All posts by Steven Ray Marks

Fast Food, Uncategorized

Fast Food Review – Taco Bell Breakfast Menu

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Let me say right off the bat that I’m not one of those food snobs who looks down on the idea of Taco Bell breakfast.  It seems that most of the commentary I’ve seen on the subject comes from a place of complete contempt for the concept and for the type of person that would even consider eating there.

This isn’t that sort of review.  I like fast food.  I especially like innovative and novelty fast foods, that cheaply and conveniently bring me taste sensations that I’ve never had before.  So I was excited for Taco Bell’s breakfast menu, and I really wanted it to be good.  But unfortunately, it just wasn’t.

Waffle Taco

This is the item that people were most intrigued about.  I feel like most people expected it to be either awesome or horrible, or possibly both at once.  But the reality is neither.  It’s just bland and tasteless.  Here’s a picture:

20140420_110625

The biggest problem is that, despite it being called a waffle taco, there’s no waffle there.  A waffle is sweet, crispy on the outside, and fluffy in the middle.  Instead, the taco is on a vaguely waffle-shaped piece of soggy spongy flatbread with no flavor whatsoever.  The sausage is also very bland.  The eggs, cheese, and bacon are about what you would expect from fast food, but there are plenty of much better ways to eat fast food eggs/cheese/bacon.

If you’re really interested in the concept of combining sweet and savory breakfast foods, you’d be much better off with the McDonalds McGriddle.  Personally I’m not a fan of that, but at least the pancake buns taste like pancake and the sausage tastes like sausage.

A.M. Cruncwrap

This is basically a large breakfast burrito that’s shaped differently.  You already know what a breakfast burrito tastes like.  This is like that.  In terms of premium fast food breakfast burritos (or burrito-like items), it’s okay.  I prefer the Carl’s Jr. Big Country Burrito, which has chicken gravy in it, or the McDonalds McSkillet which has roasted vegetables.  But the A.M. Crunchwrap gives you what you expect, and if you order it you won’t be disappointed.

Breakfast Burrito

I hadn’t intended to review this, because a small breakfast burrito is a small breakfast burrito.  But my wife ordered it, and discovered this:

20140420_112633\

Notice how little actual stuff there is in that burrito, compared to how much tortilla there is.  So I definitely would not order this again.  You’re much better off with the McDonalds Sausage Burrito, which is cheaper and has more filling in it.

Cinnabon Delight

Holy crap these are good. They’re basically deep-fried cinnamon donut holes filled with delicious goo. I would say this is the best desserty item offered at *any* major fast-food chain. I feel sorry for all the parts of the country that haven’t been able to enjoy these for the last few years. (They aren’t quite as good as actual Cinnabons, but they’re also only 260 calories, compared to a Cinnabon which is… holy crap! 880 calories! Yeah, I knew there was a reason I rarely eat at Cinnabon despite it being delicious.)  Note that these are available all day – not just at breakfast.

Conclusion

Speaking as a fast food fan who normally likes this sort of thing, I would not return to Taco Bell for breakfast.  The only good item is the Cinnabon Delights, which are available all day.  If you’re hungry and no other fast food places are convenient, the A.M. Crunchwrap isn’t a bad choice.  But it isn’t worth a special trip.

(Let me know in the comments if there are any other weird fast food items you would like me to review.)

Movies, TV

On the Subjective Value of Art

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On a Facebook thread I was participating in, someone asked me whether I thought there was an inherent value to a film beyond the audience’s reaction.

I found this to be such a bizarre question that it merits its own blog post.

To me, it seems obvious and self-evident that there’s no such thing as an intrinsic value to a piece of art. Artwork only has value to the extent that people value it. I can’t fathom what any other definition of artistic value would even mean.

There is, of course, no standard way to measure just how much an individual cares about a given work of art. But if there were, you could hypothetically add up how much each individual cares to get the precise total of what that artwork is worth.

If a lot of people care strongly about something, then that is a more valuable, and hence better, piece of art than something that a few people only vaguely care about.*

Note that there could be a piece of art that many people simply aren’t aware of, and would care about very strongly if they were exposed to it. Those are artworks that have the *potential* to be valuable. I would argue that the role of the critic is to steer people towards those works. (Or to steer them away from works that would be a waste of their limited time/attention/money, so they can instead focus on something they are more likely to enjoy.) But until a piece of art finds a broad audience, its value is limited to the people who have seen it and are thus able to value it.

When you are discussing “great” movies, you first have to define what you mean by “great.”  This is why I started my Movies We Still Care About series with an explanation of the definition I was using.

