Oh My Gosh, There's A Market For These! Chef's Choice International's Cordless Electric Kettle Works!

The Good: Boils water fast, Easy to clean, Pot is virtually indestructible, Safe
The Bad: Utterly unnecessary, Expensive!
The Basics: One of those products that is pretty great when one suddenly finds they need one, the Chef's Choice Electric Kettle is safe and convenient for boiling water.


I've been drinking a lot lately. It is winter and find myself drinking a ridiculous amount of hot drinks. As I eagerly await a replacement coffee pot for my Hamilton Beach coffee maker (reviewed here!), I have been drinking a lot more tea. A LOT more tea. For those who read my many reviews, this might not come as much of a surprise; after all, I make a yearly trip to Celestial Seasonings to stock up on teas and I've been reviewing my way through their stock at a pretty impressive pace.

However, I've recently moved. All that recent "economic downturn" stuff you hear about, well, that resulted in me losing my house. But actually, it's okay (on the good days) because now that I'm not desperately working week to week to try to make payments on a house that is far too large for me alone anyway, I can focus on writing and reviewing and things I actually care about instead of money. This has manifested in me taking over the upstairs of my mother's house where I paint, write and read/watch movies/listen to music throughout the days and deep into the nights. And I drink. However, living with another person means making some adaptations. We can't do things the way we are used to all of the time and we are forced to compromise. In this case, it means not using the stove to boil water (seriously, don't ask me why, it's the law of the weird land I find myself in).

Unwilling to microwave tea (very bad for the tea leaves!) and not eager to make more dishes (I already miss having a dishwasher!) by boiling vast amounts of water in the microwave in one vessel and pouring it into my steeping pot, I suddenly found myself in the unenviable position of having to buy an electric kettle. I write "unenviable" because I have spent the past few years mocking this product. It is redundant, uses electricity (albeit less than a microwave), and has always seemed pointless to me. After all, who needs an electric pot that plugs in and boils water?!

Well, now I know: people who live with bat-shit crazy housemates! In all seriousness, the first time I encountered an electric kettle it made little sense to me that the people who owned it would have one until it came time to make dinner and tea at the same time. Their stove only has two burners (the other half of the stovetop is some sort of strange grill/griddle thing I swear I have never seen them use) and while they were cooking, they used the electric kettle on a nearby counter, it suddenly didn't seem entirely worthless to me. Moreover, I can see how those who are trapped in some strange, corporate jungle surrounded by caffeine-addicted coffee drinkers might like one of these to boil clean water to be the rogue caffeine-addicted tea drinker. Or mix it up with boiling water for a cup of soup or hot cocoa. Take that Corporate America Coffee-only Stereotype!

Living in the middle of nowhere as I do, my choices for an Electric Kettle when I went out to the store (couldn't do without tea AND coffee!) were: the Chef's Choice International Cordless Electric Kettle and . . . going without. So, I sucked up the hefty $49.99 + tax price tag from Bed, Bath & Beyond and brought home this thing I was begrudging the need to buy anyway (there's a stove right there!).

And frankly, this might be one of the best kitchen gadget tools I have bought since I finally found my ultimate coffee grinder. Eventually, there will be a fight between my mother and I and I'll be able to make tea upstairs because with the Chef's Choice Cordless Electric Kettle, there is simply no reason why I couldn't.

Let's start with the basics. The Cordless Electric Kettle from Chef's Choice is a two-piece electric gizmo that makes the user feel like they either must be a complete idiot who needs a separate tool to boil water or a hermit who never wants to leave their room/cubicle. I'm opting for the latter, myself. The Cordless Electric Kettle is comprised of a black plastic base and the actual kettle.

The base is a simple seven and a half inch in diameter plastic disc with a cord that plugs into a three-prong wall socket. The cord is only three feet long, but for those who do not need a cord that has to stretch even that far, below the disc are tabs that allow the user to wind the cord up and contain it under the unit. This is handy and there are no issues (I've had) with keeping the base level after winding the cord under it. There are soft-rubber feet on the underside which both protect finer surfaces from any sort of scratching from the plastic bass. Moreover, the rubber feet provide friction so the unit is remarkably stable and does not move from any flat surface I've set it upon. Considering the whole point of this gadget is to boil water, this is probably a great idea and I have found that it works quite well.

Atop the disc is a knob that comes from a slightly raised, contoured inner disc. This is where the kettle itself attaches to the base. The base simply plugs into the wall and sits where one leaves it.

The actual electric kettle portion is a nine-inch tall stainless steel pot that is accented with dull black plastic for the handle and flip top. The kettle sets on the base and when together, they are very stable and hard to tip over. The kettle has a 1.7 Liter capacity (in practical terms, this is two full steeping pots worth of tea!) and that takes approximately five minutes to come to a very full boil.

Operating this is so simple it almost defies explanation: fill with water, place the kettle on the base (assuming it's plugged in), depress the "on" button on the back of the kettle (it lights up orange when active) and wait. How will you know your water is boiled and ready? The unit turns itself off when it is done. Can you burn your house/office down with it? Nope; it shuts off.

And then all you need to do is pour your boiling water out and that's . . . well, as easy as pouring water. Refilling the unit is a snap because of the spring-loaded top which opens by pressing a button on the handle. Moreover, the button is positioned in such a way that makes accidentally opening the top and spilling boiling water on oneself virtually impossible.

Yes, it's idiot-proof water boiling and while some of us might have cynically suggested in the past that only an idiot would need this product, it is ridiculously helpful in situations where one needs boiled water but does not have access to a stove. Or just hates interacting with their coworkers. Or housemates. Or the mole people, for that matter.

Cleanup is also incredibly easy. First, I recommend only using filtered water in the unit. This forever eliminates the need to clean inside because nothing ever builds up inside. The stylish stainless steel outside easily is cleaned with a cloth, though if you're just boiling water in it, I can't imagine what you'd get on the outside that it would need cleaning. Don't let children with jam-covered hands touch it and it might never need to be cleaned inside or out!

As for the base, a damp cloth cleans that up (unplug it first).

This is one of those devices that does exactly what it promises and I have to say, I like that it is made of metal. Having broken far too many coffee pots, having a metal kettle both boils the water fast and assures me that I won't have to shell out for another one of these . . . hopefully ever. The kettle gets hot, but so does anything one boils water in so, the rules of common sense do apply.

For those who might need to boil water outside a kitchen stove, this is pretty much the best device to do it with; I just wish the initial and operating costs were a little less expensive.

For other fun kitchen gadgets reviewed by me, please check out my takes on the:
Frigidaire FDB750RC Stainless Steel Dishwasher
Cuisinart ICE-20/ICE-21 Ice Cream Maker
Hamilton Beach 727 Milkshake mixer

8.5/10

For other kitchen appliances, please visit my index page!

© 2008, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Love, Lust And More Supernatural Charm In True Blood Season Two On DVD!

The Good: Good stories, Decent character development, Some great acting, DVD bonus features
The Bad: Still melodramatic in some points.
The Basics: True Blood Season Two manages to grow the characters and continue the story well as the show explores the darker side of the supernatural among living in Bon Temps!


I came late to the True Blood phenomenon, but now that I've found it, I've gotten more and more excited by it. To be sure, vampires are hot now and those looking for something that seems different seem to be finding it with True Blood. When my wife and I watched and enjoyed the first season of True Blood (reviewed here!), we were mildly amused at how the season resolved with just enough intrigue to reboot for the second season. We had a bet going on whether or not it could sustain itself; after all, Anna Paquin bared all in the first season, so the novelty of that was gone and the first big mystery for the series had been solved.

