The Beer Watcher: Brewing, part 2

Technically, I believe the process is called “racking.” Neither Steve B. nor I were there, so here’s the report from our beer master, Bill H-D:

Ok, the beer has been racked to the secondary fermentation vessel. All went well. No spills, no drops. Our still immature little IPA has quite a lot of character already – it is way more hoppy and “dry” tasting than Taste the Joy was. No off flavors or spoilage that I could pick up during the taste test either. So we are on track. In about 10 days, I’ll start testing the specific gravity to see where we are with alcohol content.

Bill uploaded pictures to his flickr account; here they are:

racking 1
First, there’s the cleaning (I hope he cleaned the tub before this…)

racking 2
Second, there’s the “dry hopping,” where Bill is pouring even more dry hops into this big glass bottle called a carboy.

racking 3
Here Bill is preparing the siphoning set-up, the so-called “racking” of the wort from the fermentation bucket to the carboy, which is now on the floor.

racking 4
“Siphon action,” as Bill labels it.

racking 5
Here the wort is getting sucked out of the fermentation bucket. That residue on the side of the bucket at the top? Flavor crystals, my friend.

racking 6
This is Bill taste-testing the beer– the label on Bill’s Flickr site is “taste test, mmmm, hoppy!”

racking 7
And here is the wort in the carboy ready for secondary fermentation, which will generate even more rich beer-y goodness.

As witnessed in photos, it looks to me like this is what Bill said it was: probably the least time-consuming part of the process. Right now, it looks like we’ll bottle a couple weekends from now. Stay tuned….

What’s so funny?

After we got home from a lovely party at Andre’s and Stephanie’s place last night (and by the way, thanks for a great time, thanks for all the scotch, sorry about that glass– I’m not sure if it was Jim knocking into me or if I just dropped it or what– nice pictures, I guess I missed the blood gushing out of the kid’s leg, and there’s nothing like a night of excess to re-start a proper eating and exercise program), we went home and watched The Aristocrats. We rented it Friday and had intended to watch it the night before last, but we were too pooped, and we had originally intended to watch it Sunday or something. But we got home early enough and Andre was so enthusisastic about at the party (and on his blog), we decided to watch it last night.

We were disappointed.

Most of my loyal readers are probably familiar with the basic premise of the movie, but just in case you’re not: the movie is a documentary/comedy about an infamous dirty joke comedians tell each other, in which a family goes to a talent agent, performs some disgusting act (it inevitably involves incest, blood, beastiality, etc., etc.), and then ends with the same basic punchline: “The talent agent asked ‘what do you call the act?’ The man answered ‘The Aristocrats.'” The comedy comes in the middle portion of the joke, and this is where comedians try to out-do each other in terms of coming up with disgusting things that make up the act.

Now, I should point out that I don’t think neither Annette nor I were offended. I mean, we knew what we were getting ourselves into. And I like dirty jokes just fine. But I dunno, to me, this just didn’t live up to the hype.

Don’t get me wrong– it’s definitely worth a rental, and there were moments that were pretty good. And as a documentary, I thought it was pretty effective and interesting, a sort of “behind the scenes” look at the craft of comedy. But I guess I found it more “interesting” than “funny.”

I suppose it’s just a matter of tastes. Andre talks on his blog about how he thought Anchorman didn’t live up to the hype, but I still will sit and watch that when it crops up on HBO (which it does quite frequently). If you ask me, that’s comedy….

The Beer Watcher: Brewing, part 1

It’s been a pretty darn busy week around here for me with work, but I made some room last night and this morning to write the next entry of my “beer watcher” activities of the previous weekend.

Bill and I were joined for “brewing, part 1” by Steve B., who was MIA last weekend, dealing with family visitors, etc. Actually, I was a little late on Sunday, so by the time I showed up, Steve B. and Bill were heating up the water for what would be the “pre-beer” or “wort.”

