"Please Return Our Diamonds Before You Go to Jail"......and others

Charles Taylor, exit stage right. Tip of the hat to a UN special court in the Hague for throwing the book at Taylor, the former leader of Liberia who abetted war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone and dealt in country's blood diamond industry. It took five years for the court to reach a verdict, but better late than never. I hope this a start of a trend of prosecuting heads-of-state and other political leaders who partake in crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, there is still much to be done. International tribunals need to find a way to get at these guys even while they are still serving, like Sudan's Omar Bashir and Assad in Syria. This has to happen, but putting Taylor in the clinker is a good start.

I am going to leave you with the last of my Uncle Paul's Istanbul tale, but before that there is the small matter of a "Game of Shadows". I watched the second Sherlock Holmes movie on Saturday, and just completely forgot to write a review. I am not sure it really matters, I am probably the last American to have seen the film. Either way, it was going to be a short review: Its bloody fantastic. Just a really fun, entertaining film. Robert Downey Jr. continues to be one of my favorite actors, he is such a riot in GoS. Jude Law, and all other involved are of course very good as well, but Stephen Frey gets special mention. Very funny in his somewhat minor role. Anyway, its hilarious, laugh-out-loud at times, there is loads of action, and the story is good as well. I am glad that Guy Ritchie got a hold of this franchise, he has done so well with it. Just see it if you haven't, I don't really need to go into any details.
Grade: A
If you liked this movie you might also like: Of course the first Sherlock Holmes, but really any Guy Ritchie film is worth a look.

And now, to wrap up Uncle Pablo's recap of he and Aunt Elena's trip again. A special shout-out to him for providing FC with this recap, I was flattered to have a contributing writer, even though the pay sucks. I again apologize for the gap in the posts, I started posting it, and then progress was interrupted by my own travels. Either way, give it a read, hopefully UP will contribute again in the future (despite the poor pay):

Unfortunately, it was my turn to be infected by the Istanbul intestinal bug.  I slept poorly with a stomach ache and woke up fully sick, losing most of the previous night’s sumptuous dinner in our bathroom.  We went to the hotel’s restaurant/breakfast area and chatted with some of our group for our final get-together.  I didn’t manage to eat anything, though Elena was pretty well recovered.  Besides being unable to eat, I was completely devoid of energy and walked around like a person half-asleep.  We at least managed to say goodbye to some members of our group and Taylan, with whom we took a photo.  Then it was time to pack up and head to our other hotel for our final day’s stay. 

Since I had no energy due to the tummy bug, it was a struggle just to pack up, check out, and walk over to our new (old) hotel, the Hotel Sphendon.  We got to the Sphendon around 10:30 or so, and our room wasn’t available yet, so I slumped like a pile of laundry on a couch in the lobby.  Elena was anxious not to waste our last day in Istanbul, so she took off.  Her plan was to visit the Dolmabahce Palace, which wasn’t on the tour.  After 45 minutes or so, the hotel staff informed me that my room was ready.  Unfortunately, this room was on the fourth floor (no elevator) and smaller than our previous room at the Sphendon, but it was still facing the courtyard and was very quiet.  I just collapsed on the bed and slept.  From that point until the end of the day, I alternated between reading “Lonesome Dove,” usually lasting about five minutes, and then going back to sleep.  Later in the afternoon, Elena came back, saying that the Dolmabahce Palace was nice, but basically she had to wait two hours for a one-hour tour of the palace.  She said that the payoff wasn’t worth the wait.  She had also done some shopping to get rid of our leftover Turkish lire, but she still needed to dump some more of the currency.  She asked if I wanted anything, and I said maybe just a banana.  Elena came back a few hours later having done as much shopping as she could and having had some dinner.  I managed to eat about half a banana, drank some (bottled) water, and left it at that.  We turned in for the night.