With True Blood - The Complete Second Season on DVD the show proves that it can retain the spark it started with and build something more than it originally seemed. For sure, it is still occasionally melodramatic, especially with the primary relationship between Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton, but for the most part it is enjoyable. In fact, not since Veronica Mars have I been so pleasantly surprised by a show featuring such a young cast. The parallels to Veronica Mars are not inapt: both series' have a season-long mystery each season with more episodic bits that build the larger story.

The complete second season of True Blood is a five-disc set with all twelve episodes of the drama, which continues where the first season left off. In True Blood, the supernatural - vampires, werewolves, demons, shapeshifters, magicusers, and the like - are real and vampires are out in the open about their existence thanks to a synthetic blood substitute - Tru Blood - which makes it possible for vampires to survive without actually feeding on humans. Set in Bon Temps, Louisiana, populace is getting used to both the supernatural and the consequences of living with the supernatural.

The season-long arc in season two focuses both on Sookie and Bill trying to survive their relationship, especially now that Jessica is his ward, while a new serial killer takes up residence in the area. The dark magics of Maryann, who rescued Tara at the prior season's climax, are revealed and the town unravels with violence and lust. The second season unfolds thus:

"Nothing But The Blood" in which Sookie tries to become comfortable with Bill now that Jessica is living him. Jason continues to explore the Church of the Sun, an anti-vampire cult, while the police in Bon Temps try to figure out who killed Miss Jeanette and why,

"Keep This Party Going" has Eric, the vampire sheriff, once again using Sookie for her mindreading prowess. Sookie takes Jessica back to her parents house, with less-than-stellar results, and Maryann visits Merlotte's and menaces Sam,

"Scratches" finds Sookie fed up with Bill and walking away from him on the drive back to Bon Temps. However, she is attacked and Bill and Eric are at a loss to explain what attacked her and why they cannot heal her,

"Shake And Fingerpop" involves Sookie and Bill aiding the Dallas vampires, dragging Jessica along. Jason gets an offer from the Church Of The Sun which seems too good for him to refuse and Maryann reveals more of her magical abilities,

"Never Let Me Go" has Sookie and Bill still searching for Godric and Eric's reason for wanting Godric is finally revealed. Just as that secret is revealed, the truth about Daphne, Sam's new waitress and girlfriend, is revealed. Jason reverts to his old self at the Church Of The Sun,

In "Hard-Hearted Hannah," Bill's more violent past is exposed as Eric works to take control of Sookie. Tara discovers an evil spot with Eggs and the agenda for the Church of the Sun is revealed to Jason,

"Release Me" relates the story of Bill's conversion to being a pacifistic vampire even as Sookie is imperiled at the Church. Maryann manages to get her own brand of vengeance and in the process the magnitude of her power is revealed,

"Timebomb" has the clash between the vampires and humans escalating when Godric rescues Sookie from the Church. At the same time, Maryann manages to frame Sam,

In "I Will Rise Up," Maryann begins an all-out hunt for Sam, using the people of Bon Temps to do it. Meanwhile, the vampire review begins again and this time, Eric and Godric find things changing in big ways for both of them,

"New World In My View" has Bon Temps in shambles as Maryann's endgame begins. Having enslaved everyone there, Maryann makes her bid for power as Sookie, Bill and Sam try to determine what is going on and how to stop Maryann,

"Frenzy" finds Bill learning how to defeat Maryann while Sam makes a surprising appeal to Eric for help,

and finally in "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'" resolves the Maryann situation with bloody consequences for several people!

True Blood is written like a soap opera in many places, but it succeeds because it has very likable characters. In the second season, the principle characters are:

Sookie Stackhouse - A waitress at Merlotte's, she is Tara's best friend and sister to Jason. She is able to read the minds of anyone around her and has worked hard to not listen in on the thoughts of those she cares for. Her relationship with Bill Compton grows, despite the fact that Bill has been charged with taking care of Jessica,

Bill Compton - A vampire who lived in Bon Temps during the civil war, he is romantically involved with Sookie, much to the ire of Eric and many other vampires. He is pacifistic and works to make Jessica see the benefits of such a lifestyle. He becomes distressed over Maryann's influence and works to thwart her,

Sam Merlotte - A shapeshifter with a dark past which ties in with Maryann, he tries to get along with Bill now that Sookie clearly loves him more. He falls for Daphne, which quickly becomes a mistake and he spends much time trying to thwart Maryann,

Jason Stackhouse - Having gotten through being accused for every death in Bon Temps, he takes solace in the Church of the Sun. However, it is not long before his hormones start raging again and his sexual escapades get him into trouble,

Tara Thornton - An abrasive young woman who has had a hard life, she is Sookie's best friend, she finds Maryann's comfort worthwhile and she makes the best use of her time with Maryann, most notably by pursuing a relationship with Eggs. When she and Sookie begin to drift, she moves into Sookie's house,

Lafayette Reynolds - The short order chef at Merlotte's, he finds himself more intertwined with the vampire community when he is outed as the "v" (vampire blood) supplier in Bon Temps. After being rescued from Eric’s dungeon, he tries to live above board, until he is brought back to dealing by the least likely source,

Detective Andy Bellefleur - The local detective, he is respected by no one. He is charged with investigating the strange happenings surrounding Bon Temps and Maryann. Accused of being a drunk, he is dismissed and forms a partnership with Jason Stackhouse and Sam to uncover the truth about Maryann,

Bud Dearborne - The local sheriff, he errs on the side of the law and is not as quick as Bellefleur to leap to conclusions,

Terry - An Iraq War veteran, he is twitchy and works at Merlotte's, slowly rehabilitating himself to postwar life. He takes unlikely solace with a woman no one expects him to,

Eric - The vampire Sheriff in nearby Shreveport, he is an honored elder to Bill. He quickly realizes Sookie has a gift and he seeks to use it for the vampire community, in exchange for respecting Bill's claim to her, despite his own feelings,

Jessica - The new wild child vampire, she is adjusting to vampire life after a very repressed human life. After a very rough start, she discovers an attraction for a surprising individual and works to be a good post-death person,

and Maryann - A powerful sorceress with ties to Sam, she comes to Bon Temps to get revenge upon him. Through magic and manipulation, she takes control and menaces everyone.

In the second season of True Blood, the acting continues to be extraordinary. The show uses its entire cast well and in this season, all of the performers seem much more comfortable with their roles, most notably Sam Trammell, who is able to give Sam Merlotte a bit more emotional range. As well, Michelle Forbes, who plays Maryann blends in perfectly with the cast, making for a welcome addition. And Stephen Moyer continues to have great on-screen chemistry with star Anna Paquin.

Anna Paquin rules the show by stealing every scene she is in. Her performance is more confident in these twelve episodes and that makes her character more likable. Instead of being caught in too much melodrama (there is still some), Paquin is able to focus her energy on making Sookie seem tortured by her ability and the consequences of her decisions, while still seeming hopeful about her relationship with Bill. And she makes it work.

On DVD, key episodes are given a commentary track and the commentary tracks are informative with behind-the-scenes information, most notably about acting and directoral challenges to the episodes. The commentary tracks also try to expose clues or discuss how the larger series is fitting together, so those who have not seen the episodes should not listen to it without being prepared for spoilers. There is also a season-long overview featurette which was mildly entertaining, but explored the phenomenon of "True Blood" quite well.

True Blood has its soap operatic elements, but the truth is it is gory and filled with an adult sense of nudity (if not adult relationships). The season survives because it drops some of the melodrama in place of both real romance and truly frightening circumstances for characters that it is very easy to become more and more invested in.

Who could ask for more from television on DVD?

For other works featuring vampire characters, please check out my reviews of:
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Let The Right One In
Blade: Trinity
Star Trek - “ Obsession”

8/10

For other film and television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ann Coulter's Latest, Guilty Suggests This Hatemonger Is Running Out Of Steam!