Here’s the recipe for what we were making:

Trout River IPA

(A recipe that comes straight from the “Things Beer” folks)
7.5 lbs Muntons light extract syrup
1/2 lb Crystal malt
1/2 lb Aromatic malt
1/2 lb Carapils
2/3 oz Centennial hop pellets
1.25 oz Centennial hop pellets
1.25 oz Centennial hop pellets
1 oz. Centennial whole hops
1 tsp Irish Moss
Wyeast 1056 (American Ale)
2 grain bags
3/4 cup priming sugar and caps

Steep speailty grains in 3 gallons of water at 150 degrees for 45 min. Remove grains, add 7.5 lbs Muntons light extract syrup.

Bring to a boil for 30 minutes, then add the 2/3 oz of hops. Boil 40 min and add 1.25 oz of hops and Irish Moss. Boil 15 min., add 1.25 oz of hops. Boil 5 minutes. Cool to 70 degrees. Transfer to fermenting vessel with yeast. Fement at 68 degrees until complete (7-10 days). Transer to secondary with 1 oz of whole hops. Hold one week, rack into bottels with corn sugar. Age for a few weeks.

So, here’s what happened:

First off, before either Steve B. or I arrived, Bill made a point of sanitizing everything– the pot we were cooking in, the spoon for stirring, the bucket where we’d store the beer, etc., etc. I haven’t spent much (well, any) time reading home brewing books, but Bill claims (and I believe) that a big deal is made out of sanitation.

After we got the water up to 150 degrees (which amounted to standing around and waiting for the thermometer in the water to reach 150), Bill added the grain bag, as seen here:

beer #1

Inexplicably, Steve B. looks pretty pissed.

Here’s a close-up of the grain sack:

beer #2

The comparison between brewing beer and making a big cup of tea is probably pretty clear.

Then, after this stuff steeped for a while (again, like tea), Bill added the malt, as seen here:

beer #3

This was an interesting part of the process for a couple of reasons. First off, the malt is essentially a big ol’ tub of syrup, which, as Bill is fond of pointing out, is why beer is fattening. Second, this is the most potentially problematic stage of the cooking process because if you’re not careful, this sweet gooey stew can boil over, and if it does boil over, you have a big-ass mess on your hands. That didn’t happen.

I was talking about the whole home-brewing thing with my father last weekend– I recall that he went through a stage at one point in my youth where he made some pretty bad home-made wine. He said he never did home-brewing because he heard cooking the stuff stank up the kitchen. Well, based on my very limited experience, I don’t think that’s true. But Bill kept telling Steve B. and I that it smelled like a “malted milk ball shake” at this stage. I don’t think that’s true either. Basically, to me it smelled like cooking beer, like cooking up a batch of raw brats in a broth of a couple of cheap beers and some chopped onions (well, minus the onion and meat smell). This doesn’t smell great, but I’ve cooked stuff a lot more stinky than that in my kitchen.

Anyway, in the course of the cooking process here, we added hops and (of all things!) Irish Moss to the pot.

beer #4

This is when you really start getting a very pleasant (depending on your opinion of the smell of beer in the first place) beer smell happening. I’d go on into more detail of the cooking, but there’s not much to tell. Hops and/or moss were dumped in, it was stirred, a timer was set, and we sat around and watched football until the next step. In other words, as long as the previously mentioned dreaded boil-over was avoided, much of the brewing process seemed to be standing/sitting around. Kind of like many other manly activities, like watching sports or ice fishing or drinking, or, if you’re lucky, doing all three at the same time.

Anyway, after the cooking, the next process was cooling the wort down from a boil to 70 or so degrees, something you want to do as quickly as possible to avoid contamination. Alton Brown had an episode of “Good Eats” where he accomplished this by adding ice to the mix, but Bill thought that was a bad idea for cleanliness reasons. I’m not sure who is right, frankly. What we did is put the pot into an ice bath in the sink:

beer #5

Seven pounds of ice wasn’t quite enough– we had to collect some snow.