In the morning I was on the mend and managed to have some bread, fruit, tea, and orange drink (not the fresh-squeezed orange juice of the Obelisk, unfortunately).  Elena and I paid the hotel bill and quickly got a cab.  We tried to soak in as many sights of the city as we could as we drove along the Bosphorus to Ataturk Airport.  Even though we ended our visit to Istanbul on a bit of a sour note, Elena and I agreed it was a good tour and a good trip overall.  Ricky Steves gets another “thumbs up” from the travelling team of Paul and Elena.  

Movie Review-Haywire: Jason Bourne....with Tits.

I was pretty stoked about this film when I first saw the trailer, way back at the tail end of last year. It looked, well, pretty much as I described in the post title, an action/spy-thriller in the vein of the Jason Bourne films, only with the lead character played by a female.

Upon further review....that is pretty much the way it played out, which is to say, a good thing. This wasn't as good as any of the Bourne Trilogy (does such a thing even exist?) and of course is a high quality piece of film-making, a la "A Separation", but its certainly isn't bad, and its entertaining, which sometimes is all you can ask for. The female role in question, Mallory Kane (played by Gina Carano...an actress I've never heard of before) is a special forces-type private contractor (think Blackwater...or whatever it has changed its name to in order to cover up its crimes in Iraq), who can put down any dude in a hand-to-hand fight and knows her way around fire-arms. Considered one of the best in her field, she is eventually turned on by her own organization and targeted for killing, for reasons which I will leave out. Some pretty big names round out the rest of cast: Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Ewen McGregor, Greg Kinnear, and Channing Tatum (I suppose he is well known enough now) all have roles. Steven Soderbergh, known for the "Ocean's [insert number 11 or above]" and "Out of Sight", among others, directed the film.

Now, that story line really isn't all that original, I suppose adding in the world of private contracting added a different twist, but nothing really to out of the ordinary. Having said that, it is still a fun flick. It has more than its fair share of action, a mixture of gun-play and martial arts. The choreography on the fight scenes was a bit disappointing at times. I suppose it can be difficult to get such things spot on, the Bourne films relied on shaky camera action to cover up any problems, giving the fights a more realistic feel. That tactic isn't employed here, so some of the hand-to-hand action looks a bit jaded. Even though the story feels a bit "super-soldier betrayed by their own, has no idea why, been there, done that", the directing team chose to unfold the plot-line in a way that holds the viewer's interest, primarily through flashbacks, and at least leaves them wanting to discover the reason for Kane's betrayal, which isn't revealed until the very end. The acting isn't really anything to write home about, but it isn't really a film you watch to see good acting. Channing Tatum appears to have the acting skills of a burn-victim wrapped in fully-body gauze, I'm not entirely certain how he secures roles. Antonio Banderas, despite being in like 3 scenes, is pretty fun to watch in this one, I liked his character. I suppose Carano did a decent job it what is really her first "big" role, she plays the part well. She is really easy on the eyes though.....

"Haywire" is a short one, doesn't even reach the hour and a half mark, and it goes by quick, with the rapidly progressing story and a decent helping of action sequences. It didn't really rock my world, again, the choreography was a bit disappointing at times, as was the acting, but you really can't take away from it, it was entertainment, and sometimes you just need a good action flick for a change of pace from those incredibly deep, almost art-like films that I am used to (OK...I embellish). Oh, and there are some pretty decent shots of cities like Barcelona and Dublin, including a really fun scene where Kane evades a team of SWAT officers in Dublin. Upstate New York, no specific location given, also features in the film, but who really cares?

Verdict: I'll say see it, definitely worth a rent for an 1 and 20 minutes of entertainment. Grade: B

If you liked this movie you might also like: Jason Bourne....except minus the tits.

Day 7 of Uncle Paul in Istanbul

A short description of Uncle Paul's time in Istanbul. Be on the look-out for a movie review tomorrow.