It would certainly be reasonable for someone to include obscure movies that people would love if only they knew about them in his definition of “great.”  (Even though I didn’t in my definition.)

But there are quite a few pieces of art, and film in particular, which are beloved by critics but rejected by mainstream audiences even after the audience is aware of them. At that point, it becomes silly to call these “great” movies. Rather, they are niche movies that only appeal to a limited demographic, with that demographic being “snooty film snobs.”

There’s nothing inherently wrong with niche movies. They are enjoyed by the people who enjoy them. Snooty film snobs are still people, and while their opinions shouldn’t count more than the average person, they also shouldn’t count less.

But it’s silly to proclaim that there’s something wrong with the majority of people who fail to share that niche taste.

A movie is great because people think it’s great. No other definition makes sense.

As to how you go about making a movie that people will think is great, that’s a much more complicated and difficult question. So difficult that the best filmmakers in the world will still fail most of the time.

But when they succeed, it sure is something special.

* Things get more complicated when you try to compare something that a smaller amount of people care about strongly to something that a larger amount of people care about weakly. What’s the aggregate value of an episode of NCIS compared to an episode of Game of Thrones? Without a clear way to measure how much people care about something, there’s no meaningful way to compare the 6 million people that are highly engaged with Game of Thrones to the 17 million people who are for the most part less engaged with NCIS. (Those are the US numbers for the most recent episodes.) Of course if you’re a Game of Thrones fan like me, you think Game of Thrones is obviously better than NCIS.  But it’s not so obvious why your opinion should count more than the larger number of people who watch NCIS and not Game of Thrones.

Movies, Uncategorized

Films Re-imagined as Ottoman Art

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This slideshow is pretty entertaining.  Try to look at the pictures without reading the captions, and see how many you can identify.

Note that despite the title of the slideshow, these aren’t cult films.  They’re all well-known famous films, several of which I’ve already written about in the Movies We Still Care About series.

Movies, Movies We Still Care About

Movies We Still Care About – 1984 – Part 2 (N-Z)

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(For an explanation of this, read the Introduction.  Other posts in this series can be found here.)

As I mentioned previously, I am now splitting up the discussion of films for each year in order to keep the length of the posts manageable.  This post covers 1984 movies that started with the letters N-Z. The full yearly lists will be included with each post.

Movies We Still Care About

  • Amadeus
  • Ghostbusters
  • Gremlins
  • The Karate Kid
  • Neverending Story
  • Nightmare on Elm Street
  • Police Academy
  • Red Dawn
  • Sixteen Candles
  • The Terminator
  • This is Spinal Tap

Other Notable Movies

  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  • The Muppets Take Manhattan
  • Revenge of the Nerds
  • Romancing the Stone

Best Picture Nominees:

  • Amadeus (Winner)
  • The Killing Fields
  • A Passage to India
  • Places in the Heart
  • A Soldier’s Story

Top Grossing Films (US)

  1. Beverly Hills Cop
  2. Ghostbusters
  3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  4. Gremlins
  5. The Karate Kid
  6. Police Academy
  7. Footloose
  8. Romancing the Stone
  9. Star Trek III: The Search for Spok
  10. Splash

Rotten Tomatoes Top Movies

  1. The Terminator (100%)
  2. Amadeus (95%)
  3. Repo Man (98%)
  4. Blood Simple (94%)
  5. Ghostbusters (96%
  6. This is Spinal Tap (95%)
  7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (96%)
  8. The Karate Kid (90%)

Movies We Still Care About

Neverending Story

I don’t have any commentary on this, and would put it in the “Other Fond Memories” section, except that i want to post this Neverending Party skit from Robot Chicken.

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Another of those slasher horror franchises that have reached the level of mythology.  This was interesting in that unlike Halloween or Friday the 13th, which feature (literally) faceless killers, Freddy Krueger is a real character who is able to make threats and quips.  That makes it a lot funnier than the other franchises.  And in my opinion, it also makes it a lot scarier.

As a real person, you don’t have any reason to fear Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers.  You’ve never been in a situation where you thought they were chasing you.  But late at night, when you’re falling asleep, and your rational thought is giving way to the realm of dreams – that is exactly when you think that Freddy might come after you.  Which is what makes these movies so terrifying.  Plus the children chanting the rhyme is damn creepy:

 

Sixteen Candles

The first of the John Hughes movies that would dominate the mid to late 80s, this perfectly captured the feelings of teenaged angst and alienation that we’ve all gone through.

The Terminator

One of the best intense action movies of all time.  In fact, if you look at my glossary page, it’s actually the example I give of the quintessential intense action film.  This established James Cameron as a titan of filmmaking (his only previous directing credit was “Piranha 2: The Spawning”) and Arnold Schwarzenegger as one of the biggest action stars of all time.  It’s also the origin of Arnold’s catchphrase.

