Netflix Review: Golfballs!

As part of my penance for not working and still getting paid, it seems, I must endure the worst that the American Cinematic community has to offer. Golfballs! is truly at the quintessential nadir of the entirety of film making. But there's lots of tits, so at least it has that going for it. Which is nice.

The movies starts with the dubious concept of a family owned golf course that is 3 months late on its rent. In order to drum up business, strippers are hired to frolic around the course. In absolutely no time at all, a cart-wash is built for slow motion, naked cart washing montages. So, you see, the movie is not without redemption.

Even with the sudden success of the family owned golf course, it still cannot get out from under the tyrannical thumb of the next door (of course) golf course. So the evil golf course owner proposes the obligatory 18 hole winner take all tournament. Guess who wins.

• 24 breasts (at least)
• 1 old guy getting racked
• 2 wacky Hasidim
• 2 slo-mo cartwash montages
• 1 cat fight
• 1 flatulent dog

Available on Netflix's Watch Now. Which is how I watched it.

King Wally says check it out.

D-

Eating Grapevine: The Silver Fox

First off, Happy Birthday Peach!

I didn't know what to expect from The Silver Fox. I had heard their commercials on The Hardline. I had seen that they had multiple locations. This is usually not a good sign. Except for Ruth's Chris, steakhouse chains tend to be on the order of Texas Land and Cattle. However, what I didn't know was this was an offshoot of III Forks -- my all-time favorite steakhouse.

So, simply put, this meal was fantastic!! There are certain things I must order when I go to any fine restaurant/steakhouse. So let's see how The Silver Fox did on Steve's Steakhouse Checklist.

1. Saphire Martini -- It's hard to screw this up. And they didn't. It was big and tasty.
2. Crabcakes -- I have to order them wherever I go. And these were the best I've had all year. Better than Truluck's even.
3. Porterhouse, medium rare -- I always get a porterhouse for the fillet side and the strip side and the bone for Alex. Perfectly cooked with my preferred topping, Oscar -- asparagus, lump crab with Béarnaise.

I was too stuffed for dessert, although I had a bit of the creme brulee. It was OK. I'm not a huge fan of creme brulee, though.

I wish I had more to say. This place is great. Is it the greatest steakhouse ever? Probably not. And I will still go to my preferred Truluck's. But it does the job and serves up a tasty steak and a very nice scallop. And the service was great. Everything you can ask for in a steakhouse.

A

1235 William D. Tate Grapevine, TX

Netflix Review: Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

* * * N E R D A L E R T ! ! ! * * *

If you are a fan of one of the current crop of serialized sci-fi dramas, Heroes, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, then you can thank Babylon 5 for trailblazing the concept. From its inception, B5 was to be a five year with a predefined beginning, middle and end. The show was a kind of Casablanca in space. However, there was a "Lord of the Rings"-like story going on in the background that eventually became the main story.

So, it's been nearly a decade since the show ended. And, with DVD sales starting to decline, it was time to come out with some new material. And, for the B5 fan, this may be a welcome Netfilx treat (i.e. not necessarily something you would want to buy).

The Lost Tales consists of three half hour short stories taking place on the 10 year anniversary of the end of the series. The first is absolutely dreadful. It's your basic satanic possession in space story. The main problem is that Tracy Scoggin's Colonel Lochley and her manface are ten times scarier than Satan ever could be.

The second and third story kind of meld together. As President Sheridan travels back to Babylon 5, he is first interviewed by an annoying journalist and then presented with the task of having to kill a young prince in order to save New York City in the future. Sure, that sounds silly, and it is. But it is the best of the three stories.

What's Good: Peter Woodward's Galen, a character from B5's short lived spin off Crusade, a beautifully rendered B5 using modern CGI.

What's Bad: Pretty much everything else.

Sometimes you can't go home again. And this is a good example of leaving sleeping universes lie. Unless you're already a fan, avoid at all costs. Get the original show DVDs, fight through the poor acting and production of season 1 and you'll enjoy seasons 2-4. Season 5, well, let's not talk about that.

C
But only if you love Babylon 5.

Eating The UP: Peggy Sue's BBQ

D Magazine rates Peggy Sue's BBQ as a D Best. To which I reply, "Really??" It's not that Peggy Sue's is bad, far from it. It's quite good. It just seems to come up short on the basic element of BBQ -- smoke.

To properly rate this and any BBQ place, one has to order the 3-meat combo, the Holy Trinity of Texas BBQ -- brisket, sausage and ribs. The brisket was a little dry with very little smoke flavor. There was a nice pink smoke ring. So I know it spent some time in the smoker. The ribs too were lacking a strong smoke flavor. Although they were moist and tastey. The winner of the trifecta was the sausage. I got the impression that Peggy Sue's replaces much of the smoke element of their BBQ with pepper. The sausage, very meaty with very little fat, was loaded with pepper. Now I love pepper, so this was a delight. But the sausage too had very little smoke flavor.

Along with the three meats, I had two side dishes -- potato salad and green beans. Both were good. The green beans were especially good with generous dollops of pepper. The onion rings were tastey, but poorly prepared. It as as cook just took an onion, cut it in half, made rings out of one half and then just dump the other half in the batter.

Like I said, this place is good, but I know I've had better. So stay tuned for my upcomming best BBQ in the DFW list. So list your favorites in the comments.

B

6600 Snider Plaza Dallas, Texas 75205

I've Found Religion

At least I like their motto.

Netflix Review: Who's Your Daddy (2003)

OK. This was just terrible. I'm a bit embarrassed that I watched it. I was really hung over and had nothing else to watch. Honest!

This movie so wants to be American Pie. It couldn't get Eugene Levy, so it got Dave Thomas (not the Wendy's guy, who's dead) another SCTV alumnus.

