Are you a Trekkie with latinum to burn? If so, you must check out this auction.

On August 12, Propworx will be auctioning off tons of Star Trek memorabilia. Spock’s ears, Worf’s latex forehead piece, phasers, tribbles, models of Quark’s bar . . . The catalog alone will have any self-respecting Trekkie drooling. Never have I so wished I was worth my weight in gold-pressed latinum.

That’s one offer Spielberg should be glad to accept. Jaa, a martial arts star of almost superhuman abilities, knows how to an execute a thrilling action sequence. And he and the directors appear share the same fundamental belief about action/adventure films, namely, that it’s fine to suspend logic and plausibility as long as you make things look really, really cool.

Spielberg’s influence is apparent throughout Ong-Bak. The film borrows much of its slender plot from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Bad guys steal a sacred relic from an impoverished village, causing drought and misfortune. To win it back, the hero must face a series of calamities, fighting off squadrons of goons before defeating the kingpin bad guy in a final climactic sequence.

But there’s a key difference. Temple of Doom harbored disturbing colonialist overtones: It featured a tribe of helpless Indian villagers menaced by a barbaric pagan cult (characterized by human sacrifice and the eating of monkey brains), who were saved by the intervention of two white people and one Chinese stereotype.

Ong-Bak, however, reclaims Temple of Doom for Asia. Its hero, Ting, is a native-born villager and a devout Buddhist. The bad guys, in this film, are the ones with no respect for religion, whereas Ting would risk his life to restore the head of Ong-Bak, a sacred statue of Buddha, to his hometown. He is seen praying and at a critical juncture in the film he draws strength from gazing upon another Buddhist statue.

Ting’s sidekicks, a con artist named Humlae and his partner, a tomboy called Muay, also owe something to the Indiana Jones trilogy; they’re reminiscent of Sallah and Short Round, respectively. Like the Indy characters, they follow the hero around, getting into trouble and having to be rescued and taking part, to comic effect, in his battles.

Ong-Bak also features one incredible fight scene almost certainly inspired by Indy’s escape from Nazi agents in the Cairo bazaar in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like the Cairo scene, the Ong-Bak set piece takes place in a series of alleyways lined with vendors’ stalls. But here the alleys will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s spent time in an Asian city: the vendors are cooking dumplings and kabobs and selling knives, clothes, cheap sunglasses, and all manner of motley items. It’s a little love note to Asian urban life, combined with one killer, over-the-top action sequence. Jaa fights off his enemy’s goons with Muay Thai boxing moves while hurtling around and over cooking stalls, cars, kids blowing bubbles, a knife seller’s cart, and sundry other obstacles. At one point, in an absurdist touch worthy of the Simpsons, he squeezes between two panes of glass being carried by workmen. Goofy? Sure. But also breathtaking. Time and again and I found myself gasping and marveling, “How on earth does he do that?”

What’s even more remarkable is that Jaa does all his stunts without the aid of wires or CGI trickery. This gives the film a visceral feeling welcome in an age of overly slick, artificial-looking imagery. Spielberg—he of the corny monkeys-on-vines scene in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull—ought to be taking notes.

His daughter translated the lyrics for him:

What is the best thing to arise from 5,000 years of Chinese culture?
That which is played by the most people throughout the ages is the best!
Everyone knows how to play the East, West, South, North, Bamboo, Circle and Character tiles,
I can play three days and nights without leaving the table, so Im the most awesome!

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Plum, Orchid, Bamboo, Chrysanthemum,
If I get one, I score one!
5 matching sets, chancing upon a winning tile, winning without discarded tiles,
This will leave you all looking like morons.
I strive to reach the highest score with a dragon set, or one of each kind,
But unless I complete the set, all my efforts are in vain (epic fail)!

Hoarding tiles, hurling insults,
This shows your character is the suckiest.
When you discover the tiles you relied on to win were being hoarded,
You curse the heavens for your misfortune.
When luck is not on your side or you commit a fatal blunder,
Others will laugh at you in their hearts, but wont show glee on their faces.
Hoarding tiles, counting tiles, if I dont win, neither will you!
Sabotaging you is exactly my intention!