On Friday, Elena was feeling well enough to join the tour group, though she had very little food for breakfast.  Fortunately, she got better as the day went on.  Today we made a visit to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.  Taylan has a degree in archaeology, so he acted as our tutor as we went through the museum.  We began in one building, the Museum of the Ancient Orient, where Taylan lectured us about the Hittites and the Kadesh Treaty.  We then moved to the main building of the museum, where Taylan gave a brief presentation and eventually let us wander around the museum on our own, where we enjoyed viewing the antiquities and took many photos.  Elena and I went briefly to the “Tiled Kiosk,” which contained rooms decorated with beautiful tiles.  We sat outside for a while after this, enjoying the sunny day, and the group left the museum grounds together.  At this point, Elena and I had some lunch at another “point and shoot” place, and we returned to our room to rest for a while.

In the evening, the group met in the hotel lobby to walk together to our farewell dinner.  After about 10 minutes of walking we ended up at a restaurant attached to a very toney hotel.  Elena and I sat at a table with three of our tour colleagues that we hadn’t much talked to previously, and Elena was well enough by now that she was able to eat a good portion of her food.  I ate pretty much everything put in front of me.  Our dining was accompanied by a Turkish piano player, playing (of all things) Broadway show tunes.  One of our tour members, a thoracic surgeon, took over the piano for a couple of tunes, getting appreciative applause from the group.  Taylan toasted the group and one of our tourists toasted Taylan for doing such a good job.  The dinner turned out very well and we walked back to the hotel together to call it a night.  

Uncle Paul in Istanbul, Day 6, and others

Been a bit quiet around these parts lately, no? Well, I haven't been too diligent about my blogging duties, but I plan to pick up activity on the Four Corners from now on. You may remember the World's Coolest Uncle, Uncle Paul, provided a recap of he and my Aunt Elena's trip to Istanbul last November. I posted up to Day 5 back in January, but then things were interrupted by my own trips to Bangkok and Australia. Well, now I am here to finish up the rest. Its good stuff, and reading about Istanbul is always a treat.

Before that though, here is a link I came across in the NY Times, a list of the top travel destinations for 2012:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/travel/45-places-to-go-in-2012.html?pagewanted=all

Regarding my recent jaunt to Buffalo last weekend, nothing too much to report. I had a great time, saw a number of friends I had not seen in quite a while, and Da'Von, my room-mate during our study abroad in China, was a great host. We did drive around some parts of Buffalo I had not seen before, mainly upper-class areas dotted with old homes cheek-to-jowl with each-other. Despite the awful weather in that place, and the (still) depressed economic climate, Buffalo is a lovely place with many places worth giving a look. Maybe I am biased though, having spent a memorable four years there.

One other thing, should be watching some movies this weekend, so be on the look-out.

Now back to Uncle Paul:

Next up: cruise day for the Rick Steves group.  We took a tram, did some walking, and ended up at the S.S. Ricky Steves for a cruise on the Bosphorus Strait.  It wasn’t actually called the “S.S. Ricky Steves,” but the tour did charter a nice boat just for our tour group.  The cruise was a pleasant, fairly low key way to spend the day.  We sat outside on the deck of the boat, but though the sun peeked out regularly, it was pretty chilly.  Elena and I eventually went into the boat’s cabin, which was warm but still had a great view.  Taylan was in the pilot area narrating the tour on a microphone.  We first rode along the western, European side of the Bosphorus, seeing a lot of nice neighborhoods and beautiful buildings along the Bosphorus, including the Dolmabahce Palace, though I also enjoyed seeing buildings and homes scaling up the hills around Istanbul.  We then switched over to the Eastern, Asian side of the Bosphorus, which is much more residential than the European side, featuring gorgeous and outrageously expensive houses right on the water. The boat docked in the Asian part of Istanbul, in the Kadikoy district.  The area we were in was pretty commercial, but the feeling was smaller and less touristy than the European part of Istanbul.  The group walked a bit through the area, looking at produce and fish markets and restaurants, and we ended up at a restaurant for a group lunch.  The food at this restaurant was more Greek or Lebanese than anything we had eaten previously, and I liked it a lot. 