The Good: It is short.
The Bad: Largely made up of pointless namecalling, Factually suspect, Shaky logic, Underdeveloped, Not funny or witty.
The Basics: Ann Coulter's latest argument, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" And Their Assault On America, hypocritically asserts that liberals are whiners and phony victims while attempting to argue that conservatives are the real victims.


Unlike Ann Coulter, I shall open my review by taking a moment to define "liberal." "Liberals" are those who fight for the freedom and ability for self-determination of all people, not just the ones we agree with. That simple act, even taking a stab at defining what makes a liberal a "liberal" is more than Ann Coulter does in her new novel, er, political discourse entitled Guilty: Liberal "Victims" And Their Assault On America. As a true liberal, I do not contest Ann Coulter's right to write such a book, her publisher for publishing it or the right of any of her legion of fans to purchase and read it. I do, however, deny that she is a remotely worthwhile writer, illustrates any ability in this latest work to make a salient point and that she has developed at all into anything resembling a better defender of her side's views and values since her last book. If anything, Guilty seems to have Coulter well over the shark she jumped; at only two hundred sixty-four well-spaced pages plus an additional forty-seven pages of citations and indexes this is one of her thinner books.

And as a liberal, it is worth noting that I have read Coulter's other works, so I can say with some authority that she has not grown in terms of style, form or ability in any noticeable way. I'm not saying that because as yet she and her staff have not confirmed the reference to me in If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans. Side note: If you want to meet a bunch of VERY friendly people, go register at the Ann Coulter website and ask non-leading questions about sources! Coulter has fans who make her look levelheaded, kind and intellectual. Regardless, I figure there are very few Star Trek collectibles dealers who are also critiquing Ann Coulter's works on the internet, so I feel pretty secure in assuming she was alluding to me in her forward to that prior book.

Moving on to Guilty: Liberal "Victims" And Their Assault On America, Coulter's premise is remarkably simple: liberals have created a culture of victimhood and that to be successful as a liberal one needs to declare themselves a victim. These fake victims, Coulter posits, are not real victims and just out for attention. Her arguments throughout the book almost always - rather ironically - decry those who declare themselves victims, then attempts to argue that liberal victims are not victims, but the Republicans and conservatives are legitimate victims ("To find the most authentic victims . . . one can simply refer to the people the mainstream media urge us to hate, beasts such as George Bush. . . Joe McCarthy, Jesse Helms, . . . and Sarah Palin" on page 2). After that, she brazenly declares that groups like "the poor" are not truly victims. This is a tough argument to make when one is starving and the Federal funding for social programs like getting food to them is diverted to things like killing people overseas. One suspects that the Michigan autoworker who clocked in to work each day and lost their job while the CEO of their company flew to Washington in a private jet to ask for money after cashing exceptional year-end bonuses has a right to feel like they have been victimized; the social contract they were a part of has clearly failed them.

The irony is that, yet again, Coulter dishes out what she accuses the other side of doing to conservatives, when she summarizes "These counterfeit victims are so full of their own self-righteousness, they believe they can do anything, lie shamelessly, commit wanton violence, steal from their neighbors, and claim they were acting out of some bizarre sense of self-defense" (264). The thing is, Coulter is doing all of these things in Guilty and moreover, she neglects the real problems of how the Bush Administration had been self-righteous, monomaniacal, violent liars (save Scott McClellen, whom she does mention) who plundered the national treasuries for their own purposes.

But to stick to Guilty: Liberal "Victims" And Their Assault On America, perhaps the best example of Coulter's hypocrisy is in her own inability to follow her own rules. So, for example, she derides Bill Clinton (a popular target for her as ever) by noting Clinton's anger from an interview "This was a decade after Ken Starr wrapped up his investigation and eight years after Clinton was out of office, but Clinton was still babbling about Starr in moments of stress" (244). To clarify, Coulter is kvetching about Clinton bringing up old issues. This, despite the fact that Coulter references Clinton - usually in derogatory terms - the same eight years after Clinton is no longer in officer on sixty-one pages of the book, which is on par with George Bush (also sixty-one) and more than Sarah Palin (thirty-five), John McCain (twenty-five). The only person more referenced in this book - again usually in smug and demeaning ways - is Barack Obama, who has eighty pages that make reference to him. The point of this, of course, is to illustrate that Ann Coulter's arguments are often hypocritical in nature; arguing that people like former President Clinton have little right to bring up issues in regard to attacks made upon him after so much time while devoting quite a bit of space to making attacks against Bill Clinton.

This is largely how Guilty: Liberal "Victims" And Their Assault On America reads, though. Liberals are classified as "victims" who are actually victimizing conservatives. Arguably, conservatives are being attacked; by Coulter herself. For example, in describing Scott McClellan's tell-all on the Bush White House, Coulter notes "The media accuse Republicans of playing dirty pool, but they turn to the retarded press secretary for an attack on his former boss" (118). In addition to fine ad hominem attacks like "retarded" for the conservative McClellen, Coulter makes broad statements that have no bearing on reality. When McClellen wrote his tell-all on the Bush Administration, liberals (real liberals, not Coulter's broad-based term for anyone she does not like) did not believe him any more than they did when he was press secretary. Coulter makes out that liberals are self-serving dimwits who will change their minds about a person based upon political expediency, like suddenly embracing liars who have lied to them for years. Liberals did not fall for this ploy any more than women rushed to vote for Sarah Palin en masse under some misguided notion that just because she was a woman she represented core women's rights issues.

Like all of Coulter's books, this volume is packed with ad hominem attacks that detract from anything resembling a legitimate point Coulter might be trying to make. She likens liberal journalists to Nazis (165), the media is decried as "deceptive" (212), and political assassins are regarded as liberals or "random nuts" (258). Liberals are "losers" (113), single mothers are referenced as "future strippers" (36) and such blatant disregard for the rules of debate prevent Coulter from making any points that legitimately stick. Liberals are liars, not to be trusted and phony victims in Coulter's worldview, while their Republican counterparts are only wrong when they leave the party.

As well, when it suits Coulter's purposes, she simply mentions facts, but then ignores the implications of them. So, for example, she properly references that the Council Of Conservative Citizens has a history of directors who were white supremacists, but then she denies that the organization still stands for such values. This is rather baffling in sentences that contradict themselves like "There is no evidence on its Web page that the modern incarnation of the CCC supports segregation, though its 'Statement of Principles' offers that the organization opposes 'forced integration' and 'efforts to mix the races of mankind'" (24). Yes, the problem is not the forced integration, but resisting mixing "races" is pretty much the definition of segregation. But who cares about facts when they are so inconvenient anyway? Similarly, on 165 and 166, she decries how the "liberal" media addressed Allen using the racist term "macaca" without actually addressing the fact that the term is a pejorative. Instead, she essentially writes the comment off because it went over the heads of the audience - ". . . Allen had called the liberal pill [again, ad hominem] a 'monkey' in a foreign language, which no one in his audience would have understood . . ." (167). Apparently, it's all right to be racist or sexist so long as your audience is too stupid to understand that you are being racist or sexist. Well argued, Ann Coulter!

Moreover, Coulter makes a lot of false implications to make her points. For example, after describing the mainstream media as tools for the liberals (pages 14 - 18), she comments on how Fox News must be the most fair and balanced because it now has the highest viewership of any cable news network. This is a fallacious argument, even by her own standards; if Fox News is truly the only "conservative" news source on cable and conservatives would only watch it for their news sources, the liberals would still be split between watching several other networks. So, of course, Fox would be huge, by Coulter's standards, half of the population would be watching one network while the other half was spread among about eight other news stations! And, as always, Coulter trots out Alan Colmes as evidence of Fox's fair and balanced perspective (page 15), though I've yet to meet a single liberal who considers Colmes liberal.

