I'M IN LOVE...AND HER NAME IS SOPHIE

Day 90 of the Lower Puna Eruption, now exceeding the length of the 1955 Kapoho Eruption, and activity continues:

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America's Got Talent is my favorite network TV series.  Created by Simon Cowell in 2006, the program is now in Year 13.  Most of these contests feature only singing.  AGT features any sort of entertainment, and, apparently, no age limit, for the youngest contestant ever, Sophie Fatu, captured my heart.  You just got to click on her first audition, My Way.  Simon was so captivated that he tried to set her up with his son.  She, of course, made it through round one.

At the Judge's First Cut last week, she was asked what she would do with the $1 million prize if she won, and she said:

Um, I don’t really care that much. I just want to sing for everyone and make them happy.

She then sang New York, New York.

Alas, I won't be seeing her again, for, incredibly, she got cut.  I can only imagine that the judges thought she really was too young.  While the 18 semi-finalists for the upcoming live show had to be whittled down to only seven, somehow, Hans got through.  How do I file an official protest!  Watch those three clips and, you, too, will agree with me.

I should alert you that AGT continues with the second round of judges' cuts, tonight with guest judge Martina McBride.  Guest last week, Olivia Munn, will never get invited back again, for she pressed the Golden Buzzer for the Angel City Chorale.  

What's the big deal about this?  Well, there are around 160 people in that group, so now, Simon will have to pay the plane fares, hotel and per diem for all of them next week when they perform live at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.  Wait a minute, they are from Los Angeles, and will probably be asked to stay in their homes and eat their own food, so, maybe we'll see Olivia again.

The biggest star of all these years is Jackie Evancho, where in Season 5 she placed only second.  However, she has sold 3 million+ albums.

Similarly, Britain's Got Talent's Susan Boyle also placed second in 2009, but was the most successful, selling over 25 million records by 2013.  Jackie was 10 in 2010, and Susan all of 47 when she competed.  If you've never heard of Susan Boyle, come on, click on her audition.  But all is not perfect.  She has Asperger's Syndrome.

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The Success Story of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

Day 89 of the Lower Puna Eruption:

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Mission Impossible began as a TV series in 1966, and continued into 1973, with theme music composed by Lalo Schifrin.  The title came from the fictional Mission Impossible Force, a deep black agency tasked with particularly challenging assignments.

The first Tom Cruise movie version was released in 1996, with the latest, Fallout, as #6.  Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg have recurring roles on the team.

Each sequel just about made more money than the one before, with #1 earning $80 million and #5 $178 million, for a current total just over $800 million.  Opening weekend for MI-6 in the U.S. showed $61.5 million, while #2, Mamma Mia 2, got $15 million.  But foreign revenues amounted to another $92 million, for a total of $153.5 million.  An eventual sum of $700 million is now anticipated, just for this film.

Similarly, reviews have mostly gone up.  They have continued to refine the formula, enhancing the next production. 

Rotten Tomatoes:

                                                       Reviewers  Audience

Mission Impossible       (1996)         63%        71%

Mission Impossible #2  (2000)         57%        43%

Mission Impossible #3  (2006)         70%        69%

MI:  Ghost Protocol       (2011)          93%       76%

MI:  Rogue Nation         (2015)          93%       87%

MI:  Fallout                     (2018)          98%       93%

What can I say?  Intense, confusing, noisy, mostly predictable, minimal plot, with a lot of twists, slick, non-stop, lengthy (2 hours and 27 minutes), entertaining and best movie of the summer.  Everyone is searching for John Lark, and you'll be forgiven if you leave the film not knowing who he was in this movie.  Why?  Because I had to read Wikipedia to determine this villain.

I got lost in all the personalities and didn't remember Ethan Hunt (that's Cruise) was once married.  She returns, happily married.  The White Widow kept getting mentioned, and I also couldn't figure out who she was, although it was clearly obvious.  That's her...above.  I'm not giving anything away.  I have limitations in what I today see, hear and think.  Everything got complexly compressed, but in afterthought and research, I'm now better comprehending.

Will there be a #7?  Paramount will find a way for another Cruise special, probably in mid-summer of 2021.  He is 56 and suffered a broken ankle on the set of Fallout.  Yet, he is determined to do many of those stunts.

But first, remember the 1986 Top Gun? Well, Tom with Val Kilmer and Jennifer Connelly are in Top Gun 2 (Maverick), scheduled for release a year from now.  Can you believe there is already a trailer?  And poster.  Or is that anticipating TG-6, for Cruise looks awfully old to the right.  That's how he looked in MI-6 a third of a century after TG-1.  Is that the current Kelly McGillis today?  Is she even in TG-2?