It became part of our culture, and not just in art and entertainment.  As a matter of policy, people will still reference Skynet when discussing social and technological issues such as artificial intelligence and the power of tech companies such as Facebook and Google.

For a reminder of how intense this movie, just watch the final scene:

Better yet, watch the whole movie.

This is Spinal Tap

This more or less created the mockumentary genre, and is still the best example of the category.  One could even make the argument that every mockumentary since 1984 has been a futile attempt to imitate the genius of Spinal Tap.

This is also an excellent example of why you can’t necessarily judge a film’s quality by box office numbers.  There were 116 films that outgrossed Spinal Tap in 1984, and most of those have been completely forgotten.  But the legacy of Spinal Tap endures, to the point that everyone understand what “turn it up to eleven” means, even if they haven’t seen the movie or know where the reference is coming from.

Other Fond Memories

(These are movies that fit the category of “Movies We Still Care About,” but for which I personally can’t think of anything interesting to say. Please don’t take a movie’s inclusion in this category as any sort of criticism.  You are encouraged to voice your thoughts on these films in the comments section.)

  • Police Academy
  • Red Dawn

Other Notable Films

Revenge of the Nerds

This was popular in the 80s, but few people still watch it today.  I think the reason it hasn’t remained popular is because it is very mean-spirited.  The heroes of this film use chemicals to torture the genitals of their rivals, and install hidden cameras to spy on women in the shower and bathroom.  One of the heroes commits a flat-out rape, disguising himself as a woman’s boyfriend in order to trick her into having sex with him.  This rape is played off as a silly prank, and ultimately a good thing because she ends up liking it.

In the 80s, when people had a different sensibility, this worked as a revenge fantasy.  (Hence the title of the movie.) But modern audiences won’t tolerate such loathsome behavior from the heroes of a silly comedy.  Plus, in the 80s nerds were considered to be at the bottom of the social order.  But for modern adults, nerds are at the top, running businesses and becoming billionaires.  It’s a truism that people will root for an underdog who is punching someone bigger than him, but not for an overdog who is punching down.  So this abusive behavior no longer works in movies.

I know a lot of nerds, and very few of them still care for Revenge of the Nerds because of its mean-spiritedness.  But many still do love Real Genius, a movie with similar subject matter from 1985.  That treated its subject with affection, and thus has a lot more staying power.  (I highly recommend watching Real Genius if you haven’t seen it or haven’t seen it in a long time.)

Romancing The Stone

This is an excellent movie that a lot of people have forgotten.  It’s a really solid and fun movie, expertly combining adventure, comedy, and romance.  I highly recommend that you revisit it.

– – – – –

Do you disagree with any of these choices, or think that I missed something?  Leave a comment below.

Fast Food

Are there any other fast foods you want reviews for?

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If there are any weird new fast foods that you would like me to review, let me know.

Chances are I’ve already tried it and can give you a review off the top of my head.  And if that isn’t the case, I’m always excited to try new weird fast foods.

Fast Food, Uncategorized

Fast Food Review – Domino’s Specialty Chicken

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In addition to being a movie lover, I am also a connoisseur of fast food.  So I was excited to learn about Domino’s new “Specialty Chicken.”

I first heard about it in this Buzzfeed article, written by someone who hadn’t tried it and erroneously called it “fried chicken crust.”  And I realized I had to try it myself.

First off, they have nothing to do with pizza.  Get that notion right out of your head.  They’re chicken tenders covered in toppings, which include a bit of cheese.  They’re available in four flavors: Classic Hot Buffalo, Sweet BBQ Bacon, Spicy Jalapeno-Pineapple, and Crispy Bacon & Tomato.

I tried the Sweet BBQ Bacon and Spicy Jalapeno-Pineapple.  I figured that Classic Hot Buffalo would just be the same as boneless buffalo wings.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you already know if you’ll like that. I wanted to try something novel.  And I’m personally not a big fan of tomato, so I didn’t try the Crispy Bacon & Tomato flavor.

Appearance:

Here’s the picture that Domino’s food stylists are using:

Here’s an actual picture I took:

That's the BBQ Bacon on the left, Jalapeno-Pineapple on the right.
That’s the BBQ Bacon on the left, Jalapeno-Pineapple on the right.

So appearance wise they don’t look that great, and they were slightly burnt on the bottom.  I don’t know if that’s just something that happened with my order, or if the way they prepare these necessarily leaves burnt bits on the bottom. To clarify, it wasn’t the actual food that was burnt.  It was just some burnt bits (most likely cheese) that were stuck on.