But moreover, Coulter's tone is tiresome and she creates the very sense of victimization she decries in the "liberals" when she writes things like "Our incompetent press secretaries go bad, theirs never do. The weakest of the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices always go bad; Democrat-appointed justices never do. Our soporific pundits go bad; theirs appear regularly on Larry King Live" (113). It is hard to see why the liberals are so bad when even Coulter paints the worst of them as having more integrity than the worst of the conservatives. It is because of arguments like this that Guilty: Liberal "Victims" And Their Assault On America seems far more sloppy than actually possessing anything akin to wit.

Guilty: Liberal "Victims" And Their Assault On America explores the premise of "victims" in the media, single mothers, the Republican Attack Machine (which Coulter denies flatly exists), media and Republicans. Published in January 2009, arguably finished before Barack Obama won the election, Coulter's writing is an attempt to reinvigorate fear and division in the populace when one might easily argue that the election of Barack Obama was the triumph of hope politics over fear. Littered with factual errors that are troubling - "Lewis Libby was the only perpetrator Bush likely had ever met . . ." (185) despite Libby implicating Dick Cheney - makes it difficult to take Coulter's arguments seriously.

As well, Coulter makes herself into a troubling authority on matters which she does not have any training or experience. So, for example, in discussing Terri Schiavo, Coulter writes "It was not true that Terri was on 'life support' - anymore than a child up to about age four is on 'life support' because he needs help to eat" (212). This, despite both medical experts declaring otherwise and there being a legal definition for "life support." Much of Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" And Their Assault On America boils down to "this is fact because I say it is" without much (or anything) to back it up.

For liberals, the solution is easy: don't buy the book, do not read it and do not succumb to Coulter's talk that we or they are all trying (or are actually) victims. No liberal is missing out on a relevant and powerful voice in the debate by not incorporating the voice of Ann Coulter (stick to the well-argued conservative positions for ammunition in debate!). For conservatives, by all means, read Ann Coulter's latest work and then improve upon it. There are plenty of educated, well-reasoned conservatives that might be able to take the kernel of argument Coulter introduces and run with it to make it into an articulate, thoughtful debate. Guilty: Liberal "Victims" And Their Assault On America is not that argument and Ann Coulter is not the a-team mind needed to make it, at least not in this volume.

For other books by Ann Coulter, please check out my reviews of:
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans
How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must)
High Crimes And Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton

0/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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A Loud Message About People With Disabilities: "As Loud As A Whisper"

The Good: Acting, Message, Process, Troi's character
The Bad: Thematically heavy-handed at times, Moments of character awkwardness
The Basics: A fair Troi episode, "Loud As A Whisper" tells a story of the basics of communication and the value of diversity.


By this point in the second season of Star Trek The Next Generation, the avid viewer must be wondering if the same person who remembered Counselor Troi existed forgot that Commander Riker did. By "Loud As A Whisper," the sixth episode of the second season, Troi has been featured in a prominent position in three of those episodes, while Riker - essential in the first season - has, at best, had a peripheral role in one. Troi features heavily in this next episode.

"Loud As A Whisper" sees the Enterprise delivering a renowned ambassador to a war torn planet. His name is Riva and he is revealed almost immediately as a deaf mute. He communicates through a Chorus of three people who are able to express various emotions and thoughts he has. When Riva and his people beam down to the planet, the leaders of the different factions arrive and a crazed fanatic attacks the Chorus, killing them. Returned to the Enterprise, Riva and Troi attempt to figure out how to solve the problems of the war torn planet below.

Basically, this episode is a treatise on how alike everyone is. This is a "people with disabilities are just as unique and wonderful as people who have no obvious disabilities" episode. It's a necessary social message and this episode explores that with a relatively sensible amount of liberalism. The problem is that some of the episode gets heavyhanded, such as when Picard grabs the poor ambassador and shouts "We are all in this together!" There are moments that make the viewer shudder.

The strength of this episode is that it actually gives Troi a decent role. Riva and Troi hit it off in a way that is very sensual. We finally see Troi as a strong, liberated woman and one who is more than simply competent at her job. Here she rises to the challenge of problem solving and communicating and her character works quite well.

The episode suffers upon repeated viewings; we know the message the first time around and so much time is spent belaboring that that upon seeing it again the poignancy is lost. This is a good episode for anyone to watch as it focuses on the nature of communication and it is quite explicit about how and why things work. It is not limited to appealing only to fans of Star Trek The Next Generation. But watching it more than twice? Eh. You'll find it less worthwhile upon those other times. I mean, there are only so many times you can learn the same lesson.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Complete Second Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the sophomore season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

6/10

For other Star Trek episode and film reviews, please visit my index page for an organized listing!

© 2010, 2008, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Greater Realism Makes For A Strangely Unimpressive Dagobah Luke Skywalker Figure!

The Good: Amazing sculpting and coloring detail, Decent enough accessories, Good balance
The Bad: Underwhelming articulation and overall "feel" of the figure.
The Basics: Not perfect, but very close, the Luke Skywalker as seen on Dagobah with interchangeable limbs is a pretty cool figure, even if one head isn't the best it could be.


Star Wars fans, like me, must come across sounding like a very demanding bunch to outsiders. We're not happy when we don't get what we want and we're not happy sometimes when we get what we do ask for. To wit, among the many sculpts of Luke Skywalker in action figure form, there have been several sculpts since Kenner rebooted the line in 1995. When they made their first new Dagobah Luke Skywalker as part of the Power Of The Force line the figure looked nothing like Luke Skywalker and fans have been dumping those toys ever since. So, when Hasbro opened their Original Trilogy Collection in 2003/4 with Luke Skywalker (on Dagobah), fans ought to have been thrilled that the figure was realistically scrawny and came with multiple limbs to create more complex movie-related poses. But as I sit here considering the figure, I find myself impressed with the overall quality of the figure, but still not wild about either playing with or displaying this impressively-sculpted and colored figure. Like I said, Star Wars fans are ridiculously picky.

For those unfamiliar with the Luke Skywalker as he appeared on Dagobah, in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed here!), Luke journeys to the swamp planet Dagobah. There, Luke Skywalker trains with the Jedi master Yoda and learns the ways of the Force. He does things like handstands and runs with Yoda on his back and the former could not be represented realistically with the action figures . . . until now!

The 4" Luke Skywalker figure is pretty impressive and because it is so well-detailed, it is easy to use this to replace every prior Dagobah Luke figure released! Still, while every aspect of Luke is done exceptionally well, there is something about the regular head that doesn't quite look right.

Basics

The Dagobah Luke Skywalker is a great sculpting of the familiar hero of the Star Wars Trilogy. Here, he is cast in his gear from Dagobah and because the swamp planet is dirty, he has realistic muck on his arms. The figure stands 3 1/2" tall and he is dressed in the brown and drab olive fatigues he wore while working out on Dagobah. He is intended to look like he is working out and the exposed arms do a good job of that. The outfit is actually very clean, so it contradicts the dirt on the interchangeable arms! The Luke Skywalker figure is cast with the ability to look realistically like he is doing a hand stand from the fingers splayed and the hair hanging down. The other head and arms are ideal for having Luke Skywalker in his running poses with Yoda on his back! The figure is made almost entirely of soft plastic, though the heads do seem to be more solid than the rest of the toy.