Unfortunately, at this point Elena wasn’t feeling well in the tummy area.  We thought she might be having delayed reaction motion sickness from the boat trip (Elena has had motion sickness problems in the past), but we later decided it was an intestinal bug that she probably picked up from the water in Istanbul.  Elena and I had been careful to only drink bottled water during our stay, but apparently we weren’t careful enough.  We think we either caught the bug from drinking tea we made in our hotel room with tap water (geez, it was boiled) or from brushing our teeth with tap water.  I mean “we” here deliberately, as I had my close encounter with the bug the next day.  So I enjoyed the lunch, but Elena had a few bites and realized she wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t eat any more.  After lunch, the members of the group went their separate ways, and Elena and I walked through the area, stopping for a while in a nice book shop, but she was feeling even worse and we decided to go to the park where Taylan said we should all meet. 

We sat in the park for half an hour or so, with Elena resting her head on my shoulder.  At one point, a portly, older Turkish man with a bushy gray mustache and a beat-up tweed sport coat sat next to Elena on our park bench and, with a big smile, uttered some words to her in Turkish.  Elena said, “I don’t speak Turkish,” but he continued saying a few more things we didn’t understand.  Eventually he got up and left.  (Maybe he was saying, “Ah, you foolish tourist, you made tea with our Turkish tap water, didn’t you?” or some such thing.)

Eventually the rest of our crew trickled in, and the bunch of us walked to a regular ferry to ride back to the old town.  Elena was still feeling poorly, but I noticed that the ferry was very big and very nice.  We sat outside to enjoy the views and the fresh air, but inside there were comfortable seats and television sets playing news programs.  (But the men’s room was a filthy mess.  The male passengers’ “aim” was apparently very poor on the ferry.)  We took a tram back to the hotel so Elena could rest, though a number of our colleagues, including Taylan, decided to make an unscheduled visit to the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art.  The bug Elena had not only made her nauseated, but also drained her of energy, so we went back to the room to rest.  Elena napped while I made out some post cards, then I napped, too.  In the evening we went up to the restaurant on the top floor of our hotel where Elena just had water and I had a salad for dinner.

2012's most interesting buildings

Great article from The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/04/2012s-most-interesting-buildings-so-far/1761/#slide1

Buffalo-bound

I will be off to Buffalo later today to see some old friends. This will just be a short one, but I haven't been back to the old stomping grounds since September, and I look forward to seeing friendly faces.

Should anything interesting go down, look back here for word. Until then, I leave you with this, a combination of travel and architecture, two of the favorites here at FC:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2011/12/9-beautiful-new-airport-terminals/618/#slide1

Movie Review- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Dull, Confusing, Put Me out of My Misery

I have some really bad news:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was an incredible disappointment. On this (now past) Easter Holiday....Jesus wept, and they were tears of boredom.

When I first heard this movie would be coming out, I looked forward to watching it. Unfortunately, when the opportunity presented itself, I couldn't even finish the whole film.

Its not that TTSS (I am not going to write out that title more than once) is a particularly bad film, its just that it is amazingly dull, but its killer blow was the fact that it was beyond confusing. It left the viewer (at least this one), with little or no idea just what the hell was going on. Within the opening ten minutes, there is a horrible feeling that the movie scenes were just put together in random order. I am not opposed to frequent flashbacks in a movie, but it has to be done in the right way. I think this film went overboard, and combine this with an already confusing story line, I was left scratching my head. I only knew the basic premise, but beyond that, I had no idea who certain characters were, or what purpose they served. When you make it through more than 50% of a movie, and your knowledge is the same as when it started, you are in trouble. You could tell that the plot was very involved, and when this is jumbled by frequent flashbacks that you are never quite are still going or not, totally throws one off. I feel that this oftentimes is a problem for spy films: too much intrigue, a complex plot, and several characters to keep track off, which ends up just obfuscating the story.