When your victory is imminent, people play it safe and the round has no winners.
When you dont need other players tiles to win, then divinity is shining on you.
With the help of the heavens, victory is certain!
Win with a middle-fortune-blank set, a directions set, a dragon set, or an all-one-kind set,
And everyone will envy you.
Long live mahjong
Long live mahjong
Long live my wife!

This is part of a new series on cooking and cuisine my husband John and I are doing. If you prefer your food blogging straight up with no Star Trek chaser, check out our Posterous blog, Chicken Feet & Clam Chowdah.

I try to cook like this dude. Toolishness ensues.

On the heels of our very successful attempt at making the French fries Anthony Bourdain featured on the “Techniques” episode of No Reservations, John and I decided to try the pasta with red sauce Scott Conant made on that same episode. The results were mixed: The sauce we made was extremely tasty, but the recipe didn’t make nearly enough to coat the amount of pasta it called for. I’m guessing that Conant cooks the way my father-in-law does a lot of the time—without using a recipe or measuring, as he’s so familiar with what goes in each dish he can do it by memory alone. That’s a great trait for a chef, but it doesn’t always translate well when scaling down a recipe for a home kitchen. Sometimes Conant seemed to be describing the way he’d make the dish for restaurant use, making figuring out the proportions a little tricky.

One problem we had, for instance, was that Conant didn’t specify the amount of tomatoes needed during the TV segment, so we turned to the similar-but-not-identical recipe posted on the Travel Channel website, and used the 20 plum tomatoes and 1 pound of pasta that recipe called for.

The technique of blanching the tomatoes and then plunging them in ice water worked well, though I think the tomatoes could have stayed in the boiling water a little longer than the 15 seconds the recipe recommended.

Once in the saucepan, that big pile of tomatoes reduced waaaaay down to about three-quarters of an inch of funky-looking, delicious-smelling tomato sludge that in no way resembled the thick, rich, deep red saucy sauce Conant had going at this point in the recipe. I’m guessing he used a lot more tomatoes than I did. His also looked to have more fluid in them, even though he squeezed them beforehand. Next time we try this, I’d probably double the amount of tomatoes and just take the seeds out without squeezing out the juice to try and get a more fluid consistency.

40 minutes also seems like too long to cook the tomatoes—mine were as soft and pulpy as they were going to get about 20 minutes in (which is what the online recipe recommended anyway).

I infused 2 cups of olive oil with the basil, garlic, and crushed red pepper as shown on the episode. From the TV segment, it was hard to tell how much of that oil Conant put in the tomatoes. It looked like all of it, but that seems like a ton of olive oil unless you’re making a mecha chef-size potful. The online recipe called for 1/3 cup of oil, which sounded a lot more reasonable . (Plus, if I added 2 cups of oil to my tomato sludge, I’d wind up with oil with some tomato bits floating in it.)

My oily tomato sludge

Here I missed an essential step. I combined the tomatoes and the infused olive oil in a sauté pan instead of in the saucepan, and then tried to put as much of the pasta as I could into the saucepan to finish cooking. Only about 2/3 of a pound of pasta would fit in my pan that way, and it was impossible to flip. And, despite the fact that the sauce looked awfully oily, pasta still managed to stick to the bottom of the pan. After rewatching the segment, I found that Conant was finishing the pasta in individual portions, adding only 4 oz. of pasta and 6 oz. of sauce to the sauté pan at a time. D’oh!

The result came out tasting less like ‘pasta with red sauce’ than ‘pasta with an insufficient quantity of deliciously seasoned tomatoes.’ The bulk of the pasta tasted like olive oil with a little hint of flavor, though every so often I’d get an especially tomatoey bite. But those few tomatoey bites were delectable: bright and fresh-tasting, redolent of garlic, basil, and olives, like a burst of Italian sunshine. (And this with anemic April tomatoes, too!) They were enough to convince me that I need to try this recipe again—and get it right this time.

The finished product.

Posted via email from Chicken Feet & Clam Chowdah

Posted via web from coffeecat’s ephemera

Review of the ‘Mammals’ episode of

All nature shows anthropomorphize their subjects, often to the degree that they tell us as much about our values and morals as they do about animals. And so it is that Life, the successor to Planet Earth now appearing on the Discovery Channel, tells us an awful lot about Oprah Winfrey’s values and morals.