This toy is a decent sculpt, looking generally like Luke Skywalker as he trained on Dagobah. The Dagobah Luke Skywalker is well-detailed in his coloring detail, except when it comes to his skin tones. There is no shading on his face, and his lips are not colored at all. However, he does have teeth colored in and bright blue eyes. As well, there is an exceptional level of costuming detailing, including laces on the shoes and ribbing on the shirt! As well, the Luke Skywalker does have intense little blue eyes with appropriately black pupils. Even the hair looks good and like it is wet, which it constantly was in the Dagobah scenes.

The non-headstand head, though, is a bit more round than Mark Hamill's more angular face. This, unfortunately, brings the sculpt down a bit. Even so, the arms are not terribly buff, which is nice for the figure's sense of realism.

Accessories

The Luke Skywalker is realistically prepared for his Dagobah training. This Luke Skywalker is outfitted only with replacement arms and head and the straps for the backpack, as well as a stand that connects with the stand from other Dagobah Trilogy Collection figures!

The heads and arms pop off and may easily pop back into the appropriate sockets. The heads are a very standard Luke Skywalker head and another which has the hair spiked up so when the figure is upside-down, it looks like it is realistically hanging from his head. The arms also pop in and out and the handstand arms have splayed fingers, whereas the running arms have hands which are mostly closed and can be made to look like they are holding the straps on the backpack.

The Dagobah Luke Skywalker also comes with the framework for the backpack, straps which go across the figure's chest and give the appearance of Luke wearing the training backpack (the backpack actually comes with the Yoda figure, reviewed here!). There are holes in the figure's back which allow the backpack and Yoda to connect with Luke.

The Original Trilogy Collection figures come with stands, including the Dagobah Luke Skywalker. This stand, however, is a three and one quarter inch long by two inches wide brown patch that looks like swamp ground. The stand includes hand prints embedded into it, which allows Luke to do his handstand right on the stand! As well, there is a peg, which fits the hole in either of Luke's feet!

Playability

The four inch toy line was designed for play and Luke Skywalker is great in that regard. The figure is generally well-articulated and has excellent balance when off his stand. The Luke Skywalker has good balance and looks good while doing his handstand. This Luke Skywalker figure comes with only six points of articulation, but Hasbro makes good use of them! He has joints at the groin socket, shoulders, neck, and waist. Like most Star Wars figures, these are all just simple swivel joints, except the head. The head is on a ball joint, so this Luke Skywalker actually nods in addition to turning his head from side to side!

This is a great figure for posing or for play. As well, it does have decent balance on or off his stand.

Collectibility

The Dagobah Luke Skywalker is part of the 2004 Original Trilogy Collection four-inch series, a series of Star Wars action figures that was not very common at all, but largely recast figures that had been previously released by Kenner. Hasbro sought to improve the old figures by having a greater attention to detail, coloring and accessory detail and proportion. As such, this Luke Skywalker is a distinct improvement as far as balance, detailing and accessories from the earlier Dagobah Luke Skywalker. Released as Original Trilogy Collection (2004) figure #01, this figure is a good idea for those creating an ultimate collection of each major character. It is hard to imagine how this figure might be improved upon, save with more articulation.

Overview

The Original Trilogy Collection Dagobah Luke Skywalker is a wonderful sculpt made with realistic coloring and good articulation and accessories. It is, arguably, the best Luke Skywalker in Dagobah fatigues figure made to date and likely ever.

For other Saga Star Wars figures or Luke Skywalker action figures, please check out my reviews of:
#19 Cloud Car Pilot
#20 Lobot
Luke Skywalker With Desert Sport Skiff
Hoth Attack Luke Skywalker

8.5/10

For other toy reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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It Rocks, But Not In Any Memorable Way: Bridges To Babylon Is More Average Than Extraordinary.

The Good: Well-produced, Some decent tunes that rock
The Bad: Very average vocals and lyrics
The Basics: A very average and unsurprisingly generic album, Bridges To Babylon is well-produced, but a fairly unmemorable outing from The Rolling Stones.


There was a joke on The Drew Carey Show some years back when one of the albums from The Rolling Stones came out that I truly liked, even though I didn't know much about the band at that point. The friends are hanging around and one of them becomes obsessed with going to a concert The Rolling Stones are throwing in Cleveland. Another challenges the excited one with the question, "Can you even name a song the band has made in the last twenty years?" in response to the idea that the band has a new album out. Having just started to get into The Rolling Stones (The Rolling Stones, Now! is reviewed here and Out Of Our Heads is reviewed here!), I'm finding this to be true, nowhere more so than on Bridges To Babylon.

Bridges To Babylon was the last studio album The Rolling Stones released in the 1990s and despite all of the hype for it, I don't hear the single. Listening to it (I've heard it a dozen times now), I can admire the production and how the album actually does rock, but there's no hook, there are no songs that actually stick out for me. In fact, before I listened to the album on such heavy rotation, the only song I think I had ever heard was "Saint Of Me," possibly from a television commercial for the album. Regardless, nothing sticks out on the album as remotely remarkable, even though the album is eminently listenable.

With thirteen songs, clocking out at 62:23, Bridges To Babylon is mostly the work of The Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote all but two of the songs: "Anybody Seen My Baby?" I've learned what my ear suspected all along, that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger avoided getting sued by k.d. lang and Ben Mink for a tune so close to "Constant Craving" by paying them. The other song, "Thief In The Night" was co-written by the pair and Pierre de Beauport. Outside that, though, the band maintains a lot of creative control on the album. Mick Jagger leads all of the vocals and Keith Richards and Charlie Watts provide backing vocals. The quartet (guitarist Ronnie Wood rounds out the band) plays all of their own instruments for the primary sounds on the album.

But Bridges To Babylon, more than the early works I've been listening to more from the band, is a collaborative work in terms of instrumentation and production. A trumpet section is more prominent than the guitars on "You Don't Have To Mean It" which is an atypical sound for The Rolling Stones, but adds a musical flavor that is nice to the otherwise straightforward rock and roll sound. The album was not produced or co-produced by any members of the band; in fact, it has several different producers, track to track, which explains the somewhat fragmented overall sound of the album.

While no two tracks sound alike, the album is remarkably straightforward rock and roll. Outside "You Don't Have To Mean It" has the slight instrumental variance to it, the rest of the songs are very typical rock and roll songs with guitars, bass and drums . . . and little flavor. "Out Of Control" is pretty much the archetypal rock and roll track complete with guitar solo and pounding drums. As well, more than any other album by The Rolling Stones that I have heard, Bridges To Babylon produces the instrumental accompaniment ahead of the vocals, so the lyrics and vocals are a bit more obscured than the classic songs by The Rolling Stones. For example, the opening to "Saint Of Me" is almost indecipherable as Mick Jagger opens it with lines that I had to look up to understand, even after a dozen listens!

As for Mick Jagger's vocals, his voice on the songs on Bridges To Babylon fit into his same comfortable baritone range that he has been performing in for years. On this album, though, his voice is a little scratchier than on other works. Ironically, final track, a slow ballad called "How Can I Stop" sounds more like Jagger is exhausted from singing the prior, more active songs than actually conveys the emotions of the lyrics. Jagger is competent in his vocals, but they are produced on many of the tracks to not have the same weight as the instrumental accompaniment and that is disappointing. . .

. . . Or it would be if the group had something important to say that they had not said already. The band goes almost psychedelic with the vocals and guitars on "Might As Well Get Juiced," but who cares about another rock song about getting wasted? The idea is almost as cliche as the aging rock stars. So, when Mick Jagger sings "If you really want to tear up your mind / If you really want to get yourself blind / Might as well get juiced" ("Might As Well Get Juiced") the listener hears the lines and says, "well, okay . . . what if we DON'T want that? What do you have for us?" In some ways, The Rolling Stones are more obsessed with celebrity and the consequences of being rock stars on this album than they are with anything their listeners can actually empathize with.