But you don’t order Domino’s for its visual aesthetics.  You care about the taste.

Taste

The BBQ-Bacon version is pretty tasty.  Domino’s chicken tenders (which they refer to as “Boneless Chicken”) are already decent.  When you add cheese, sweet barbecue sauce, and bacon, that improves them enormously.  We had ordered ranch sauce on the side, but ended up not using it because the chicken, cheese, barbecue sauce, and bacon already combined their flavors perfectly, and the ranch would only upset the balance. I would definitely order this again.

The Jalapeno-Pineapple was amazing.  I would say that this is by far the best item on Domino’s menu.  You can’t see it from either of the photos above, but in addition to pieces of actual pineapple and jalapeno, it’s covered in some sort of pineapple-jalapeno jelly that’s incredible.

One word of warning: When they call it the Spicy Jalapeno-Pineapple Specialty Chicken, they aren’t kidding about the spicy part.  It was fine for me, but my wife found it too hot for her to keep eating.  (And that was after her first words upon tasting it were “Holy crap this is good!”)  So if you’re sensitive to spicy foods, you should stay away from this.  Which is a shame, because you’re missing out.

In conclusion, Domino’s has hit this one out of the park, and I will eagerly order these in the future.

(Until Domino’s decides to discontinue it, because they always seem to have an unfortunate tendency to mess with everything good on their menu.)

Movies, Movies We Still Care About

Movies We Still Care About – 1984 – Part 1 (A-M)

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(For an explanation of this, read the Introduction.  Other posts in this series can be found here.)

As I mentioned previously, I am now splitting up the discussion of films for each year in order to keep the length of the posts manageable.  This post covers 1984 movies that started with the letters A-M. The full yearly lists will be included with each post.

Movies We Still Care About

  • Amadeus
  • Ghostbusters
  • Gremlins
  • The Karate Kid
  • Neverending Story
  • Nightmare on Elm Street
  • Police Academy
  • Red Dawn
  • Sixteen Candles
  • The Terminator
  • This is Spinal Tap

Other Notable Movies

  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  • The Muppets Take Manhattan
  • Revenge of the Nerds
  • Romancing the Stone

Best Picture Nominees:

  • Amadeus (Winner)
  • The Killing Fields
  • A Passage to India
  • Places in the Heart
  • A Soldier’s Story

Top Grossing Films (US)

  1. Beverly Hills Cop
  2. Ghostbusters
  3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  4. Gremlins
  5. The Karate Kid
  6. Police Academy
  7. Footloose
  8. Romancing the Stone
  9. Star Trek III: The Search for Spok
  10. Splash

Rotten Tomatoes Top Movies

  1. The Terminator (100%)
  2. Amadeus (95%)
  3. Repo Man (98%)
  4. Blood Simple (94%)
  5. Ghostbusters (96%
  6. This is Spinal Tap (95%)
  7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (96%)
  8. The Karate Kid (90%)

Movies We Still Care About

Amadeus

This is kind of a weirdly structured movie, in that the protagonist is the villain, and the antagonist is the hero.  You follow Salieri in his jealous attempt to destroy Mozart, and as the audience you’re compelled by this even as you’re rooting for him to fail.

A lot of the critically acclaimed and Oscar-winning dramas of the 80s have fallen off the radar screen for modern audiences, but Amadeus has remained popular.  This is partly because being set hundreds of years ago lets it avoid becoming mired in its own time period, and partly because of the stunning visuals, sets, and music of the film.  But I think the stronger reason it endures is because of its universal theme of demonstrating just how destructive jealousy can be.

As an example of how this endures in our culture, here’s a scene from the 1993 film Last Action Hero where the kid warns Arnold Schwarzenegger not to trust F. Murray Abraham because he killed Mozart.

And just for fun, here’s Falco’s song Rock Me Amadeus.

 

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters combines the Laid-back comedy format that became popular in the early 80s with the stylings and tropes of an action-comedy, and ends up being among the best of both genres.  Written by its stars Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, and with Bill Murray ad-libbing most of his lines, it is hilarious while still having a compelling and original story.  Of the films to come out in 1984, this by far has the strongest cultural legacy and has achieved a level of Mythology. You can instantly visualize elements from this film such as Slimer, the proton packs, the uniforms and car, the song, and of course, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

As a testament to its legacy, it’s still quite common on the Internet for people to hold out hope that there will be a Ghostbusters 3, even thirty years after the original, when Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray are far too old and Harold Ramis far too dead for that to make any sort of sense.

