Chicken Hearts, Grand Slam Curry and Braised Octopus

How often does everything you buy work out well? A pair of boots heavily discounted online that turn out to fit well. An expensive block of foie gras, beautifully tempered, skirting the line of good taste on the border of decadence. A cheap block of foie gras, gloriously bursting past that same line. Gorgeous hanger steaks, begging for nothing more than salt, pepper and a hot pan. Dark chocolate macadamia nut biscuits, hideously expensive, but oh so worth it. A dutch oven, delivered overnight, thick, iron, orange. Screaming, flying monkeys.

On a wholly unrelated note, is there some sort of rule that after the Lord of the Rings, there can be no other fantasy movies that are made well? Stardust was a weak version of itself. Although I actually rather enjoyed the fight scene between the princes and the witches. Seems like a well-realised depiction of combat between a fighter and a magic-user. The witches kept throwing spells at the princes, and the princes absorbed them, slogged through them, shrugged them off, until they got close enough to do the deal with physical weapons. Absolutely stupid change to the epilogue though. The entire point of the ending was that the star was cursed to live out her immortality as a mortal. Ah well, I suppose that is the author's prerogative. I can and do disagree though.

Bridge to Terabithia, on the other hand, turned out not to be a fantasy film at all. Instead, it is actually a fantastically charming movie about relationships between people, and the media by which these are constructed. Really quite excellent. The teen actress in it also has that quality rarely seen in young actors, a sort of magnetic glow that draws attention and sympathy. In older actors, this is also a rare quality, but more commonly seen. Julia Roberts is so charismatic that her face is invariably the focus of every frame of a movie that she is in. Quite remarkable, actually.

I think I'll go buy the Blu-Ray of BtT. Excellent movies deserve my custom.