Once everything was cooled down, it was time to pour the wort into the fermenter bucket, as Steve B. is doing here.

beer #6

The next step here is to add (or, in brewer lingo, “pitch”) the yeast, which is what changes this mess of steeped grain and malt into “beer.” And this is where we experienced the afternoon’s only “oh shit” moment. Apparently, Bill had not properly activitated the yeast a few hours before. Because the window of opportunity here is not large (though it isn’t that small, either), there was some concern that we’d have to dump not yet activated yeast into the fermenter with the wort and we’d simply have a 5 gallon bucket of crap.

We decided to wait around a bit to give the yeast to activate a bit, and while I had to leave before Bill and Steve B. actually pitched the yeast, I’m happy to report here that Bill says that all signals are positive. The fermenter is parked in Bill’s basement with an airlock in the top– a little do-hickey that allows gases out of the bucket but does not allow air (and potential contaminants) back in– and it’s bubbling away just like it should. In a week or two, Bill will transfer the beer into a different container (he’ll do this by himself– hopefully, I can get him to take some pictures to include here). A week or two after that, we’ll bottle; and a week or two after that, we’ll drink.

So, am I sold on the home brewing experience now? Well, I’m still on the fence, actually. On the one hand, it is clearly not rocket science; in fact, other than the fact that the whole process is spread over several hours and there are specific times in which you have to add specific ingredients, it’s not a whole lot more difficult than heating water and keeping it at a specific temperature.

On the other hand, it still seems a kind of pain in the ass. Sure, there is (and certainly will be when we’re all done here) a certain satisfaction in making your own beer, just as there is satisfaction in baking your own cake or your own bread. But they also sell those products in stores, and in the case of both cake and bread, I can buy much better versions than I can make myself, and it’s a lot less work to give someone money. So we’ll see.

By the way, the name that we’re playing with for the beer now is “Three Asses Pale Ale,” though I thought it might make more sense to suggest “Three Pale Asses Ale.” Bill was thinking of a label based on the five-assed monkey made by Dr. Mephisto on South Park. I can’t imagine something that says fine, drinkable beer better than references to asses.

The Beer Watcher: Shopping (or, “let me tell you about my gout”)

Last weekend, after a dinner with friends, Bill (one of the previously mentioned friends) presented me and Steve B. each with four bottles of his first batch of home-made beer, an amber ale he titled “Taste the Joy.” Bill was quite proud of his beer making achievement, telling us in detail the tale of the brewing process over dinner. To be honest, I was skeptical, but when I tried one of the beers after getting home that night, I have to say I was impressed. Considering it was a first effort and such, I thought it was pretty darn good beer.

This reminded me of my on-again/off-again curiousity about home brewing. I suppose it’s something most beer drinkers have contemplated, especially after drinking a few beers. When we lived out in Oregon, there were a number of people we knew who home brewed, and every once in a while, I’ll see one of these brewing kits in a catalog or something and I’ll say to Annette “hey, I think I’ll start brewing my own beer.” To which she generally responds “yeah, whatever.”

Generally, I guess I would say that I am torn about the whole idea of home brewing. On the one hand, it seems like it might be a kind of fun hobby, and one where you get to enjoy the labor involved more than, for example, collecting snow globes. On the other hand, it seems like it might be kind of a pain in the ass, especially balanced against the ease of just going to the store and buying it from the pros. On the one hand, it is a fairly cheap hobby since you can get the fixings to make a batch of beer (five gallons, which is a shitload of beer) for about $25-30. On the other hand, it is not really cheap enough since you have to spend $80 or so on the equipment (which you can reuse, of course) and it involves several strategic hours spread over time.