This is the farcical tale of an adopted Ohio high school boy who finds out that his real parents have died and were the biggest smut peddlers of all the land. And he is now in charge of the smut empire, but his evil uncle is out to get him.

First off, if this is going to be a about porn, COULD WE HAVE SOME FUCKING NUDITY!!!!!!! Is that too much to ask??? Really?? We couldn't get half of Ali Landry's nipple??

• 4 breasts
• nerdy hot chick
• porn-mag-fu
• high-school-bully-fu

A horrible movie that only should be viewed if you cannot move off of the couch.

King Wally reluctantly says check it out.

D-

Retro Review: Rad (1986)

The Artist Formerly Known as the Jester has commissioned me to review movies that came out way back when he thought fingerbanging was what you did when you played cops & robbers. His first request is RAD!. And I agreed to review this movie for two reasons. 1) It came out in 1986. This is not only the year I was supposed to graduate from college, but it was also the veritable center of my cultural universe. 2) It stars Lori Laughlin. Oh how I loved her in the 80s. She was the poor man's Phoebe Cates, but would never got naked, to my knowledge. The apex of her cinematic career came one year before in the motion picture classic Secret Admirer.
Rad is your typical 80s teen comedy where the male protagonist must win some competition to win not just the big prize but also the girl (Lori Laughlin, Daphne Zuniga, Diane Franklin et. al.). The antagonist is played by a Van Patten or a Van Patten wannabe. It brings me great joy that a guy like John Cussak is a respected Golden Globe nominated actor while Vince Van Patten does poker play-by-play on deep cable. Even in reality the good guy wins. And, yes, I know I'm probably getting my 80s movies and Van Pattens mixed up. That's what happens when you blog with a box of wine.

First off, how have I never seen this movie before??? I've seen Secret Admirer, The Sure Thing, Better Off Dead, The Last American Virgin and Just One of the Guys at least a 1000 times each thanks to cable and a college career I never took seriously. Rad falls in their category, but I've never seen it. Clearly I wasted my stay at A&M.

The very generically named Bill Allen (was 24 looked 30) plays Cru Jones who has the desire and intensity to win a BMX race called HellTrack. But that’s not what this movie is about. It’s about teen suburban angst, BMX racing montages with fake Kenny Loggins music and Lori Laughlin. And it delivers!!

So, what do we have?

• 0 Breasts
• 1 Lori Laughlin crotch grab
• Preteen cussing
• BMX-fu

It can be seen here. I couldn’t find it on Netflix.

C-

It's a terrible movie, but it has Lori Laughlin.

King Wally says check it out.

Pick the Punchline

Iran unveils 'world's largest carpet'

Movie Review: The Simpsons Movie (D'oh!!)

With Matt & Heather's wedding taking up the bulk of last weekend, I had to wait until today to go see The Simpsons Movie. I might have wanted to wait a little longer. You see, not once, but twice during the showing at the theater by the Micros Center on 75, the power went out due to thunderstorms. The final time, we were alerted that it may be several hours before power was restored. So, despite the chalkboard gag's admonishment, I may be downloading the movie to watch the rest.
UPDATE
The theater gave out vouchers, so I finally got to see the final few minutes of the movie. And, like they've been doing for two decades, The Simpsons deliver. But, as is the way of The Simpsons, there are few belly laughs -- merely a cavalcade of titters, smirks and snortgles. I did snort-laugh once, though. The story dragged a little in parts and there was not nearly enough of Mr. Burns. But besides that this is a finely crafted animated movie in every aspect of the medium. The animation is stunning especially compared to the early days. And the story is more than just an episode stretched to 90 minutes.

So - 0 breasts, 1 penis, excessive pig excrement, mouse-fu, huskey-fu

King Wally says check it out.

A

Eating Dallas: Zaguán

Zaguán is a South American bakery and restaurant in the minty Oak Lawn area.

We started off with the sampler platter -- fried plantain, fried green plantain, cheese empanada, fried yucca and taqueños (fried cheese sticks, only in pastry instead of breading). Admittedly, my only experience with many of these items is from Gloria's. So that is my only basis for comparison. The regular fried plantain was as delicious as I've had at Gloria's -- greasy and plantainy. However the fried green plantain and the fried yucca both needed a dowsing of salt to exude any flavor. The taqueños were like little pigs-in-a-blanket only without the pig part. The empanada was just OK. It had only cheese as a filling. I imagine it would be really good with some meat in it.

For my main course I had a cachapa with shredded meat and cheese. This is best described as a cornmeal crepe, only a little thicker, and with whole chunks of corn in it. The sweetness of the corn melded beautifully well with the savory meat and cheese. What can I say, I love the mixing of sweet and savory. Especially when it works as well as it did with this dish. I also got to try an arepa, also with shredded meat and cheese. This is very similar to a Mexican gordita (not the crappy taco like thing at Taco Bell). Of the two dishes, the cachapa, I thought was better.

Since this is a bakery, I had to try a couple of their sweeter offerings. I mistakenly got the tiramisu. A bit too much chocolate and not enough espresso for my tastes. Compared to the one I had recently had in New Jersey, this measures a mere OK. I also got to try Zaquán's specialty dessert -- Cuatro Leches. I'm not sure what the fourth milk is, mother's milk perhaps, but this was delicious. It's flavor and texture could best be described as a very good rice pudding.

So overall this is a very nice place for lunch or brunch. I definitely need to return to try their pastries.

B

2604 Oak Lawn Ave. Dallas 75219

Because You're Having Too Good of a Day

Eric provides these links to make you feel horrible about your very existence.

• Depressing World Clock
• The End of the World

Who would have thought the world makes more bikes than computers or that more people die from diarrhea than TB?