Winfrey narrates the show and appears to have influenced its content as well, if its ‘girl power’ overtones and fixation on motherhood are any indication. While the show’s visuals are spectacular, its writing is weak, especially when compared to more cerebral nature programs like David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals. Life’s script is light on science and heavy on generalisms. Whereas Attenborough would tell you why an elephant shrew evolved nipples on its front as opposed to its underside (the answer: so that it can feed its young and still remain in a position to sprint off should danger appear),  Winfrey merely  gushes about how the shrew’s “maternal instincts” make it devoted to its babies.

‘Mammals,’ definitely the weakest of the four Life episodes so far, is sometimes so lightweight that its scenes come off not as illuminating segments about animals but as parables. Most of these parables are about motherhood and gender: a scene of a reindeer herd escaping a swarm of mosquitoes, for instance, turns into a cautionary tale about child abduction, as one female loses her baby in the scuffle. “The mother may search for her kid for days,” Winfrey intones over footage of the female bleating in panic, “but she won’t see it again—not alive. Predators have already gotten to the baby.” Hear that, Vixen? You’re a negligent mother. You left your child alone for two seconds, and see what happened?

Then, as if to provide a foil for deadbeat Vixen, we get a series of vignettes about good animal moms: a seal who teaches her calf to swim; an elephant struggling to free her baby from a mud hole (Grandma Elephant—I kid you not—comes by to save the day); a polar bear who (in a scene that tells us nothing new whatsoever about polar bears, but does manage to introduce the specter of global warming) considers fighting off competitors to get her cubs a piece of beached whale meat.

On Wednesdays, we wear tan.

There’s also a scene about rival cliques – I mean, lionesses and hyenas. A starving hyena tries to move in on a carcass some lions are chomping on, with the predictable result that they chase her off. The hyena alerts its pack, who outnumber the lions, run them up a tree, and take the carcass for themselves. A pretty typical scene out on the savannah, you’d think, but Life’s script turns it into something out of Mean Girls. The female gender of the combatants is mentioned prominently; the hyena is described as greedy (“She shouldn’t have tried to eat that,” Winfrey even says, as if chiding the animal for not being sufficiently diet-conscious) and her summoning the pack is construed as revenge.

This silly reduction of animal behavior to mini-morality plays isn’t fair to Life’s videographers, who brought both incredible talent (my husband, no slouch in the photography department himself, was consistently agape at the shots they managed to capture) and grueling hard work to this series. (Thankfully, the other three episodes to air so far aren’t nearly as egregious as ‘Mammals,’ perhaps because it’s harder to see yourself as a fish or a lizard than as a cute meerkat.) And it’s not fair to the viewers who tuned in hoping to learn something about the natural world and only got an Oprah-style lecture about parenting instead.

The creatures featured in Life are a series of marvels. Male stalk-eyed flies ingest air until their heads inflate and their eyes protrude from long stalks, all in order to attract a mate. Pebble toads turn themselves rigid and fall dozens of feet in order to escape predators. A komodo dragon attack a water buffalo and then waits, with unnerving patience, weeks for the creature to die from its poisoned bite.

And the photography is astonishing. The filmmakers pan in close to catch every brilliant bump on a chameleon’s skin, or zoom out to catch wide-angle beauty shots of icebergs floating in an Arctic ocean. They shoot from seemingly impossible angles, at one point filming a pygmy gecko the size of a quarter from below as it skitters over the surface of a pond. In slow motion, and with startling clarity, they show us the dramas that take place over the course of a millisecond: a lizard’s tongue darting out to snare an insect, a “Jesus Christ lizard” sprinting across water, three cheetahs taking down an ostrich.

An elephant shrew, just one of the many cute critters featured in "Life."