Anyway, I wasn’t in the mood to go spend $100+ on beer making equipment and fixings only to decide that the whole thing wasn’t worth it– and, besides that, my wife/head accountant wasn’t crazy about this idea either. So Bill generously offered/was convinced to allow me to observe the process of making the next batch. Brewing-by-proxy. Beer watching.

According to Bill, home brewing is a four part process, five if you count drinking: shopping for the beer fixings, brewing part 1, brewing part 2, and bottling. Had we planned better, we probably could have combined shopping and brewing part 1, but the rest of the steps require two to three weeks of waiting. In any event, we started with the shopping yesterday.

Bill’s beer supply store is “Things Beer,” which strikes me as a gramatically incorrect or problematic name– shouldn’t it be “All Things Beer?” Anyway, it is in the same warehouse complex as the Michigan Brewing Company (we’ll get to that in a moment), both of which were located on the outskirts of Webberville “middle of no where”, Michigan. It’s right off the Interstate, disturbingly within walking distance of a truck stop.

The store was basically three rooms of, well, things beer. There were lots of glasses, posters, lights, and other beer drinking paraphernalia, but most of the store was devoted to the stuff you need to actually make beer: all the tubes and tubs and hoses and pots and stuff, but mostly bags of different grains, and hops, different kinds of malt, refridgerators of different brewing yeasts, flavorings and extracts you might add to beer if you’re inclined, etc. Things Beer conveniently has pre-made recipes for different kinds beers– they measure stuff, give you caps, the whole nine yards– which is definitely a plus for beer novices like Bill and mere watchers like me. We decided on a mix that is called something like “Trout Stream IPA,” which, according to the guy waiting on us, is supposed to kind of like Bell’s Two Hearted Ale.

We learned much more from our overly friendly and chatty home brew salesman. He and Bill exchanged words about some home brewing book, and our new found friend told us again what a fine choice we had made in our pre-made recipe. Alas, our beer master was no longer able to drink much beer himself. “My wife and I are on one of those low-carb diets. I’ve lost a lot of weight, but I can’t drink beer because the sugars in beer go right to the gut. There’s a reason they call it a beer gut. So I can only drink one beer a week. Jeesh, it’s killing me.”

“Too bad you don’t make wine,” I said.

“I do make wine,” the beer/wine master replied. “But I can’t drink too much of that. Makes my gout act up.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, and my gout has been acting up a lot since the holidays. I guess I drank just a bit too much, had a little too much fun. Usually my gout only acts up for a day or so but it’s been going on for a couple weeks now. I guess that’s what happens when you have too much fun.”

In any event, after a little too much “sharing,” Bill and I went over to the brew-pub portion of the Michigan Brewing Company next door to and associated with Things Beer. It isn’t really much of a “brew pub,” at least not in the way that I think of a brew pub, places like Grizzly Peak, which is really pretty nice restaurant that happen to make and sell beer. No, this was a brewery that happened to have a small, hole-in-the-wall styled bar connected to it. There was a meager menu (we both had the Reuben– good and straight-forward food) and a wide selection of Michigan Brewing Co. beers. I had an IPA and I believe the Porter (both of which were really good), and Bill started with some kind of desert beer or something that tasted like some kind of syrup. Icky, IMO. But he followed it up with a “real beer,” and all was well.

So, next week, we brew. By the way, Bill– I don’t have that big pot after all. Let me know if you want me to hunt one down or not.

The Food (W)Hole goes Dog Style; what’s next, Milwaukee’s Beast?!

Dog Style, 9.99

I was in Whole Foods the other day, and there, right up front, I saw this display of Old Style beer as you come into the store, just in front of the pristine produce section and right next to some fancy Rick Bayless chips. I immediately snickered and I had to take this picture with my cell phone.