Now, I am far from someone who needs endless action or comedy to be entertained (A Separation, The Class, Moneyball....I could go on) but TTSS is dreadfully boring. This may have been born of the fact that I could just not keep with the goings on, but still, the dialogue and progress of events made my eyelids grow heavy. Its unfortunate, I wanted to like this film. It is full of actors that I really enjoy: Gary Oldman (I have forgiven him for his role is Rain Fall), Mark Strong (fantastic actor), Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, and John Hurt (Hurt can steal the show even if his role is 5 minutes long), but, it wasn't meant to be. However, I won't take anything from any of these gentleman, the acting is not bad. In fact, I think it is rather good. Oldman does his role of an old, disillusioned spy-master quite well, and Hurt of course was always fun to listen to when he came on-screen. It was just the setting they were put wasn't doing it for me. One other thing I will add, to the movie's favor, is there are some pretty neat shots of great cities, like Budapest and Istanbul, but they are brief.

Like I said, I couldn't finish the movie, I was on the verge of falling asleep. Again, very disappointed, I hoped this movie would be a winner, but an incredibly confusing plot and glacial speed meant that just wasn't going to happen. Again, I didn't expect any high drama or shoot-em-up action, just interesting story-line and maybe a gripping ending. I don't know about the ending, but the story-line bit didn't come off.

Verdict: I can't recommend it, but perhaps a better person could get something out of it. If anything, watch it for the actors, particularly the more senior ones, they are ace. Grade: N/A. It would be unfair to rate it without finishing it.

If you liked this movie you might also like: I suppose I could go with watching paint dry/grass grow, but I imagine being spectator to old English man in suits sitting around talking about balancing a budget might do the trick. 

New York Times Article

Interesting article about one of Athens' more interesting sights: the guards outside of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/world/europe/as-riots-rage-greeces-presidential-guard-doesnt-budge.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

Movie Review: A Separation: Superlatives Fail Me

If you haven't heard of "A Separation", that's a real shame. The film won this year's academy award for Best Foreign Film and was received with much fanfare and, based on this evidence, it was all more than well-earned. "A Separation" is one of the best films I've seen for a good long-while.

If I haven't mentioned before, I have a soft-spot for foreign flicks, and I am glad that I do, or else I would have missed what is really a fantastic film. Set in Tehran, Iran (the director, Asghar Farhadi, is Iranian, and the film is completely in Farsi) "Separation" is the story of a middle-class couple, Nader and Simin, now facing divorce as Simin wants to take the family (including their 11-year old daughter) abroad, while Nader refuses as he wants to stay in the city and care for his live-in geriatric father, suffering from dementia. The story ends up being not so much about the couple's impending separation (Simin goes to live with her parents, refusing to leave the country while their daughter commits to staying with Nader) but this instead serves as a backdrop to the controversy that soon emerges involving the poor woman from the suburbs that Nader hires to look after his father while he works his day job at a bank.

That may not sound like incredibly captivating stuff, but, take my word for it, it is. The acting, which all comes from actors/actresses that I have never heard of, and I'm sure few others have, is brilliant, helped along by fantastic writing. I think special mention should go to the actor who plays Nader. I hope he receives more recognition for his portrayal of a man caught between caring for the needs of an ailing father and keeping his family together, all while being weighed down by a trying situation that suddenly landed in his lap. I think what really sealed the deal for me was the insight that "Separation" offers into middle-class Iranian life. Given the nature of relations between Iran and the west, the country carries an air of mystery to it, maybe not to the level of North Korea, but more so than most other places, and I think any opportunity to look at life in Iran is an opportunity worth taking. Iran of course is constantly in the news, and of course for all the wrong reasons. While the government there may be deplorable, the people by-and-large, are not. While Iranians must deal with special circumstances, those brought about my living under a theocratic government, I would hope that westerners, and Americans in particular, can watch this film and see that Iranians, just like anyone else, behave much like anyone else, and fight their own battles among their own unique situations. That is horribly cliched, but true. I hoped that the movie might show more of Tehran, a massive, pulsating metropolis that, again, many can't get a god feel for. This really didn't happen, as it is set in a regular-looking middle-class community, but this is just a minor complaint and doesn't take away at all from the movie's brilliance.

Verdict: Please see it. Grade: A

If you liked this movie you might also like: Can't think of many films that fall in the same vein, but don't forget to give foreign films a chance, I doubt you will be disappointed.