Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Dinner and a Movie

On to things non alcohol-related.

You know what this means, right?

FOOD!
Yep, yep. My latest culinary thang is that I'd like to eat vegetarian for at least 1 meal per week. When I say meal, I am talking about me slaving over the stove one night, which provides food for 2 nights. Thus, at least 2 of my nights should be vegetarian. [M is not overly thrilled with this, but he's mostly gotten over it.] The biggest reason for me to do it is that I tend to eat a lot more veggies and healthy stuff when I eat vegetarian. I guess the meat just fills me up more, so I don't eat as much salad or side vegetables.

Last night we had the second meal in my "Vegetarian Tonight" series: Cabbage Rolls. Yeah, that doesn't sound so hot on its own, but how about "Barley -Stuffed Cabbage Rolls with Currants and Pine Nuts"? They've got feta in them, too. I like feta. A lot. Anyway, I made them last night and we both liked them! We have a little ratings system for the meals I make: not very good, eh it's okay but I would only want it every few months, it's good and you can put it into rotation, and I want to eat this at least once a week. This fell under the "it's good and you can put it into rotation" rating. I did, however, make one subsitution: I couldn't find pearl barley at TJs, but had their brown rice medley (brown rice, black barley, and daikon seeds) so I used that instead. Not to mention that the damned medley had been sitting unused in my cupboard for like 4 months.

[Oh, the first meal in the series was really good and really easy to make: Soba Salad.]

And on to the movie part of our evening. We watched This Film is Not Yet Rated. If you haven't seen it yet, go to the video store and rent it. It's a documentary and it's only 1.5 hours. The movie reveals, or at least attempts to reveal, the process behind the MPAA ratings system. Using interviews with film directors, actors, and producers as well as a private investigator, Kirby Dick explores the relationship between the studios and the MPAA. It's really interesting because the MPAA refuses to give their notes on the movies to the directors because it would be too close to censorship. But, the U.S. is the only country where the identities of the raters are unknown. Dick also reveals the appeals process, which he undergoes himself because this movie is rated NC-17. Finally, the largest issue he explores is the line between R and NC-17 and how the MPAA and the movie studios deal with those ratings.

Overall, a very cogent look at the ratings system that my parents used as a means to limit my movie watching when I was younger. (PG-13 meant I could not see it until I was 13, unless they had seen it first and approved it.) I can't talk too much about it without revealing too much. It's thought-provoking and I'm glad someone had the balls to make this movie and to talk about this subject.

Speaking of movies that would be rated NC-17 now, I'm off to start our Oppression unit in my class and we are going to segue from our hip hop music topic over the last few classes using Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing". Woot!

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