Life’s narration, though, doesn’t live up to its visuals. Oprah Winfrey lacks the gravitas of a David Attenborough or a James Earl Jones, and she overemphasizes words and phrases  in a forced and sometimes distracting manner. The content of the narration is also slender—it mainly relies on platitudes about predator and prey and the great circle of life without ever asking the viewer to think deeply or ponder his relationship to the natural world. Instead the script just underscores what’s happening on screen: “Here’s another new animal. Check out the bizarre way it attracts a mate! Hey, it’s kind of like this next animal, which also needs to mate!”

And sometimes, Life can feel like a rehash of Planet Earth’s greatest hits. Instead of great white sharks snapping up seals, there are orcas circling around a crabeater seal; instead of African wild dogs hunting antelopes, shot from a helicopter, there are cheetahs hunting ostriches, also shot from a helicopter.

Life can feel shallow and disjointed at times, but its gorgeous cinematography more than makes up for its weak script. And if it feels like Planet Earth II, well, Planet Earth was awesome, so bring it on. Put Oprah on mute if you must, and sit back and let your mind get boggled.

That said, there were some notable contenders:

Gown of the Night: Anna Kendrick

Kendrick’s neo-Victorian number is loveliness itself. The off-the-shoulder neckline combined with delicate draping suggests a disheveled nymph, while the lace-trimmed slit adds a hint of flirtation, saving the gown from being too pretty-princess. It’s not often you see such an overtly feminine dress on the red carpet. I find it strangely refreshing in this era of deconstruction and bold statements. And I don’t even like pink.

A Close Runner-Up: Penelope Cruz

Count on Penelope to bring the glam! Her claret-colored gown brought a welcome shot of color to a drab Oscars. It relied on draping alone, without any extraneous detail for its impact, and yet appeared big and bold on that stage.

The Other Best-Dressed Women:

Cameron Diaz

Dia’s gown was the night’s best take on the Cinderella trend. Check out the cut of that skirt! You know she had fun twirling around in it. The encrusting of bling also helps lift the dress out of Neutral Blandsville, and her hair is gorgeous, too. Well played, Miss Diaz.

Rachel McAdams

McAdams’s swoop of a dress was very Monet-garden-party. The little criss-crossing effect of the bodice is lovely, though the print did look murky when the lighting wasn’t right for it.

Carey Mulligan

Mulligan made a statement through her adorable shoes, her hemline ideally cut for showing them off. Love those shoes. Love ‘em. I have a feeling she bought the shoes first, and then picked a gown that would go with them. But the dress is nice, too, with just enough sparkle to keep it from being drab. Her dangly chandelier earrings complete what’s the best overall ensemble of the night.

Kathryn Bigelow

Bigelow’s simple but chic column dress was flattering and effortless — and suggested her status as a serious director at the same time.

Kristen Stewart

I like this dress against my better judgment. Yes, the Twilight teens have no business being at the Oscars, and, yes, Stewart was so affectless as a presenter she might well have been one of the undead, but her dress still pretty much rocked. The midnight-blue raven’s wing sheen suggested the Goth nature of her movie, while the train draped beautifully.

Honorable Mentions:

Vera Farmiga

This fun, Barbie doll dress doesn’t quite work, but its rich raspberry shade is a treat for the eyes, and I can’t totally dislike any gown that was inspired by nudibranch eggs.

Sandra Bullock

The embroidery on the bodice of Bullock’s gown was exquisite, and I must add that her hair was lovely, but otherwise her outfit is pretty but meh.

Worst Gown of the Night: Zoe Saldana

Saldana’s gown pairs a glitzy disco-era top with a skirt made from Muppet pelts for the most bewildering look of the night. As if to distract you from the weirdness, the skirt was slit up to there in the front, making 13-year-old geek boys wish they’d watched the Oscars and causing everyone else to hide their eyes. Saldana herself looked uncomfortable in the gown, which she kept yanking down to avoid the wrath of the FCC.

Rest of the Worst

Amanda Seyfried and Jennifer Lopez

These ladies opted for gowns apparently made out of bubble wrap. Now, if they really were bubble wrap, that would be cool, in a Duct Tape Prom sort of way, with the added bonus that the actresses could pop their gowns whenever someone’s speech went on a little too long. (“Avatar is one of the most innovative *pop*, the most brilliant *pop*, the most dramatic *pop* . . . okay, I give up, one of the highest-grossing *silence* films ever!”) But instead the dresses are just made from some unflattering bubble wrap-like material. Of the two, Seyfried’s has the nicer lines: it’s the strapless ball gown that was ubiquitous on the red carpet this year, gone DYI. Lopez’s could have used a few more shots from the staple gun. If I had been at the Oscars, I would have been tempted to step on her train, just to see if it would pop or not.

