Category: Reviews

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Movie meetup: Julie and Julia

Had a good time with tonight’s movie meetup at the Terrace Theater to see Julie & Julia.

It’s a movie about two women, from two different times but looking for the same thing: something to do. Meryl Streep puts in an excellent performance as Julia Child, and at points you forget that it’s not Julia Child on the screen.

It’s a lot of fun seeing Julie and Julia go through much the same experiences as the movie switches back and forth between the two characters. Whether their lives really ran as parallel as it seemed in the movie or if it was just done that way for the movie, I don’t know.

Julie & Julia is a very enjoyable movie to watch, with lots of humour in it. Definitely worth seeing.

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Not your father’s Star Trek

Two words: Alternate Universe.

I’ve never really been a fan of people “rebooting” or “reimagining” well established franchises, especially when they try to justify it by saying they’re trying to reach a new audience. Aside from some wicked cool special effects, I wasn’t really expecting much from the new Star Trek movie. I figured as long as they didn’t totally screw up things and alter the Trek universe, then it would be at best a pretty decent movie.

Without spoiling things, I have to say I was pretty impressed with the way Star Trek turned out. The story deviates pretty far from canon in a few aspects, but given that it’s sci-fi, the writers have given viewers a way to accept the changes. Purists will probably still be mildly annoyed, but I think JJ Abrams has managed to give us a new Star Trek in a way that is still palatable to die-hard Trekkers.

The Terrace Hippodrome isn’t too different from the former IMAX. Decorations are pretty much the same. The new seats are nice, cushy and comfortable. The screen is smaller than an IMAX screen, but still pretty big. After seeing movies in IMAX format, and now in the jumbo Hippodrome size, it’s pretty hard to go back to the “small” regular sized movie theater screens. The sound system is pretty impressive and loud. Not quite as immersive as IMAX sound, but still pretty good.

I think I’ll make the Hippodrome my default theater from now on.

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Wild Olive

I’d heard about the Wild Olive a few weeks ago and was delighted to hear about another Italian restaurant on my side of the Charleston area. Sunday I went to check it out for the first time with a few people from one of the Meetup groups.

Although the decor was nice, my first Wild Olive experience was somewhat underwhelming. I opted for the Sunday spaghetti and meatball dinner special ($15), which includes salad and garlic bread. The salad with balsamic dressing was pretty good. Nice cool, crisp greens. The spaghetti on the other hand was kind of disappointing. The spaghetti was more like angel hair pasta (pretty thin) and came out rather overdone. The sauce and meatballs were still quite good though.

Not wanting to pronounce judgment after just one visit, I went back tonight for dinner to try something else on the menu.

This time the experience was much better and a 180° change from a couple of days ago. I opted for one of the specials of the night: the Legare farms porterhouse steak with gorgonzola mashed potatoes and wilted swiss chard. On the pricey side, but totally worth it. It was big enough that I could probably get 2 more meals out of it. The steak was probably one of the best I’ve ever had here. Preparation was very simple: salt, pepper, grill. Cooked to medium, the steak was very tender, and just plain delicious.

I was initially a little skeptical about the gorgonzola mashed potatoes, and not being a fan of blue cheeses, I wasn’t expecting to like it much. Again, I was delightfully surprised. Smooth and creamy, the potatoes had enough gorgonzola to make it yummy, but not overpowering. I could have easily made a meal out of a pile of those mashed potatoes.

At the end of my meal, I started thinking about if, given the choice, would I rather go to Oak or Wild Olive (Oak is one of my favourite meat places to go to in Charleston). Tough choice, but I think if Wild Olive had the Legare Farms steak as part of their regular menu, Wild Olive would definitely win.

Wild Olive is definitely worth the trip.

4 stars out of 5.

$$-$$$$ (can be a little spendy)

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Great American Grill

Tucked away in the back corner of the James Island shopping center at the corner of Maybank and Folly is a little family owned and operated diner called Great American Grill.

Over the years the location has been home to at least 2 other restaurants that I know of, none of which lasted very long. Great American Grill has been around for just over 2 years now, so they’re probably doing something right. It’s the kind of place where unless you work or live in the area, you probably wouldn’t know it’s there. There’s a pretty local crowd, and a lot of regulars.

It’s a diner, so the food is pretty basic and uncomplicated, but tasty. They serve breakfast (which you can get all day) and lunch. Everything is cooked to order, and if you sit at the counter, you can watch all the action. Portions are generous and as it says on the menus, “You’ll never leave hungry”. Service is always friendly, and you can pretty much order anything and get it cooked the way you want.

If you’re there on a weekend, the Country Style Breakfast is hard to beat. Two giant buttermilk pancakes, biscuits and gravy, eggs, and sausage links, patties or bacon. It’ll keep you going pretty much the entire day.

Great American Grill is located at 1739 Maybank Hwy on James Island.

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Comfy new bed

A new Pooch Planet ThermaCare memory foam pet bed was one of the items I won in the CSCLRC raffle at the dog show today.

Nala’s been curled up on it ever since I brought it home this afternoon. She hasn’t even gotten up to follow me around the house like she usually does. I think she likes it.

Nala’s new bed

It’s a pretty nice pillow that contains chips of memory foam (the package calls it MemoryLoft™) that would otherwise have been disposed of in a landfill, making it a reasonably green product. The pillow is baffled with about 5 chambers to prevent the foam chips from getting bunched up and lumpy. The outer cover is removable and can be machine washed.

I think the fact that Nala hasn’t gotten off the bed in the past 4 hours attests to the comfort of the bed. It’s quite a comfortable bed, and I’m halfway tempted to use it for myself.

I may have to find a couple more of these for the other dogs.