That said, amid songs about getting high and getting laid easily, there are songs with real emotional resonance. On "Already Over Me," they sing about something pretty universal; losing love. While the lines might have pretty predictable rhymes like ". . . when you laugh / I just cry / When you left / I just died / Are you already over me" ("Already Over Me") the only the most sheltered or insensitive listener will not have an idea what the band is singing about. And in this way, the band manages to keep from having a complete disconnect with their listeners.

But even when the band is singing about things that can be easily understood or empathized with, some of the songs are just annoying. "Always Suffering," for example, continues a long trend on the album of having songs with the most obvious possible titles to them. The two word title is repeated so many times in the song that the listener feels they are suffering more than the musical protagonist!

Ultimately, Bridges To Babylon is a good, but not in any way great or even notable rock and roll album and it makes it very easy to skip unless one is a fan of The Rolling Stones or rock and roll in general. Considering that even the fairly generic rock is still better than what I've heard on the radio, I opted to recommend this one.

The best song is "Already Over Me," the low point is the unmemorable and somewhat ridiculous "Too Tight."

For other groups that rock or former Artist Of The Month selections, please check out my reviews of:
@#%&*! Smilers – Aimee Mann
Whoever’s In New England – Reba McEntire
Minutes To Midnight – Linkin Park

6/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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"I Never Met A White Tea I Liked...Until Now!" "Decaf China Pearl!" White Tea!

The Good: Aroma, Taste
The Bad: It's decaffeinated
The Basics: In a close call, the Decaf China Pearl is an intriguing tea with little to recommend it in an objective review.


Adjective teas tend to fare better with me these days because there is nothing material to compare them to. "Sunshine Summer Tea" could be anything, could taste like anything. On the other hand, the "Peach Apricot Honeybush" I sat down to with firm expectations that the drink had better taste fruity. I've been sampling the white teas from my collection of teas lately and just when I began to think I would never try one that I liked, I came across an adjective white tea! The Celestial Seasonings Decaf China Pearl White Tea was a straightforward white tea that actually impressed me with its possession of a flavor - something no other white tea I've yet drunk has had! - and that was almost enough to make me overlook the fact that it was decaffeinated!

Basics

Decaf China Pearl is a white tea from Celestial Seasonings. It is a 100% natural white tea, yet it is decaffeinated, which leaves me a little baffled. Caffeine free teas are ones (like herbals) that are composed of ingredients that never had caffeine in them, decaffeinated teas are teas that have ingredients that had caffeine, but the caffeine was extracted. The process of extracting the caffeine is usually done through chemicals, so whatever natural process Celestial Seasonings is using to decaffeinate its white teas, we hope it's not falling under "all the chemical components we brought together in the lab came from nature at one time!" Anyway, the tea comes in Celestial Seasoning's standard stringless tea bags, which are paired together with easy to separate perforations that allow one to separate the tea bags. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use two bags and leave them connected. A box of Decaf China Pearl comes with ten pairs (20 individual) of tea bags.

I suppose if I truly were a jerk, I might say that Decaf China Pearl has to taste like pearls to get by my rigorous standards, but I'll belay that. Pearls usually only taste like something right when they come out of an oyster and this tea tasted much better then saltwater and crustacean mucus!

The Decaf China Pearl is a white tea. White tea is made from virgin tea blooms, which makes white tea very uncommon and supposedly that much harder to produce. Because of the limited window of time to harvest the buds and first-growth tea leaves, white tea is very difficult to process, yet buyers still get a box with twenty teabags, just like virtually any other Celestial Seasoning tea! Note to Celestial Seasonings: Go ahead and scrap your other white tea flavors and just use those buds to make more of the Decaf China Pearl; it's the only one worth it!

Ease Of Preparation

As a white tea, Decaf China Pearl requires a little more care to prepare than most teas. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea and could be reused and make a second cup of Decaf China Pearl, though the results are - at best - half strength of the first brewing. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well or at least as well as can be made with this tea.

To prepare Decaf China Pearl tea, bring a pot of water to a near-boil and pour it over the tea bags. The water should not be boiling, but rather a few degrees below boiling when you pour the water over the tea bag(s) in your cup, mug or pot. Decaf China Pearl takes only one to three minutes to steep according to the directions. In my experience, there is no harm in letting it steep past the three minutes, this gives the tea a bolder, more complete flavor that truly saturates the water and unless you like tea as hot water, this is a better way to enjoy Decaf China Pearl; fully brewed and rich as opposed to lighter and delicate.

Taste

Decaf China Pearl tastes exactly like the tea one drinks in a nice Chinese restaurant. It is not overly strong and the only way I can accurately describe the tea flavor that this embodies is through a comparison to a much better known adjective tea. If one has never had good, generic Chinese tea at a Chinese restaurant, the best way to describe this tea is that it tastes like tea brewed from a tea bag of Earl Grey tea after that bag had already made four cups of tea! It is weak, but flavorful (it just has a difficult flavor to describe). There is no aftertaste.

This tea has a lot going for it in the aroma department. It smells like a Chinese restaurant. Not a fast food Chinese restaurant, rather a classy joint at the end of the evening when the dominant scent is tea and candles burning. The scent is very potent and evokes great memories for anyone who had good memories of Chinese restaurants!

Adding sugar to this tea makes it instantly taste like sugar. Yes, the Decaf China Pearl is a pushover to the taste of sugar. One little quarter-teaspoon and the tea becomes all about the sweetener.

Cold, the tea loses a bit of its flavor and begins to taste like water, water with a bitter aftertaste! I've had the Decaf China Pearl piping hot and it leaps off the tongue and down the throat, no questions asked. Cold, it slithers by leaving its flavor as a sour/bitter aftertaste in the mouth of the person drinking it.

I added milk to two cups (one hot, one iced) and the milk flavor accented the flavor when hot and cut the aftertaste some (about half) in the cold. With milk, the tea does not significantly change in taste. Milk may be added to this tea with no adverse effect in terms of chemical composition, though, oddly the package does not mention using milk in this tea.

What it does mention is using lemon to accent the tea. Lemon works fine, though I found it added little to the overall flavor of the tea. With an accent of lemon, the tea tastes like lemon without the sour, which is nice.

Nutrition

Decaf China Pearl prides itself on being an all natural white tea and the ingredients are simple and non-threatening. There is nothing terribly mysterious in this tea, save that it is made of a vague mix of "Decaffeinated white tea and natural white tea essence." The box notes that it is gluten free.

Because it is all natural, the China tea leaves are not treated with anything, yet the tea does not contain caffeine. This rates a 5 on the caffeine meter (based on milligrams of caffeine in an 8 oz. serving), which puts it just above above herb tea and on par with a cup of decaffeinated coffee.

Outside that, this is just another tea. That means that unless one adds sugar, milk, or lemon, all you're getting out of it is the white tea flavor. This tea does not provide any calories, fat, sodium, or protein to the person who drinks it.

Storage/Clean-up

Decaf China Pearl tea is very easy to clean up after - the tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. The tea itself is darker than any other white tea I have drunk, so it does stain if given the opportunity. Still, mugs that hold the tea ought to clean up with a rinse without any problems.

Overall

So, it's better than any other white tea I've ever had and it has a good aroma that evokes memories of Chinese restaurants. Is it enough? I'm not sure. Part of the reason I'm having so much trouble defining the flavor is that it is a very generic tea flavor. And as it comes to the point where I must either recommend it or not, I find myself leaning toward not. Here's why: I like my teas strong and flavorful. To go back to my mention of the precise flavor of the Decaf China Pearl; I like Earl Grey, I don't like what I would get if I used the same tea bag five times over.

