Pair a wonderful summer afternoon with a stroll through Chelsea, calorie-killer cookies from City Bakery (as in the chocolate fudge cookie has a cookie layer sandwiching solid chocolate — it’s insane! Don’t eat this alone!!) followed by Keeanu on the big screen in “Scanner Darkly” at the Landmark Sunshine Theatre on the Lower East Side. It doesn’t get much better than this… except if you end the evening with drinks at “The Elephant” and dinner at “Prune.” That’s weekend perfection.
Let’s start with Mr. Reeves. I has been impatiently awaiting the opening of his two movies this summer, The Lake House (which I saw “a few weeks ago) and Scanner Darkly. The latter had the advantage of being based on a Philip K. Dick novel, one of my all-time favourite authors, across all genres.
Whatever you might have heard, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I felt the rotoscoping (the technique where animators trace live action movement) helped heighten the sense of the disconnectedness that Substance D, the drug around which the plot is based, resulted in.
And for those Keanu detractors, here’s an article that takes an interesting approach to evaluating his acting talent. Jay shared this Slate gem, The blur: On the enlightened fuzziness of Keanu Reeves. So is the better actor one who brings their personality with them, or one who embodies a tabula rasa onto which anything can be projected? (The other great thing about the article is that it finally sets the record straight on the actor’s background which numerous nations have laid claim to. According to journalist Dana Stevens, “the part-English, part-Chinese-and-Hawaiian Keanu was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and raised in Canada.” Global citizenry embodied, yet another reason to like the guy.
And speaking of emotions way above the like scale, I profess to “loving” Prune, a delectable and diminutive dining establishment near Kramer’s ‘nexus of the universe’, First Avenue and 1st Street. we savoured a fabulous cheese that when , released from its leafy corset, oozed about the bowl, at once elastic and liquid cream. Amazing stuff! We also had the ‘deviled’ eggs and the pulled pork and branzino, followed by an oatmeal, plum crisp. I had imagined I’d only have space for s modest amount of the grilled fish, but it was perfection and only the head and tail returned to the kitchen. Rah, rah for Prune, never a disappointment for any meal (brunch is fabulous)… providing you can get a seat. (Read what New York Magazine and the New York Times have to say about Prune.)
Technorati tags: New York Restaurant City Bakery Prune Movie Scanner Darkly Keanu Reeves Philip K. Dick
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