Mais...

... do mesmo.

Spreading the good word(k)...

Nice education project in Tanzania.

Gotta learn something new every day...

A great woman that I want to know even more about: Elaine Dundy.

R.I.P. John Hughes

You have no idea how important you were in my life!

TO ETA

I know this is probably worth nothing, but I just want to say you're a bunch of psycho-narrow-minded-cunts! I won't go on discussing why because I think it's pretty obvious.
FUCK ANY KIND OF NATIONALISM!

Geronimo Jackson was for real!

And they were actually kinda good:
http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2009/03/geronimo-jackson-now-on-itunes.html

Movie tip of the day

The Visitor. So simple, and yet so effective! So good and necessary! And yes, now I think Mr. Jenkins should have won the Oscar.

Chekhov's On Love

"And with a burning pain in my heart I realised how needless and petty and deceptive were all those thing that had kept us from loving one another. I came to realize that when you are in love and in all your judgements about love you must start from something higher and more important than happiness or unhappiness, virtue and sin and all their excepted meanings or you should make no judgements at all. I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand and we parted forever the train was already in motion".

So this is who I am...

This explains a lot.
And no, I haven't given up on this blog. Not yet. I've just been kinda busy.
In this meanwhile I've travelled home for a month. To sum it up, I had wonderful holidays!
I've also moved. Twice. Now I think I'll be settled for a while. I'm still looking for jobs though, and still coping with stupid paperwork. But I'm trying to remain positive and carrying on with my stuff.
I've been trying hard to use the carpe diem approach into my life, in what concerns others and my own self, and one of the actions that led me to was getting back to a gym after 8 years or so of no activity... but now I exercise in my own terms. I only do what I like, and that means Yoga, Pilates and things of the such. Soon enough I might not be able to afford exercising anymore, but til' then, my health will surely benefit from it.
Every now and then I still feel a bit gloomy, but perhaps it is just the winter blues, which will hopefully end in a couple of weeks... I know who I am better know, after all these years being away, and that is to be valued. I'm much more at ease with myself nowadays. For example, I still love watching comedies and films in general rather than going to any disco, and that is ok. I'm the geek who loves Lost, House, South Park and Medium. And yeap, I still love eating proper Italian pizza.
Whoever you are reading me now, thank you for taking your time to check this! I hope you don't feel too bored or confused by such a miscellaneous blog.
Anyways, I'll finish this bla-bla-bla with a video of a singer who's way to dear for me to even start taking about her! She's been translating my feelings for over ten years of my life now. I heart you, Fiona!

If you want to pretend you're Pollock...

Just click here.

Maybe later on I'll regret saying this now but...

... I'm well happy Obama will be president! =)

More on Seinfeld + Lost

I just remembered I forgot to mention another major coincidence between Seinfeld and Lost: Downtown! (a.k.a. Juliet's song). Here is a clip from the episode that somewhat "revolves around" the song in Seinfeld:

FREE Omer Goldman

Movies everybody should see

This is a very personal list. Film students are supposed to make suggestions such as Citizen Kane and Un chien andalou, which are indeed fine and founding cinematic works of art. Nevertheless, if we are true to our core emotions and visual pleasure preferences, the list tends to be not so, let’s say, “academic”.

So here is mine, in no particular order of preference, with no explanations to why I chose them attached, in the fair (yet unplanned) amount of 25 titles. Some of these I might have even already mentioned before. Others I might forget and hence might mention later. If I have to give one reason why these movies are on my list, it would be that each of them is quite unique – these are movies that follow their own rules, if you know what I mean…

Anyway, here it goes: Psycho, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Os Saltimbancos Trapalhões, The Graduate, Zelig, This is Spinal Tap, Vertigo, Annie Hall, Los Amantes del Círculo Polar, Magnolia, Gilda, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Pulp Fiction, Back to the Future I and II, The Godfather I and II, Kill Bill vols. I and II, Finding Nemo, Duck Soup, Modern Times, High Anxiety, Last Temptation of Christ.