Ah, memories. Back in the day in Iowa, every run-0f-the-mill bar worth its salt had Old Style (aka Dog Style) on tap. In fact, you were much more likely to find it than Budweiser or Miller when I was in college 20 years ago. It was everywhere and it was cheap-ass beer, “beer” just a half-notch above “beer” like Milwaukee’s Best (“The Beast”) and Meister Brau (“Mr. Beer”). When we were broke college kids who wanted beer, we used to pool our cans and bottles so we could cash them in (a nickel apiece in Iowa) and buy a six-pack of crappy near-beer beer like Dog Style.

And now it’s on sale at Whole Foods. Actually, I had seen it at Whole Foods before (along with Pabst, believe it or not). But I had never seen it featured quite so promienently. This is usually a spot of the store where they try to sell fancy wines and cheeses, or at least reasonable beer. So, what is the Food (W)hole thinking here? Annette suggested that perhaps it was an effort to tap into some sort of nostalgia; I think that maybe the person who decides on the displays has a sense of humor and/or a sense of the kitch. Or maybe they just have a whole bunch of this they have to get rid of.

Of course, $9.99 for 18 is a pretty good deal.

Pastabilities (or note to self: how to make better ravioli next year or next time)

We’ve had a kind of unofficial family tradition of making ravioli on New Year’s Day for the last four or so years. It’s the sort of thing you can do while hung-over, it gets guests involved (we didn’t have any visitors this year, but Mary has been at the ravioli table in the past), and it makes for a nice meal New Year’s evening.

I think we had some problems this year, and in the interest of reflection in preparation for either next year or just the next time I get in a pasta making mood, here are some things I need to remember:

  • There’s no point in using a food processor to try to make pasta dough; the classic “well method” of flour and eggs mixed together on the board works about as well, it really doesn’t take that long, you have to knead quite a bit by hand even if you do process it first, and it ends up being less mess to clean the board than to clean the processor.
  • About a pound of flour and about four eggs, a little olive oil and a little salt. That’s it.
  • Take your time mixing the dough because it’s going to come together eventually even if it looks like it’s not going to happen. Patience, grasshopper, patience.
  • You can rest the dough while it’s still kind of shaggy-looking because it will come together after it sits in plastic bag for a while. and then you knead it a bit before rolling it out.
  • It’s probably better for the dough to be a bit on the dry-side rather than the wet.
  • It would be worthwhile to price the pasta rolling attachment for the standing mixer.
  • One or two batches of pasta– NOT three.
  • One or two fillings– NOT three.
  • Make sure your fillings are on they dry-side of things.
  • DO NOT over fill the ravioli. I know, it’s annoying to get ravioli that have just a teensy-weensy bit of filling, but burst ravioli are just evil.
  • When preparing pasta for the freezer:
    • Separate layers by wax paper– NOT plastic wrap (plastic sticks)
    • Do NOT use normal paper to label the different kinds of ravioli (regular paper sticks)
    • Do NOT use paper that has any writing on it (paper with writing on it leaves marks on the pasta, kind of like silly putty on newspaper)
  • Enjoy in small servings– they’re rich little suckers.

Pre-Holiday and not so late night double feature picture shows

Prior to our visits with relatives for the Christmas weekend, Annette and Will and I had some “must see” movie viewing to take care of: King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Here’s my version of a run-down of these flicks:

First, King Kong: You should go see this movie. Seriously. It’s really REALLY good. But two thoughts from me to you before you go:

  • See the “real” King Kong first, the 1933 original that started the whole thing. Ignore the 1976 version– that’s a pretty crappy movie. Anyway, you’ll see why I suggest this homework in a second.
  • For those of you with kids, take the PG-13 rating seriously. We took Will to this because, as I’ve said before, usually the kind of violence and scary stuff that shows up in these movies doesn’t phase him. I mean, we took him to the latest Harry Potter, and we took him to all of the The Lord of the Rings movies. This one scared the shit out of him, which means that we at least get a nomination for “bad parental performance in a stage or screen setting” award for the year.

