SUNDAY AT THE MOVIES WITH TRUFFLES RAMEN

Had my traditional Sunday of two films yesterday, with a truffles ramen in-between.  The first was Blinded by the Light, from Bruce Springsteen's song of 1973.

Some people get so insulted with this, but I liked the Manfred Mann's Earth Band version better.  That's because I was never a fan of The Boss, and Mann's cover was the one that reached #1 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1977.  Can you believe this was the only way Bruce Springsteen topped the charts, as a songwriter, for his hits never made it to the top?  Incredibly enough, this was the only song by Mann where his voice was the lead.  And his band had a string of hits, like Do Wah Diddy Diddy and Mighty Quinn.

The joke was that Springsteen's lyrics, "cut loose like a deuce,"  which referred to hot rods was changed by Mann to be "wrapped up like a douche," and listeners identified more with the feminine hygiene product.  Then again, maybe it was done on purpose.

But back to the movies, the weekend saw Angel has Fallen at the top.  I avoided it because Rotten Tomatoes reviewers gave this winner a 39% rating.  However, some future Sunday, for audiences scored the film at 95%.

The two I went to came in #13 and #21.  Rotten Tomatoes gave  the former, Blinded by the Light, 90/92 ratings.  You can read the above link from Wikipedia for the details.  In short:

• There are no stars you'd recognize.
• More was made of racial prejudice in the UK than in Yesterday, the Beatles-based film with a very similar flavor.
• This was a British film, so I again had some difficulty understanding what they were saying.
• There apparently is a lot more meaning and purpose to Springsteen's songs than those of the Beatles.
• I would give BBtL a B rating.

The second film was Luce, which was as opposite from the first as you can get.  Appropriately enough, Luce, the name of the model high school student, means LIGHT.  Luce is played by Kelvin Harrison Jr., (who was brilliant, and you'll see him in six more films by next year) with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth as his parents and Octavia Spencer as his teacher.

Luce, put together by Nigerian filmaker Juius Onah, featured a black child adopted by liberal white parents (doctor mother and lawyer father), at the age of seven, when he was a gun-toting child soldier in Eritrea.  Years of therapy and the patience of his mother produced this star athlete, captain of the debate team and beloved leader of  his school.

Rotten Tomatoes reviewers gave Luce a 93 rating, but audiences only 77.  Why?  The production was thought-provoking, with twists that at some point makes you think someone is guilty, then someone else, then, at the end, hmmm....don't know, but maybe Luce?  People no doubt walked out of the movie and wondered what really happened.  Not knowing for sure must have left moviegoers perplexed.

As nothing much is written of the truth, I'll give you my analysis.  Films have a way of portraying good intent as villainous.  A brilliant student with a traumatic past and over-devoted mother can easily interpret what was well meaningly shared by Luce's teacher (Octavia Spencer) as threatening.  In reaction, things went horribly wrong.

Is that all I'm going to say about those films?  Yes.  For lunch I went across from Kahala Theater to Goma Tei and ordered a truffles ramen for $20, plus garlic topping and Kirin beer.  

The plastic card shows the price-cut for their truffles ramen, something they haven't changed since they first opened a few years ago.  When my bowl came, I started eating, and truly enjoyed the texture of the ramen and spicy hot taste of the broth.

Halfway through my meal, came another bowl.  They had made a mistake and had brought their Tan Tan Ramen special ($12), so replaced it with their featured ramen:

The noodles were completely different, and the meat was chicken instead of pork.  There was a poached egg with seaweed and mushrooms.  Okay, but I thought the Tan Tan was better.

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Tropical Storm Dorian should tomorrow become a hurricane and threaten the usual string of Caribbean islands:

Puerto Rico, in particular, is nervous, for it was only two years ago that Hurricane Maria devastated the island as a Category 5.  However, at most Dorian will become a Category 1, if that.

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