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JAWS: The Definitive Expose'

Day 88 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and this 8 minute 40 second clip is the best summary I've seen of what has happened.  Background music, explanatory text, providing everything you need to know about this current phase of the Kilauea Eruption.  There is even a portion made for 3D glasses. That's the Volcano Golf Course where I saw the origin of this activity on 3January1983.  Photo from UK newspaper.

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I have my personal theater at 15 Craigside.  When I go to the movies I like to sit relatively close to the screen so that I can feel like being part of the action.  So I bought this foldable seat, which I placed on my bed.  I have a stand for popcorn and other stuff to my right.  I could have used my living room system, but the videorecorder where I've accumulated old films are in the bedroom.  The productions today had commercials, so I needed to zip pass them with my remote.

Well, after five years of having them on my HDVR, I finally, back-to-back, saw all four Jaws films yesterday.  I should get a medal for this.  Incredibly enough, after deleting all of them, my recorder load only dropped from 81% to 78%.

The first of the series was released in 1975, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Murray Hamilton, with music by John Williams.  The film was based on the 1974 book by Peter Benchley, who was inspired by the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916.  The movie won an Oscar for Williams (his alternating pattern of the E and F notes on a piano became the standard theme of an approaching shark) and was nominated as a best picture.

Rotten Tomatoes gave Jaws  97%/90% ratings.  The film became the father of summer blockbusters, for it became the first to open across most of the country.  Until then, these potential biggies were leaked out to draw word-of-mouth acclaim.

Dreyfuss in 1973 had success with American Graffiti, but Jaws was Spielberg's first huge hit.  They went on to make Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977.  Surprising that Robert Shaw was not nominated for something, for his ramble about his Indianapolis experience shut-up Dreyfuss.

The movie was a tough production and costs skyrocketed from $4 million to $9 million for #1.  The three mechanical sharks were a serious pain, and were named Bruce, for Spielberg's lawyer.  Ocean conditions are difficult.  However, the four films have earned $800 million, and there are theme park rides, video games and even a 2004 musical

Sad that Scheider, Shaw, Hamilton and Benchley have passed away.  Benchley regretted he wrote the book, which encouraged public fear of sharks, and created the Benchley Ocean Awards for ocean conservation.  The graphic at the end of this posting explains this all.

The series seriously worsened.  Rotten Tomatoes ratings:

                                            Reviewers  Audience

Jaws 2 (1978)                            57             38      Yes, getting tired

Jaws 3D (1983)                         11             17       Preposterous

Jaws:  The Revenge (1987)      0              14       I watched the whole thing

Next?  Perhaps both American Graffitis.

Here are two Blood Moon Eclipse photos:

Germany (AP/Jens Meyer):

Malaysia (AP/Jam G-Jun):

We kill 100 million sharks per year.  Sharks, perhaps 10 humans/year.  17,000 of us die from falls/year.

You might be able to read the details if you click on that graphic.  Actually, you still can't, so CLICK on this original source.  Keep in mind that the human tally is per year, while the above infograph shows shark kills/HOUR!

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MY GRANDEST WEEK AND A HALF OF CUISINE IN HAWAII

Day 87 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and nothing new to report.  This daily blog will end when activity stops.  However, I was golfing on the Volcano course on 3 January 1983 when Kilauea first erupted, and that event continues today.  This 35+ year length, if continued into the future, would mean that I should just about be the oldest man in the world, which today is Francisco Nunez Olivera of Spain at 113.

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I've been on a record high about my life for more than three weeks, but this grandest food week and a half began on July 17 when I made my Around the World Food Tour talk at 15 Craigside.  As my blog has shown, I've been eating really well lately, as for example a wagyu bento with a view of Diamond Head.  However, this period gained grandest status with two Vintage Cave meals.

On Thursday, I went to Vintage Cave Cafe, the cheaper, Italianish sister property located next to the Shirokiya Japanese Village Walk, where I enjoyed a Caesar salad, truffles pizza and sparkling rose'.  If you've never had truffles pizza, this is THE place.