Okay, with that out of the way:

Annette and I both thought that Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong, the movie that he claims inspired him to become a filmmaker in the first place, was very much da bomb. Now, I have a particular soft-spot for “movies about movies/movie-making,” and this new version of King Kong, especially when compared with the original, is a particularly rich text. What is similar and/or down-right identical between this version and the original?

  • Both are (ostensibly) about “nature film” filmmakers, though in Jackson’s version, the movie maker (Jack Black in the latest) is also trying to make a movie completely different from what was funded by the studio. A long story.
  • There are many MANY scenes that are in both movies: the scene where Ann Darrow (aka, “beauty”) is selected by Carl Denham (the filmmaker) to be in his picture while she’s stealing apples, a lot of stuff on the boat, the theater where Kong is shown, the Empire State Building (of course!), and so many more. Which is reason #1 to do your homework and see the original first.
  • There are many MANY scenes that are either interesting commentaries or interesting revisions on the original. In the Jackson remake, he’s added the role of a screen writer (this is the Adrien Brody role) and the leading man to the movie that’s being made on the ship– and, oddly, the role the leading man plays is the “first mate” of the ship that takes them to Skull Island, which, of course, is the love interest in the original movie. Do you have all that? Did you do the assigned homework here?
  • What’s different? Well, the “natives” on Skull Island in the Jackson version of things are interesting. While the natives in the original are super-duper stereotypical and an example of just how little people in the U.S. in the 1930s knew about “the other,” the new natives are scary as shit. Which I guess is still kind of racist, but in a different way.
  • And the biggest difference is how we’re supposed to react to Kong himself. In the original, the Fay Rey (Ann aka “beauty”) character is always terrified of Kong, and the audience is lead to believe that Kong is just nothing but trouble. When King Kong dies in the original, it’s a happy moment. In the new film, we’re supposed to feel sympathetic for Kong, the same way we’re supposed to feel sorry for apes captured from the jungle and taken to zoos. Furthermore, Naomi Watts (Ann aka “beauty” in the new movie) has a completely different relatioship with Kong. At best, Ann has a “pet-like” love for Kong; at worse, Ann has a girlfriend/boyfriend relationship that, ah, can’t work.
    Anyway, go see it. It’s not just a monster/special effects movie (which, btw, was exactly what the original was). Well worth it, and certainly a big-screen experience.

    As for The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe: eh, it was okay. Will liked it. It was no Lord of the Rings, that’s for sure. I’d recommend it as a rental.

Christmas-time is Pepper Nuts Time

My Grandma Krause passed away this past year, just a few days shy of her 89th birthday. I of course have a ton of memories of my grandma, but one of the best was when I called her up a few years ago and asked her how to make her famous “Pepper Nuts,” sort of her version of the German Christmas cookie, Pfeffernusse. She told me and I made them– the year before last and last year, too.

So, in her memory, I decided to make not one but two batches of these things to send to my immediate family, my aunt and uncle (thank goodness my father has just one sister), and their four children/my cousins. I was happy to do this– this year– but I probably won’t do it again. I have to say, I have a whole new respect for Grandma Krause. It was a heck of a lot of work for her to make all of these things for all of this family every Christmas season, and yet she did.

Anyway, I’ll make one batch a year from now on. Here’s my recipe, slightly refined from last year:

Grandma Krause’s Pepper Nuts (Pfeffernusse)
Every family has their “Christmas thing,” and this is pretty much mine. This recipe is different than the traditional version of the German Christmas cookie in two important ways. First, it gets its flavor not from ginger but anise oil. Second, my grandma always prepared these as tiny tiny cookies– really, more like “nuts” than anything else.

You can make this recipte without a standing mixer, but be warned that it will be a workout. Regardless, it’s a project. It’s not a particularly fussy recipe (if you can mix stuff together and make snakes out of clay, you’re set), but it is a time-consuming one.

