Dinner and a Movie
Seeing Lucy through the Alders
Seeing Lucy through the Alders
By
Steve Herte
They
say the first week back to work after a vacation is the worst.
They're right. I was so relaxed I was making mistakes everywhere the
first day. That was compounded by this ridiculous "hoteling"
thing they have going on with moving the population from 110 West
44th Street into vacant cubicles in my building. I'll leave it at that.
It took me a while to calm down from the excitement of my Turner
Classic Movie Tour. It was great. That brings me to Friday. Well,
you'll see. Enjoy!
Lucy (Universal,
2014) – Director: Luc Besson. Writer: Luc Besson.
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Min-sik Choi, Amr Waked,
Julian Rhind-Tutt, Pilou Asbaek, Analeigh Tipton, Nicholas
Phongpheth, Jan Oliver Schroeder, Luca Angeletti, Loic Brabant,
Pierre Grammont, Pierre Poirot, Bertrand Quoniam, & Pascal
Loison. Color, 89 minutes.
Does
anyone remember the Outer Limits episode entitled “Sixth
Finger?” It aired on October 14, 1963, and starred David McCallum
as a scientist experimenting with speeding up evolution. He becomes
super-intelligent and eventually evolves into pure intelligent
energy.
Here’s Lucy.
It’s 51 years later and it’s not about evolution per se but the
net effect of gradually increasing the use of the human brain to its
full capacity – essentially the same story. Gwyllim Griffiths
(McCallum) grows a sixth finger and can play pieces Beethoven wrote
but couldn’t play. Lucy (Johansson) attains 20% of her brain usage
and learns Chinese overnight. The main difference (aside from the
male/female lead) is that Gwillim willingly evolved and Lucy’s
transformation was an accident.
Lucy’s
introduction is as follows: “Life was given to us a billion years
ago. This is what we’ve done with it.”
The
film begins in China as Lucy meets her former boyfriend Richard
(Asbaek) outside an office building and he tricks her into being
handcuffed to a metal briefcase that must be delivered to Mr. Jang
(Choi). Inside the briefcase are four bags full of blue crystals
(reminded me of toilet freshener) intended to be smuggled out of
China by three men and Lucy to Berlin, Paris, Rome, and wherever Lucy
was going to be sent (that wasn’t clear), surgically implanted in
their abdomens. The crystals comprise a new mind-altering drug called
CPH4, which will sell for millions of dollars on the street. However,
no one could predict that Lucy would refuse her captor’s sexual
advances precipitating his knocking her to the ground and repeatedly
kicking her belly and breaking the bag inside.
The
drug has a different effect on women than on men and Lucy goes
through a transformation which includes bringing back the revolving
room effect we saw long ago in the Fred Astaire movie Royal
Wedding (1951), and much later in Inception (2010).
But Lucy doesn’t become a gruesome monster; instead she becomes
more intelligent and revives Lara Croft (a role Scarlett was made
for). She fights off her attackers and escapes.
Meanwhile,
Professor Norman (Freeman) is giving a lecture on mankind and the
percentage of brain usage increase from the primitive “Lucy”
(Australopithecus – 7%) to today’s stage of evolution (10%), and
posits what would happen if higher percentages were used. His lecture
is accompanied by visual aids, and parallels the advances that
current Lucy is making throughout the movie.
Lucy
grows in power and returns to Mr. Jang, and after impaling his hands
to his chair, she uses a Vulcan mind-meld to get the locations of the
other three bags of CPH4. Then she notifies Paris Police Chief Pierre
Del Rio (where did they get that name?), simultaneously sending
photos of the three mules to his cell phone. He in turn notifies the
airport security in Paris, Rome and Berlin. The three men are caught
and brought to Paris. Ah, but Mr. Jang is not through. He learns
where the three men are being kept and arrives there first. Two of
the three bags are violently extracted before Lucy and Pierre arrive
and Lucy extracts the third with her bare hands.
When
she first calls Professor Norman she has to prove her abilities by
not just being on the phone, but also on his television, computer
screen and his radio. He gathers a group of his colleagues when she
calls him a second time. As soon as he asks her where she is, she
walks in the door. She again has to prove her strange powers –
revealing the life secrets of one man by simply placing a hand on his
shoulder. They liquefy the remaining bags of CPH4 and hook her up to
them intravenously. It’s here that the special effects department
pulls out all the stops. Lucy grows black tendrils that connect into
all the computers in the room and goes time-traveling back to the Big
Bang in stages. The bloodied and shocked Mr. Jang tries to sneak up
on her with a gun to the shocked silence of the scientists and, just
as he shoots, Lucy disappears.
Except
for being extremely violent and gory, does it sound like “Sixth
Finger”? Lucy is one hour and 29 minutes of
special effects glory but not much else. Freeman does more acting in
30 seconds of silence than the rest of the cast does throughout. The
soundtrack is negligible to non-existent, and the story; it was what
it was. From the start you don’t really care about any one of the
characters, which eliminates suspense, and many of the scenes are
predictable. The dialogue (with the exception of anything Freeman
says) is pedestrian, and well, who cares? It’s not what we’re
here for. There is some real science in it and some good theory but
generally, it’s an imaginative visual roller coaster.