But more than that, my friends who tend to like white tea like it for its subtlety, not its boldness. This is far stronger than any white tea I've ever had. For those who like their tea to basically be steaming hot water, this tea will likely seem too robust to you. But for the rest of us, it's good, but bland, it has a flavor, but not one easy to define. It's average. Average tea. It might be good, but I still find myself wanting more from my teas than just average.

For other Celestial Seasonings tea reviews, please check out:
Red Zinger
African Orange Mango Rooibos
Mandarin Orchard Decaf Green

5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Standard Check: Reviewing Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl As A Litmus Test For A Reviewer!

The Good: Fun, Decent plot, Moments of acting, Moments of character, Special effects, Music
The Bad: Some predictability, Sparrow not as eccentric as I'd heard, Disney “standards"
The Basics: Fun and entertaining, The Curse Of The Black Pearl opens a new chapter in action-adventure/comedy and is worthy of a viewing, if not to own.


Sometimes, there is little point in writing a review. When I was still writing for the review website, I would occasionally look back at some of my older reviews that were buried under the 300 other reviews of the same film/product and I’d know that they are not being read. There is no point in writing a decent review for older material after twenty people have rated it. I can only imagine that there aren't people who look through the lists of reviews looking for an obscure reviewer. And, let's be honest, with some of the pop-culture standards like Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl, 99% of the movie-going public has already made up its mind, watched it or not and a review now is not going to sway someone. I doubt there is someone reading this review –in my brand spankin’ new blog - and saying, "Hmm . . .Pirates Of The Caribbean, I wonder if THAT'S a movie I would enjoy . . ." So, writing this review is somewhat pointless, save that reviews of well-reviewed works by some of us more obscure reviewers provides a baseline for our reviews on less-well-reviewed works. This review helps readers understand that my pantheon of reviews means. What does my 10/10 rating for Magnolia (reviewed here!) truly mean, if you can't compare it to something you've likely already seen? As important, what does my 0/10 rating for Did You Hear About The Morgans? (reviewed here!) or "Wrong Turn" truly mean if you can't compare it to another movie that is probably not as meaningful or well-known? And so . . .

When Disney announced that it was making a film based on their ride Pirates Of The Caribbean, I cringed. Some part of my mind was terrified that if it was successful, they would find a way to make their "Small World" ride into a movie complete with hypnotic, cult-indoctrinating theme and I would be forced into the killing spree I kept myself from as a child when visiting Disney World. Writers Ted Elliot, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, and Jay Wolpert and director Gore Verbinski take a potentially deathly idea and create an entertaining comedy-adventure movie that succeeds beyond its concept.

As a child, young Will Turner is rescued from a pirate attack by a crew which includes Elizabeth Swann, who takes from him a necklace with a gold dubloon. Years later, as Turner pines for Swann and Swann - the local governor's daughter - avoids the advances and proposals of naval Commodore Norrington, the port they live in find themselves under siege by pirates who take Swann and head for the open sea. Desperate to recover the woman he loves, Turner enlists the aid of pirate captain Jack Sparrow, who is currently jailed in the port.

Sparrow and Turner steal a boat and head after the pirates that abducted Swann. They soon realize that the pirates are not normal, every day standard pirates. They are undead, cursed by stealing the gold and destined to roam the seas until all the pieces are back where they belong. Jack, who has a history with the ship - the Black Pearl - and its captain - the villainous Barbossa, uses the rescue attempt to gain revenge for wrongs done against him in the past and to recover the ship that used to be his.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl is entertaining and while I am not usually a fan of big special effects movies, the effects in this one are remarkably well done. The undead pirate crew is fun to watch and the effects move at a pace that makes them intriguing, easy to follow and of impressive quality. The effects are most prevalent at night, in moonlight, making it much easier to retain realism and the effects department seems quite attentive to this.

Similarly, the music is used quite well as an effect to keep the movie flowing. Whenever there is not a battle or significant dialogue, the music becomes sweeping and big to accompany the cinematography. Composers Klaus Badelt and Craig Eastman do fine work here using music as an effect.

What I like about The Curse Of The Black Pearl is that it is well put together. Things make sense and that is refreshing. So, those oriented to details will find much to enjoy about the movie. A nice example of this is that Sparrow's compass - when confiscated by the authorities - is noted as one that is not pointing North. It's not listed as "broken," just that it does not work like normal compasses. That becomes important and justifies the obsessive quality Jack has with preserving his personal effects.

This leads us to the characters. Given that this movie has been out in the public imagination for almost four years and already spawned one of the most successful sequels of all time - with another due this summer - there has been a lot of hype about the characters in The Curse Of The Black Pearl. That last sentence ought to be cut down; there has been a lot of hype about Captain Jack Sparrow. The best description anyone had given me before seeing The Curse Of The Black Pearl was that the movie works like two movies, with the standard pirate plot going in one predictable, regular direction, and one with the eccentric Jack Sparrow doing and saying things that are more winks to the audience.

I didn't see that. The Curse Of The Black Pearl only works because it does not take itself too seriously and the main force behind that is Captain Jack Sparrow, who - sadly - did not seem all that over-the-top to me. Sure, he's a crazy pirate, but he was hardly as funny or detached from the story or the other characters as I anticipated given the hype around him. Sparrow provides both comic relief and an opportunity to sell the idea of the treachery of the pirates. Sparrow works and he's what keeps the movie moving and entertaining.

Sadly, the more troubling character aspects come in two forms. The first is Captain Barbossa who is possibly the most subtle advertisement for Captain Morgan rum (how did they NOT do a tie-in here?!) and who is pretty much the villainous archetype. There seems to be no real connection to suggest why Sparrow would have had him as a member of his crew beforehand and little to suggest his ambition for a fleet of pirate ships once the curse is lifted. Morgan, er, Barbossa's big ambition to get the curse of the Aztec gold lifted is not so he won't be invincible, can wear decent clothes, or even make love to a woman. His ambition is to eat an apple. Fine, I can dig that. Man's been undead for a while, wants fresh fruit, cool. Why is it so easy for Sparrow to manipulate him with the prospect of more, then? It doesn't jive.

Far, far, far worse are the Disney influences on The Curse Of The Black Pearl, which I know is ironic for a Disney film. Disney has certain "kid friendly" standards that it keeps intact almost universally throughout its many animated and live-action films. Since Disney's rebirth of animated movies in the late '80s, early 90s, there have almost always been sidekicks for comic relief. Often they are a pair and their sole function in the movie is to make cheap gags, provide plot exposition for five year-olds and tell what the director isn't gifted enough to show or say what the writer cannot figure to say any other way. This might work in a "G" movie, but it's somewhat insulting in the PG-13 Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl.

In this movie, the pair is Pintel and Ragetti, undead pirates on Barbossa's ship, the latter of which is missing an eye. This witless pair explains pretty much everything, knocks into things and does things in an insultingly Disney way that most viewers are smart enough to figure out on their own or could live without.

That said, the rest of the characters are fairly standard. Elizabeth Swann is not a Disney princess, but rather the damsel in distress who at opportune moments can stand up for herself. Norrington is exceptionally generic as the "wealthy/successful suitor" that Swann should want and an adequate foil to Will Turner, down to how each uses objects in their surroundings. Turner almost always has his hands on something, Norrington gives orders to others, keeping his hands usually off the things he wants to manipulate.

And outside the characters, the action is pretty standard for a period piece like this. There are sword fights, people swinging on ropes, and the ship to ship battles involving cannon fire. The truth is, by the time this movie was made, it takes a lot to be a knockout with special effects battle scenes. The sword fights are living deep in the shadows of the battles from The Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars. It's just a factor of time, but there is nothing distinctive or great about them that pushes the envelope forward and the truth is, they are fairly unmemorable.

