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RestaurantPalaver: Mintwood Place Goes Green

Mintwood Place was already the best good food/good wine/neighborhoody/snow refuge/cozy dining spot in DC, but tonight they added an Irish menu and a guitarist singing not just trad but also U2 and the Stones. Did they read my diary?

MoviePalaver: Oscar Pix 2014

Alright, alright, alright.  It's pretty sad when Matthew McConaughey makes more movies in a year than I write blog posts.  Here are my speed comments on the best picture nominees.  You can find the ballot here, and everything you want to know about the coverage here.

 

• American Hustle:  Entertaining, but I looked at my watch 4 times.  (I give it 4 watches.  My new scale.)
• Captain Phillips:  Didn't see it.  I watched the entire run of "Dexter," but this looked too scary.
• Dallas Buyers Club:  I should know better than to see disturbing movies about illness in the theater.  At least I learned from my Black Swan experience and, instead of trying to escape to the lobby, I struck the fetal position on the floor in front of my seat for the last half hour of the movie.  I would like to thank the janitorial staff at the E Street Cinema for their fantastically clean floors (I hope).  So I think this was a great movie, and I know Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto were great in it, but I have to sum up by saying that I saw it on a small screen in Canada.
• Gravity:  It was fun to see what it would be like to be in space, but did the director of "To Fly!" get a Best Director Oscar?
• Her:  I found this interesting and mostly entertaining, but I went in with low expectations after a friend said she hated it.  At the beginning of the movie I thought it might be fun to have a friendly OS in my ear 24/7, but by the middle I was sick of pretending to hear him.  Maybe that's a metaphor for the movie.  Or my life.
• Nebraska:  I thought this might be kinda dull, but I didn't look at my watch once (no watches!).  Really great slice-of-life movie.  Made me want to hug my outgoing family.
• Philomena:  Good movie, but too heartbreaking. I overheard someone at E Street refer to it as a "fun" movie. Really?
• 12 Years a Slave:  Phenomenal movie, phenomenal performances.  I hope it wins.
• The Wolf of Wall Street:  Reasonably entertaining for a three-hour movie seen at the West End Cinema (seated in something akin to a folding chair), but I'm not sure what the point was.

One more thought about Matthew McConaughey (which I've now learned to spell, I think).  Everyone keeps talking about the McConaissance -- the actor's recent move from pretty boy roles in lightweight movies  to challenging roles in serious ones -- but I haven't heard much mention of Lone Star, the 1996 John Sayles movie McConaughey was in with Sayles regular Chris Cooper.  If you want to have a McConaughey marathon, I reocmmend you start with that.  Have fun watching tonight!