cooked, so they look gray not pink, you don't want shrimp that are already cooked, they'll turn out rubbery I hear. I got 41-50 count shrimp, a full pound. My understanding is that means there should have been between 41 and 50 in the bag, I didn't count though, so I can't verify that. I'll take their word for it.

The Breading – Milk, Corn Starch, and Panko. Panko is just fancy Asian bread crumbs.

The Sauce – Sriracha Sauce, Rice Vinegar, Mayonnaise, Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. Sriracha is often called cock sauce, because the most popular brand of sriracha has a rooster on it. I learned recently sriracha is not the brand, but rather the style of hot sauce. For Thai sauce I used Maggi Sweet Chili Sauce. The rice vinegar I used was Wegmans' brand. Wegmans is a popular grocery store in parts of New York, New England, and Pennsylvania.

The Frying – Oil. And some sort of device to fry in, a pan or deep fryer.

The Rest – If you want to make tacos, like I did, you need taco stuff. I used tortillas, tomatoes, green onions or scallions, jalapenos, cheese, sour cream.

Step 2: Preparation.

Part I: The Shrimp – The shrimp I got were frozen. I found out once before that if you throw frozen Potatoes O'Brien in a frying pan filled with hot oil you're going to get hot oil all over your body. You have to thaw the shrimp before you cook them. I just followed the directions on the package. When the shrimp were thawed, I placed them in a bowl of milk. You may lose your appetite at this point as I did. Something about shrimp in milk just looks gross to me. Don't worry, you'll get your hunger back. After they've sat in the milk a little bit proceed to bread them. Take two bowls or dredging stations or whatever you use, and put corn starch in one, panko in the other. Take a shrimp from the milk and dredge it through the corn starch, then dunk it back in the milk, then flop it around in the panko, and place it to the side, it's now ready to fry. I suggest putting them on a cookie sheet or something like that. Keep them separate from one another.

Part II: The Sauce – This is where you start to realize just how unhealthy this mix is. Delicious has a price, and in this case, that price may be heart disease. For a pound of shrimp I used a full cup of mayonnaise, into which you mix a quarter cup of Thai Sweet Chili Sauce, a quarter cup of sriracha, and two tablespoons of rice vinegar. You can use less sriracha if you don't want it to be very spicy, but it's important to use at least an eighth of a cup of the sriracha for the taste to be right. Stir it until it's uniform.

Part III: The Other Stuff – In my case, this was dicing and slicing the tomatoes, jalapenos, scallions, shredding lettuce, grating cheese as needed. I cheated and used the shredded iceberg lettuce package, and a package of shredded 'Mexican' style cheese. With jalapenos, you may want to wear gloves. I didn't and later when I was sticking my fingers in my girlfriend's eyes, which is something I do regularly, her eyes began to burn. I may be wrong, but I hear the membrane inside the jalapeno holding the seeds is the hottest part. So if you want less heat, just cut that part out and trash it, and only dice the fleshy skin part of the pepper.

Step 3: Cooking. When the oil is hot enough, which according to some people is 300 degrees, others say 350, you are ready to cook. I don't have a thermometer for oil, so I just looked at it and decided arbitrarily that it was hot enough. I was correct. So as I was saying, when the oil is hot enough, you're ready to fry! When I did this the first time, it was in a frying pan, and I would fry 6-8 shrimp at a time. I didn't bread all the shrimp at once before hand, I did it while I was cooking. I would coat the shrimp with the breading, and drop it in the pan. By the time I had a 4^th shrimp coated, the 1^st shrimp was ready to flip, and by the time the 7^th or 8^th shrimp went in, the 1^stshrimp was done. It was about a minute and a half, then flip it and let it cook another minute and a half. The second time I made these, I used a “Fry Daddy” which is an electric deep fryer. For this I did 5-6 shrimp at a time no longer than 1 minute 20 seconds. That's all it took. I recommend a fryer of some sorts, since after I made these shrimp the first time, my girlfriend spent about an hour taking the stove apart to clean all the oil that splattered there, as well as on the cabinets, on the counters, and on the floor. It was in her apartment, so she was pretty much obligated to clean up, unless she wanted to live in filth.

Step 4: Eat up! As I said, I made shrimp tacos. Actually, the first time I made these, they were closer to shrimp burritos since I used large tortillas. I would coat the tortilla with sour cream, make a bed of shredded lettuce, put the diced jalapenos, tomatoes, scallions in, load 5 or 6 shrimp and cover liberally with cheese. This makes enough to feed 4 people I'd say. My girlfriend and I were able to get a dinner, a lunch, and a snack each out of it.

Shopping list – BANG BANG SHRIMP TACOS

1LB Frozen Shrimp 41-50 count

1 Package Taco Size Flour Tortillas

1 Bottle Sriracha Hot Sauce

1 Bottle Thai Sweet Chili Sauce

1 Container Mayonnaise

1 Bottle Rice Vinegar

1 Box Corn Starch

1 Box Panko Breading

1 Quart 2% Milk

1 Package Shredded Lettuce

2 Ripe Tomatoes

5-6 Jalapeno Peppers

1 Bunch Scallions (Green Onions)

1 Cup Sour Cream

1 8oz Package Shredded Cheddar Cheese