Sarah Jessica Parker

SJP continued the DYI trend with a dress constructed from a satin bedsheet and some tinfoil roses.

Charlize Theron

Charlize made sure all eyes would be on her with a gown that boasted two very strategically placed rosettes. Strangely vulvar-looking rosettes at that. Georgia O’Keeffe should sue for copyright violations.

Miley Cyrus

Cyrus, invited to the Oscars for the third year in a row for some arcane reason I fail to fathom (trying to attract the teenyboppers? Good luck with that), showed up in her granny’s beige girdle, topped with a tutu-like skirt of tulle. The bodice looked so oppressively snug that it gave me sympathy pains.

Barbra Streisand

Remember the frumpy English professor Streisand played in The Mirror Has Two Faces? This looks like something that character would have worn — to class.

Diane Kruger

Kruger’s gown looks ready to melt into a puddle of black-streaked ivory. And, no matter how slim you are, you never want to have ruffles around your midsection.

Fatima the Fortune Teller

Nicole Richie channeled her inner psychic medium in this odd, caftan-like number, paired with dreary makeup and a bun.

The Boo! Hiss! Section

Kate Winslet

Winslet seems to have put even less effort into her Oscar look than she did for her bland Golden Globes selection earlier this year. There was nothing distinctive whatsoever about her silver column dress.

Demi Moore

Meanwhile, Moore wore an inferior knockoff of an iconic Oscar gown: Penelope Cruz’s classic from 2007.

vs.

Roberts ‘01 vs. Jolie ‘04

Both these gowns are lovely, but Jolie’s looks a wee bit boxy compared to Roberts’, and Roberts’ Valentino is just much more distinctive. It’s an easy win for Roberts.

Winner: Roberts

vs.  

Cruz ‘07 vs. Streep ‘09

Cruz’s swanlike gown scores an easy win over Streep’s grey number, which, while alluring and age-appropriate, simply lacks the “wow” factor of Penelope’s ruffles.

Winner: Cruz ‘07

vs.  

Hathaway ‘09 vs. Zeta-Zones ‘03

This matchup’s a lot closer than the previous two, but that oddly placed front slit in Zeta-Jones’s gown is her downfall, allowing Hathaway and her perfect paillettes to sneak through to victory.

Winner: Hathaway

vs.  

Lopez ‘01 vs. Knowles ‘05

This matchup ends in a surprise victory for Knowles, who’s definitely the Cinderella candidate of this division. Lopez’s skirt lacks shape when compared to the dramatic, perfectly cut swoop of Knowles’s black velvet gown. And even the sheer top of Lopez’s gown can’t top the Madame X-like sexiness of the Little Black Dress That Could.

Winner: Lopez

vs.

Berry ‘02 vs. Harden ‘01

Harden’s red number is stunning, but it just can’t hold a candle to Berry’s iconic burgundy gown. Halle coasts to victory.

Winner: Berry ‘02

vs.   

Hayek ‘05 vs. Swank ‘00

The strange placement of the last black band on Hayek’s dress makes her look short — a small flaw in an otherwise smashing gown, but it’s enough to let Swank claim the ‘W’ in the olive swoops and swirls of her ‘00 dress.

Winner: Swank ‘05

vs.

Zellweger ‘03 vs. Winslet ‘02

Winslet easily bests Zellweger: Renee’s cute and sassy yellow frock just doesn’t say ‘Oscar glam’ quite like Kate’s bright red number.

Winner:Winslet ‘02

vs.

Paltrow ‘07 vs. Swank ‘05

Paltrow looks very very couture, but slightly starchy when posed next to Swank, whose cobalt gown reminded audiences that a dress doesn’t need to show a lot of cleavage to be sexy.

Winner: Swank ‘05