But they are entertaining. The swordfight between Turner and Sparrow is fun to watch. The stunts are decent, the pace is kept up well.

What makes The Curse Of The Black Pearl worth recommending and watching boils down ultimately is the acting. It's always wonderful to see Jonathan Pryce (save Carrington) and his role as Governor Weatherby Swann was one of the few pleasant surprises for me going into the movie. Orlando Bloom is fairly bland as Will Turner (there is nothing truly distinctive about him) and Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann continues her career as a photocopy of Winona Ryder. There is nothing here to recommend her performance as anything extraordinary.

So, it comes to Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp to sell The Curse Of The Black Pearl. And they do. Rush is playing the villainous Barbossa and while the character is problematic, Rush plays him well. There are moments where Barbossa must maintain a tired quality where his imprisonment as an undead wears on him and those moments Rush sells us on some form of underlying humanity in the character. And when he needs to be bad, Rush sells us on that with his icy gaze and menacing tones.

It is Johnny Depp that rules the movie, as Jack Sparrow. What Depp does - better than the character in some ways - is sell the idea that Sparrow is not necessarily crazy or not part of the world, but rather that in order to live the life the Captain is living, he has to act the way he does. Depp is adept at the fast-talk, the quick reversal and the physical comedy needed to keep The Curse Of The Black Pearl moving and from taking itself too seriously.

In the end, The Curse Of The Black Pearl is a pirate movie that is effectively mixing comedy and adventure to be something worthwhile and entertaining. But it's not saying something larger and its quality is in entertainment value, primarily in the form of the two biggest characters in the movie - Sparrow and Barbossa. If you want fun, this'll do.

But don't expect more.

For other films featuring Johnny Depp, please visit my reviews of:
The Tourist
Alice In Wonderland
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Edward Scissorhands

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Why We Grind Our Own The Proctor Silex E160 Coffee Grinder

The Good: Generally easy to clean, Durable, Easy to use/intuitive, Stores easily, Small
The Bad: Parts are more difficult to clean, Color choice
The Basics: After five years of use, my Proctor Silex E160 grinder helps me get my whole bean coffee pulverized so I can get a jump on my day!


My kitchen is slowly becoming assimilated. Yes, throughout my kitchen, the whole stainless steel look is slowly taking over. What isn't stainless steel is generally black and I love my kitchen. I love my refrigerator (reviewed here!), my dishwasher (reviewed here!), my toaster oven, my stove (reviewed here!) and my microwave (reviewed here!) and they are all stainless steel, creating a nice unified look in my kitchen. There is one glaring exception in my kitchen decor. It's small and it's white, but it's always obvious to me when I walk into my kitchen in the morning. It's my Proctor Silex E160 Electric Blades Coffee Grinder, put out by Hamilton Beach. When I picked it up, white was the only color available and I've had it now for almost five years. It remains a vital part of my kitchen.

Coffee grinders are one of those luxuries we have for when we want to make fresh coffee from whole bean coffee and I've had mine because one of the local grocery stores, Wegman's, has an amazing selection of flavored whole coffee beans. I love getting the whole bean coffee and grinding it up right before I make a pot of coffee on the mornings I make coffee. So, the E160 has been a fixture in my home for years and I've gotten good use out of it. Over the last five years, I would say average use is once a week (more like three times one week, none for a few weeks, etc.).

The white base of the E160 is approximately six inches tall, making this device about eight inches high when the dome is put on. The E160 is about three inches in diameter, so this is a fairly compact device.

One of the nicest aspects for those who do not like clutter is that the E160 has a three foot retractable electric cord. Whenever I have the grinder near water, I simply twist the bottom to bring the cord into the grinder. All that remains exposed is the plug. This minimizes the possibility that the cord will get wet causing electrocution.

Using the coffee grinder is rather simple and it's an intuitive device; I learned without reading the manual. Simply place the coffee beans in the dome, push the top onto the base (the only way this can go on is the right way because of the descending pulse button that activates the grinder) - which I usually do by picking up the base and connecting the two parts upside down and flipping it over to prevent any spillage, and push the button.

The activation button is a descending lever on from the dome that has limited flexibility. This insures that the device does not activate except when the button is pushed. The E160 grinder works like a blender, with a central spinning blade in the base that rotates only when the button is pushed. Because this device works rather instantaneously, the blades start and stop with the touch of the button, with no spinning when the button is not depressed.

But more than that, this device is ridiculously safe. The lever has a tiny flap at the bottom. The plastic flap fits into a slot in the base, which along with the contours of the lever and two side ridges insure there is only one way this grinder can come together, and that is what activates the blades in the base. The thing is, when the dome top is not on, it's virtually impossible to activate the blades unless you're playing with something about the size of a pin. This makes it very safe to have around children as the risk of one activating this while unsupervised is virtually nonexistent.

Back to the use. A constant grinding for about one minute ought to pulverize a capful of coffee beans, resulting in approximately five tablespoons worth of ground coffee (enough for one ten-cup pot). I recommend picking up the grinder while grinding and rotating it with your natural wrist motion (so the E160 moves from perpendicular to a counter to parallel) back and forth two or three times in order to insure universal quality of the coffee grinds. This basically insures that all off the coffee grounds will be fine, as opposed to an awkward collection of fine and coarse bits.

Getting the coffee beans out is easy; simply turn the device over (so the dome is down) after unplugging the grinder, and pull down on the dome. The dome acts as a convenient repository for the ground coffee. I usually whack the bottom of the device once and that sends any of the ground coffee that is below the blades into the dome before I detach the dome. Otherwise, upon flipping it back over, the grinder will often have the most powderized (is that a word?) grounds underneath the blades.

Cleanup is fairly easy. After unplugging the E160, simply wipe the base out with a damp cloth. Ideally, the device would have blades that could pop out to make this much easier. However, after five years of practical use, I've found no drop in performance when I simply fill the base up with soapy water and really scrub it (I do between grinding different flavors of coffee to prevent the flavor of the prior batch from influencing the new flavor). This should not be submerged, but the grinding area in the base is well-sealed from the electrical components beneath it in the base to allow a heavy cleaning like that. For day to day cleaning of the base, a wet cloth works just fine.

It is somewhat trickier to clean the dome top. Because of how stiff the plastic is, I've always cleaned the top with an exaggerated sense of caution, being especially careful with the little flap at the bottom that I know activates the device. To date, this has not broken. Coffee that is very finely ground often gets trapped between the clear plastic dome and the descending white lever. This is just a pain to clean quickly, but it often cleans up easily when one is patient with it. I've resorted - whenever possible - to simply throwing the dome in my dishwasher and that gets the job done. As well, this has not visibly increased the wear or aging on the dome.

So, in short, this is a great way to get coffee ground up, so long as you can stand white in your kitchen.

As a corollary, because this is a grinder - not specifically a coffee grinder - I've recently discovered that this is an ideal way to grind flax seed. For those who are watching their health, the benefits of flax seed are well-established. However, whole flax seed is often ridiculously less expensive than ground flax seed. This device pulverizes flax seed so the body can get the most out of its nutritional benefits. This does not seem to dull the blades, either. Because this device is relatively inexpensive (I bought my E160 on sale at $8.99 five years ago, though I've seen them now averaging $10.99 regularly), the cost of this can justify itself to the health conscious within the first few months of operation for this function.

In the five years I've owned the blades have never dulled. (Period).

Ultimately, it's an easy to use, efficient grinder for coffee (or flax seed) that may allow the user to enjoy life that much more.

For other kitchen appliances, please visit my reviews of:
Hamilton Beach 26501 Waffle Maker
Hamilton Beach 727 Milkshake maker
Hamilton Beach 42434 Coffeemaker

8.5/10

For other kitchen appliance or tool reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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