Not so high a recommendation for A Beautiful Mind. There's a good story in there somewhere, but be prepared for a lot of Hollywood cheese. Russell Crowe earned my respect for his portrayal of mathematician and Nobel Prize winner John Nash, even though it's still hard for me to see a photo of him in In Style without curling my lip in disgust. Jennifer Connelly also shone as Nash's wife Alicia, who sheltered him after his diagnosis of schizophrenia and his decision to overcome the disease without drugs or shock treatments. Math totally turns me on, so I was disappointed that there was very little of it in the movie, much less mention of Nash's actual work. Director Ron Howard was too intent on tugging at the viewer's heartstrings to include anything challenging, including the more uncomfortable aspects of Nash's life story. I did appreciate the set design on the rooms that the delusional Nash filled with magazine and newspaper clippings when he was looking for secret messages from the Russians. Those things were works of art. But Best Picture? Best Director? No fucking way.

Back to Japan for Miyamoto Musashi, the first movie in the Samurai Trilogy starring my man Toshiro Mifune. In typical Heidi fashion I watched this one after already having seen }2 and }3, and it was hard to believe the wild Takezo who lashes out at everyone and everything in this film would become the disciplined samurai who duels on Ganryu Island in the third installment. In this film we also are introduced to Otsu and Akemi, the two women who will vie for Mifune's affections throughout the trilogy. Miyamoto Musashi is a classic samurai flick, and I never get tired of watching Mifune.

Now to interrupt the movies for a concert. Jim bought me a ticket to the Chemical Brothers show at the Cow Palace Friday night for my birthday this year, so off we went to join the hordes of candy ravers and e-tards. It was hard not to feel like a fogey in that crowd, but I prefer to think of myself as one of the "older hipsters." We watched Pete Tong warm up the main room for a little while before running over to a side room to boogie to Sasha and Digweed's blissfully thumpy tracks. Back to the main room for the Chemical Brothers, where I decided that, as much as I like to challenge myself with the music that I listen to, sometimes it's really fun to wig out to some simple big beat. The Chemicals had really good visuals too, some of which I ever-so-vaguely remembered from their epic show with Underworld a couple years back. We returned to Sasha and Digweed for some increasingly weary dancing, then finally found seats in the main room for Paul Oakenfold, who utterly failed to impress me. He had a few moments of brilliance in an otherwise totally standard set, with the same dumb video loop playing over and over behind him. Amber or Dragn'fly could wipe the floor with him.

Saturday evening I found myself in need of a drive, so I headed out to Concord for dinner at Luna Ristorante. I suffered a moment of panic when I first got to Concord, fearing that I would never find the restaurant and that I would be destined to wander in strip mall hell for hours, but luck led me right to Luna's intimate and inviting interior. I started out with papaya wrapped in prosciutto, a nice twist on the familiar Italian appetizer that came arranged in a starburst of meat and fruit. No less gorgeously presented was my main course of pork medallions in a port glaze with a hint of gorgonzola. Even the side vegetables were perfectly delectable, my favorite being the spinach sauteed with pine nuts and cranberries. I have been insisting to my friends that they need to make the drive to experience this place for themselves, and they think I'm insane.

After dinner I went to PFA to see 25 Watts, a Uruguayan film playing as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. If you can't think of any other Uruguayan films, it's probably because there have only been about 20 movies ever made in that country. When you then consider that this was the first film Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll ever made, it's pretty damn impressive. The woman who introduced the film mentioned that the directors were huge fans of early 90s independent film, and what I think she really meant to say was that they had watched Clerks about a hundred times before deciding to make their own film. 25 Watts tracks the exploits of three friends in Montevideo over a period of 24 hours. Photographed in textured black and white with a lot of very clever camerawork, the film was unabashedly crass and absolutely hysterical. I hope and pray this one gets U.S. distribution.

Cowboy Bebop
A Beautiful Mind
25 Watts