Woody and his “love” for Barcelona – and I thought I wouldn’t enjoy it!

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is possibly Woody Allen’s best “European” film. Not that I hate the movies he’s made in London, but there is just something “off” about them. By trying to transplant the life style of New Yorkers directly to what he understands as Britishness, Allen looses a bit of his touch, since some situations seem simply inapplicable. In VCB that doesn’t happen because Allen humbly puts the focus on the views of two American tourist girls, and this “small” twist makes all the difference in the development of the plot.

Of course VCB is not one of his best films (to me that would be a very selective list, that would include gems such as The Purple Rose of Cairo), but it’s not on the “worst of” list either. Another good point of the movie is that it is “woman centric”: besides the tourists, there is also some room for other interesting female characters - the ones played by Penélope Cruz and Patricia Clarkson. Rebecca Hall (Vicky) and Scarlett Johansson (Cristina) give believable performances as well.

One might not agree with the way relationships are portrayed in the film, but still the least it can be said about it is that it is entertaining. However, perhaps the most important element is indeed Barcelona: after all the polemic BS (sorry for the language, but it is just the precise word for this case) some people gave about the film costing a lot to the local government, it is appeasing to see such a beautifully photographed homage to the capital of Catalonia. In this sense these local critics should just shut up, swallow their unkindness and pray for more directors like Allen to come to work here.

It also has one of the "coolest" movie posters seen lately.

Visa should pay me for this... but I'll post it anyway coz it's good fun!

Untitled II

Sorry that I abandoned this place for the last few days. I’ve been busy, but I shall gradually get back to my writing here. However, I’ve been so out of ideas that I cannot even come up with new titles! Hence the above and the bellow. It’s just that there’s lot going on, so I just feel… tired. One thing I can say though is that the thing I mentioned on my post on the 9^th of September went better than fine! Yay to me! Hehehe! For now, to cheer myself and you casual readers up, I’ll just leave you with a video from one of my favorite bands, The Pixies. This is not a song of their own, but still a great cover. See you all later.

Untitled 1

Good evening to you all. Tomorrow is an important day for me. It’s not that relevant to reveal why here, even because I think that the few readers of this blog already now the reason. Hopefully next time I post I’ll have a feeling of “mission accomplished”. For now, I’ll only say this (which is related to tomorrow): watch Monty Python’s stuff - the films, the musical or the series! It will put a smile on your faces, to say the least. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite sketches from Flying Circus: the one about the SPANISH INQUISITION! Good night!

More on food

After yesterday’s mouthwatering post, I decided to talk a bit about my likes and dislikes when it comes to gastronomy. First, I need to say I miss proper Brazilian cuisine. A lot! Even silly things that I simply cannot find here, such as chilled “água-de-côco”, to drink on the beach on the coconut itself, or in jars at restaurants. So whenever I’m home, I gain some weight from overeating what I missed out on the rest of the year.

There are certain things I don’t like much: still can’t put up with onions (though I know that they are essential to some dishes), I won’t eat too exotic meat (rabbit, for example, which is actually quite popular in Spain, but no way I’ll eat it), and I’m not that into too spicy foods. It’s too much for my tongue and stomach (which is by nature very delicate). I think it’s great that some people know what spices go on well with what, but what seems a bit too much for me is overusing chili, for instance, and then missing out completely the original taste of the food. It’s funny because I live with Mexicans, and while in one hand they complain that the chicken here “tastes like nothing”, on the other hand they don’t like the strong flavor of Roquefort cheese, which I love.

One good thing about living in Europe is that you learn more about international cuisines just by osmosis, especially in the UK, since they have restaurants from all over the world. I found out there that I do really like Mediterranean food, and also from the east side of the sea – the Greek cuisine is so rich and tasty, for instance! I also started enjoying foods that I didn’t back home (out of prejudice or laziness) such as Japanese food.