1 cup dark karo syrup
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup butter, softened (or margarine or crisco or, in the old days, lard)
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup hot water
2 tsps baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp anise oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
7 cups (or so) flour

1.If you have a standing mixer mix together the syrup, molasses, butter, sugar and hot water until well combined. If you lack a standing mixer, you can do this with a large bowl and a hand mixer.

2. Add everything else but the flour and continue mixing until combined.

3. Start adding the flour, about a cup at a time, mixing each time until the flour is well incorporated. If you have a trusty KitchenAid standing mixer, lucky you! You can keep mixing this until all seven cups of flour are combined. I shift from the regular mixing paddle to the bread hook attachment after about the fifth cup of flour.

If you don’t have a standing mixer (unlucky you!), you’ll probably have to give up on the hand mixer after the fourth or fifth cup of flour and knead the rest of the flour in as you might with the making of bread or pizza dough.

Either way, you may have to add a little more or a little less flour to get a dough that is moist but not sticky.

4. Take about a handful of the finished dough and roll it out on a lightly floured surface in long snakes that are about the width of your pinky. Lay these out on a cookie sheet. You can create different layers of the dough snakes by separating them with parchment paper or plastic sheeting.

5. Chill these dough snakes. Grandma Krause’s recipe said to chill “overnight or for at least a couple of hours,� but I stick the dough snakes in the freezer for about a half-hour or so and that turned out fine.

6. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 or 375 degrees. Take each snake and cut them into tiny pieces. The smaller you cut them, the more crunchy the cookies will be. Grandma Krause used to cut hers about the size of pencil erasers. Put the little dough pieces onto a cookie sheet, being sure to spread them out so they don’t touch either. The cookies will expand slightly in size.

7. Bake about 9 minutes or until golden brown. Cool them on a clean counter or a clean cookie sheet and store them in a sealed container.

This recipe makes what Grandma Krause used to call “a pail full.” Serve them in little bowls as is they were nuts.

Kong Me

Last night, on the Turner Classic Movie channel, I watched King Kong, the original 1933 version of King Kong. I watched it both for its entertainment value and also as homework for the Peter Jackson version of the movie, which we’ll (hopefully) be seeing this weekend or so.

What a hoot! Definitely worth a rental or, if you can catch it on TV. A few thoughts in no particular order:

  • Like a lot of other stories of the early 2oth century (the most obvious example to me are both the book and film versions of Tarzan), the 1933 version of things is pretty racist and sexist. It’ll be interesting to see how Jackson handles stuff like that.
  • The storyline is ridiculous of course, but if you haven’t seen it before, I am here to tell you that it is even more ridiculous than you might think. Basically, a nature film director gets a map under somewhat mysterious circumstances that shows the location of “Skull Island,” which is home to a group of “natives” who live on a narrow pennisula on a small part of this island. The part where the natives live is protected by a mysterious and enourmous wall that is so old, no one remembers where it came from. There are strange animals behind said wall– dinosaurs (okay, uh, I guess a land of the lost kind of thing, I can go with that) and, of course, one– and only one– giant ape. Hijinks ensue.
  • The original film was basically a special effects flick too. Even if you haven’t actually seen the movie, surely you have seen some of the images of Kong on the Empire State Building and such, so I was of course expecting to see a fair amount of that sort of thing. But I was surprised just how much of the movie was even then about the effects. It’s no wonder that Jackson said this is the movie that inspired him to be a filmmaker.
  • The original was about an hour and 45 minutes, and that includes a lot of King Kong fighting-type scenes; the Jackson movie is supposedly about 3 hours. Damned if I know what he’s done to nearly double the length of it.

More on the new version later….

“Waiters Nauseated by Food”

I stumbled across this via a cool site for all kinds of goofy web pages called web zen, which has a weekly theme for different links. This (last?) week’s theme was food, and among the links was this one, “Waiters Nauseated by Food.” I have no idea where this bit is from, but after a little Internet Movie Database research, I found out that both Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert were on a sketch comedy show hosted by Dana Carvey back in the mid-90s.