Side note, my wife and I have had a years-long running argument over who would win a fight between the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and the Michelin Man. I think she’s crazy for even arguing the point.  Stay Puft is a 100-foot tall incarnation of the demon-god Gozer.  He’s basically Godzilla.  While Michelin Man is just a 7-foot tall stack of tires. But that’s beside the point.

Gremlins

If you were alive in the 80s, you remember how stuffed Mogwai were everywhere, and you can recite the three rules of caring for them by heart. The cultural impact of this has faded over time, but it’s a fun movie and worth another viewing.

Also, it contains a rather odd scene where Phoebe Cates tells the story of the worst Christmas ever.

Other Fond Memories

(These are movies that fit the category of “Movies We Still Care About,” but for which I personally can’t think of anything interesting to say. Please don’t take a movie’s inclusion in this category as any sort of criticism.  You are encouraged to voice your thoughts on these films in the comments section.)

The Karate Kid

Other Notable Films

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

I think that this is a movie that gets unfairly maligned.  It’s nowhere near as good as the other two movies in the Indiana Jones franchise.*  But that’s not really a fair comparison, because Raiders and Last Crusade are two of the best action movies of all time.  Temple of Doom is still pretty good.  I has a lot of fun action and characters you can’t help but root for.  I’d say that it’s much better than most action movies coming out today, and is definitely worth another look.

I wanted to embed the mine cart scene, but I could only find it online set to the song Wipeout.

* I continue to insist that there are only three Indiana Jones movies, as I refuse to acknowledge the existence of that alleged film that had aliens, fridge-nuking, and Shia LeBeouf swinging from vines with apes.

The Muppets Take Manhattan

See my comments regarding The Muppet Movie.

– – – – –

Do you disagree with any of these choices, or think that I missed something?  Leave a comment below.

Movies

Best Improvised Lines

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I thought this piece about famous movie lines that were improvised was pretty interesting.

http://styleblazer.com/160633/the-best-parts-werent-scripted-15-of-the-best-improvised-bits-in-movie-history/

Movies

Insane Lessons in Popular Films

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I loved the Toy Story movies and The Incredibles, but I have to admit that this Cracked article about their moral lessons has a good point.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-most-insane-lessons-you-didnt-notice-in-famous-movies/

When you think about it, the villains in Toy Story 1 and 2 are only villains because they treat toys like inanimate objects rather than sentient feeling beings.  But in the real world, toys are inanimate objects.  In the world of the film, this isn’t the case, and audience knows that.  But there’s no reason for the humans to suspect this at all.  To them, they’re living in the same world we are.

When you recognize this, Sid is just a kid who is creatively repurposing junk to make new works of art.  And Al the Toy Collector is putting a lot of work and research into finding items that people are discarding as worthless junk, which could instead be put in a museum to bring happiness to many people.  They don’t know the toys have feelings. So why are they considered bad people? At worst, they’re victims of ignorance.

In The Incredibles, Syndrome is trying to invent technology that will improve everyone’s lives.  Yes, he’s also murdering people, so he can’t be considered innocent the way Sid and Al are.  But the film portrays the murder as secondary to his villainy, whereas his primary evilness comes from him wanting to create beneficial technology.

Some interesting stuff to think about.

Movies, Movies We Still Care About, Site Business

Some Changes to the Movies We Still Care About Posts

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As my Movies We Still Care About project has progressed into the mid-80s, there have been more and more movies per year that fit the category.

This is partially because it’s easier for a film to stand the test of a shorter period of time.  But mainly, this is a period where the craft of filmmaking was advancing, so movies were legitimately getting better.

Certainly a plethora of excellent movies is a good thing.  But it does make my task of cataloging them to be more difficult.  So I’m going to make the following changes:

1. I will start breaking up years into multiple posts.  This will help keep them at a reasonable length for you to read.  It will also keep them at a reasonable length for me to write, and allow me to post more often.  I will be breaking up my discussion of movies alphabetically, though I will keep the full lists on each post.

2. I will start including a section called “Other Fond Memories.”  This is for movies that fit the category of Movies We Still Care About, but for which I personally can’t think of anything interesting to say.  Please don’t consider a movie being placed into this category to be me passing judgement on it.  It’s simply that if I force myself to come up with commentary for everything, that will turn this project into a chore rather than something I enjoy.  And such forced commentary would inevitably be lower quality, making this blog less interesting for you to read.

This “Other Fond Memories” category is distinct from the “Other Notable Movies” category.  That is for films which don’t quite fit the topic of “Movies we still care about,” but for which I do have something interesting to say.

As readers, you are always invited to post your own thoughts regarding the films discussed, listed, or omitted in the comments.