Another subject is the issue of dietary restrictions: I believe there are delicious vegetarian dishes out there, but I don’t think I could commit to it. I’m not that into meat, but every now and then I would like to enjoy a barbeque, for instance. As for veganism, how could I survive without cheese? I just love it! I know that behind it all there’s the issue of the way animals are treated. I wished I could afford to eat only organic meat, milk, fruits and vegetables, but so far it is just too expensive. Hopefully the agro-industrial companies will manage in the future to change this situation – for the sake of our planet and of us! Then, there are people who are allergic or have other restrictions, such as people who cannot eat gluten. Those have a hard-time, especially in places like Brazil, which is a shame. People tend to look at then as if they didn’t want to eat anything because they are picky, when actually there are cases of people with so severe allergies that they can even die by just accidentally touching a certain food.

About cooking: I enjoy cooking, as long as it isn’t just for me and that it isn’t everyday. Perhaps whenever I have children I’ll have the right stimulus and time to cook more often. It’s just that it’s even a bit depressing to spend at least one hour cooking a nice meal and then eating by yourself in ten minutes. Then you have all that food accumulated that either gets spoilt or too repetitive. So I confess that frozen and ready meals are a bit of a solution, a not very healthy and tasteless one though. I love watching cooking TV shows. I only wished I could afford more and did things better… I probably would if I had been stimulated to cook from my childhood. But, no regrets… I have my lifetime to learn how to make del dishes and hopefully share them with more people. For now, I take the chance that Barcelona has a good amount of nice restaurants and go on trying new things.

Mangiare!

Italy is definitely one of the best tourist destinations of the world – landscapes, arts and history, make your choice: the boot-shaped country offers everything. I don’t know if living there would actually be that nice, considering the news we hear, in terms of politics, job offers and the treatment foreigners receive… however, I’m pretty sure that for as long as it is possible, Italy will carry on being a holiday hotspot.

But oh, I digress! What I want to talk about is their fooood! Delicious! The pasta properly made tastes so much better! The ice-cream is just so… creamy! The coffee is something else – of course it doesn’t grow there, it’s about the way they make it. A true macchiato is an experience for the senses! And the pizza, Dio mio, che pizza! I will elaborate here because pizza is indeed one of my favorite dishes ever: it’s the simple combination of the cheese, the base and the toppings that do the magic.

Unlike most people think, pizza shouldn’t be that fattening of a dish – again, it depends on the way it is made and on the toppings. The bad thing about eating a proper Italian “mamma-mia” made pizza is that afterwards no other pizza is good enough anymore! It’s all about the simple way they hand make and shape the base, that once ready just remains thin, soft and tender – not that way too thick or crunchy thingy they generally sell elsewhere: those are actually just bread and crackers, in my opinion. Then, there is the fresh made tomato sauce, not just some canned artificial stuff. Add up the proper grated mozzarella and some traditional toppings (chocolate pizza?! Italians would probably faint just by hearing that). Last but not least: you bake it on a wood-fire oven. The result comes in a big individual portion, rather than having a “family sized” one to slice.

It all sounds like a complicated (and hence, expensive) process, but for instance, in a city like Genoa you can find a nice and filling margherita for about 3 € on corner pizzerias. After all, in its origins pizza was a dish made by and for the poor.

It has some nutrition values: it gives the carbohydrates from the base, and the cheese, if consumed with moderation, is also a nutritious element. Then there is a world of healthy toppings to choose from as well. I don’t like to complicate it a lot, so anchovies and capers are enough for me.

Lucky me that in Barcelona I can find a “proper” Italian place: Bella Napoli. Once/if I move somewhere else, I will be longing to go back to Italy more often – and God only knows if I’ll be able to afford it! Or maybe I’ll just open a pizza place myself and hire some proper napoletani to do the job!

For now, I’ll leave you with a video I found of Bella Napoli.