The upscale French-Japanese fusion Vintage Cave is located under where once stood Shirokiya on the other end of Ala Moana Shopping Center.  Why they haven't found a better way to enter this restaurant must have something to do with the sense of humor of the owner, Takeshi Sekiguchi.  To quote Honolulu magazine:

In the bowels of Ala Moana Center, in the employee parking lot where it often floods during winter, is the brick entrance to Vintage Cave, the restaurant that could put fine dining in Honolulu back on the map

The original chef was Chris Kajioka, who, with partner Anthony Rush (and wife, Katherine), opened Senia in downtown Honolulu.  The current chef is Hide Yamamoto, who served three U.S. presidents.  

Both restaurants, and new ones planned (with openings before 2020) for Beverly Hills, Las Vegas, New York City, London, Frankfurt and Dubai, are part of Vintage Cave Club, and I'm a member.  We get special privileges, as for one, we can bring our own wine, where others need to pay a $75 corkage charge, and don't need to leave a tip.

Well, anyway, during my Vintage Cave Cafe lunch I inquired if members could somehow squeeze into the main restaurant, for there recently have been ads for half price wagyu and sushi meals there, bringing the price DOWN to $150/person.  The rumor, which turned out to be true, was that you couldn't get reservations until September, or maybe if was October.

I was told they'd make a place for me at their sushi service if I went Friday night.  I thought they meant last night, but, it turned out that this reservation was for August 3.  Thus, when I showed up, they had a problem.  Not sure what they did, but I somehow got a seat, and there are only six of them, with no way to add a seventh.  Best as I can tell, they moved a person elsewhere, for eventually all six seats were used.

We were at the end given a full sushi menu, and if you want to see the details just click on it.  I brought a bottle of Junmai taruzake, the type of sake stored in those containers you see at Shinto shrines, providing a taste of cedar.  Why here?  Sake is supposed to make people feel happier and closer to God.  No different from Catholic churches.

I sat next to this attractive girl who drank half my bottle of sake.  I'll show her later, but for a relatively young person, she was incredibly knowledgeable with fancy cuisine terms and chefs.  She graduated from Kalani and regularly visits Japan, by herself, mostly to eat.  I shared my sake only if she promised not to drive home.  I think she was joking when she said she's a good drunk driver.  We both took photos of everything we ate.  However, they get repetitious, so I'll only show most.

Our sushi chef was Hirafumi Beniya, the same name as that restaurant in Waikiki Yokocho.  

We started with an amusement topped with Osetra caviar:

The cream cheese balanced the saltiness.  Note that Beluga caviar is black, while Osetra has a golden color.

Next, mirugai, known as geoduck (pronounced gooey duck), from Seattle, with Tosa Jelly.  Note the cucumber frog, which I consumed.

I had to skip the shrimp dish, so he gave me an extra amount of O-Toro sashimi (Nagasaki) with the Chu-Toro (Nagasaki), Kinmedai (Chiba) and chopped myoga, a type of Japanese ginger:

The unagi came from Shizuoka:

Noduguo from Ishikawa, one of the better dishes:

I think this was cuttlefish, followed by more tuna, the third, O-Toro:

Note the quality of some of these photos.  I used the scene:food setting for the first time.  Then, abalone (Chiba) and uni (Hokkaido, sea urchin eggs):

This next, black truffles on uni, was supposed to be one the highlights.  Unfortunately, as beautiful as it looked, with no truffle aroma, I considered this to be a failure:

The fish in soup was excellent (not sure which one this was from the menu):

These are either Kohada (Saga), Amadai (Fukui) and/or Kumaebi (Kagoshima):

The venison came from Molokai:

That is Dale, my dining partner.  Then Japanese Wagyu from Miyazaki:

Ending with dashimaki and lobster miso soup:

We had freshly roasted green (fabulous aroma) and matcha tea with Hawaiian Jewel Candy, a strange sherbert and musk melon:

Then the tour of the facilities began in the bar, where we viewed the 50-year old Macallan scotch (the one on the bottom), where a shot goes for $6,000, then the various works of art, worth hundreds of millions.  Sekiguchi is a very rich man.

A couple more shots, with Dale next to 18 Picasso etchings:

Incredibly enough, this morning I awoke without a headache or hangover, and had a simple breakfast:

Today I finally will get a chance to binge-watch four Jaws films.  I have had the same HD videorecorder for six years, and it's 81% full, mostly because of these and four Jurrasic Parks.  I might have selected those, but Showtime began showing three JPs beginning at 6:30 this morning.  Then, sometime during the day, I will have Miyazaki Wagyu Beef, which was on sale at Marukai.

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I might mention that Typhoon Jongdari made landfall today, with winds up to 95 MPH, and will cause further havoc to the same regions of Japan still suffering from the effects of previous storms.

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