Parents,
be cautious. Those whose children are not familiar with violence or
who are affected by the sight of blood should avoid this film. With
the exception of special effects, Lucy will not be nominated
for any awards in my opinion.
Rating:
2½ out of 5 Martini glasses.
Alder
157
2nd Avenue
(10th Street), New
York
When
I was choosing a restaurant I went to Alder’s website and the dull
greyness of the photo depicting the exterior attracted my attention
for its sheer drabness. The menu seemed to have a preponderance of
sausage dishes. Could I have stumbled on a German restaurant? No,
it’s billed as “American.” I knew it would be an adventure.
On
arriving at the corner of 10th Street and 2nd Avenue
I could not see the name Alder anywhere. I actually walked by it once
before checking the address. Finally, I saw it in red lettering above
the door of a still nameless (at least from my point of view) bistro
with a sidewalk café (not grey at all) graced by bright yellow
umbrellas and a cool green wall enclosure. I walked to the unpainted
wood door, which was recessed from the front wall and noticed to my
left, written vertically, the name Alder. I entered and met the two
young women at the Captain’s Station and they confirmed my
reservation. I was led to a table near the back of this cozy (only 56
seats), dark, room with cream-colored walls and dim aluminum swags
and faux open beam ceiling.
Soon
Aaron, my waiter, appeared and greeted me. He took my water
preference and presented the food menu and the drinks/wine list. The
drink menu was printed on a simple folded piece of paper with the
wines on the reverse side. Due to the darkness I could not read what
was in any of the drinks and had to call Aaron over to read them for
me. I chose Alder’s version of the Suffering Bastard (a drink I
remember from long ago at the Hawaii Kai restaurant), which they call
“Suffering Fools” – a very tasty and slightly spicy mixture of
Bourbon, Juniper, Ginger and Honey. It was intriguing and delicious
and was garnished with a thin length-wise slice of cucumber.
The
food menu was a single page rubber-banded to a plank of wood. The
entries were in a small brown type on a parchment background with
their descriptions below them in tiny type (completely unreadable).
Thanks to Aaron, I learned that they were organized simply from
small-sized portion to large and didn’t have any standard
categories and he again assisted me in putting together a
three-course meal.
The
wine list was slightly easier to read, being on white paper but the
font was still thin. I asked Aaron why they were categorized "White
Wines Made by Women” and “Red Wines Made by Women.” He told me
that Chef Wylie Dufresne likes to have a theme to his wine list. OK,
I think I like him for that. We went through the red wine list and I
settled on the 2009 Maysara “Jamsheed” Pinot Noir from
McMinnville, Oregon. Aaron left to put in my order.
When
I finished my cocktail a smashing blonde asked me if I wanted another
(she reminded me of the character Wendy Winters in the
Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour). Getting quick control of
myself, I told her that I had ordered wine and mentioned how
beautiful her long curly hair was. She thanked me and left.
Another
server brought my first course, Pigs in a Blanket – six pieces of
Chinese sausage wrapped tightly in a crunchy coating and sitting at
various angles in jalapeno mustard on a slab of slate with a sweet
chili sauce – definitely not my mother’s recipe. They were smoky,
spicy and sweet at the same time and the coating was more like a
pretzel crust than Poppin' Fresh dough. I enjoyed them and noticed
several other tables ordering them.
The
Pinot Noir had just enough body to compliment the first course and
was a pleasing garnet color and had only a light nose. It did not
overpower my second course, squash blossoms – stuffed with
succotash and molé cream cheese and coated with a firm, but light
crunchy shell in a chili relish. Again, this dish was not like any
other serving of squash blossoms I’ve had before. Though the
hardness of the coating was a surprise, it was wonderful and kept the
contents hot and flavorful. A slab of slate was once again the
serving dish for this course.
I
had to complement the restaurant staff. I didn’t say I was a slow
eater and yet there was plenty of time between courses to savor both
the dish and the wine. The main course, rabbit sausage, was sliced in
a beautiful white bowl on gribiche (a mayonnaise/egg sauce), baby
asparagus and egg yolk with delicate bonito flakes (dried shavings of
fish sliced from aged pieces of bonito, a kind of tuna) sprinkled on
top and waving gently (as if alive) in the slightest breeze. The
artistic appeal of the dish was entrancing and the smoky aroma
emanating from the bowl was bewitching. And the taste was amazing:
smoky, gamy and only slightly spicy. It didn’t look like that large
a dish to me, and I contemplated adding a course, but as I finished
it I realized that I needed room for dessert.
Aaron
came to my rescue once more to help with reading and I chose the most
unusual root beer pudding served in a stemmed glass with light cream
on top. Aaron said it was a signature dish for Alder and I had to
admit I had never had its like before. It was delightful. I didn’t
order coffee as I was already in a great mood. The next thing I know
Aaron brought me a glass of what I can only describe as Sparkling
Rosé. It was a deep pink color and the perfect topper for a lovely
meal.
Alder
has been in business for a year and a half and describes itself as a
Gastro-pub. That explains everything, the innovative recipes, the
novel cocktail and the dressed-down décor. Even though there were no
tablecloths or cushions on the chairs, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
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