What I’m Liking: Tres Mexicanos

After a long period of evaluation, which has been duly documented by my expanding waist size, I’ve come to a final declaration (which expires in ten days) on best Mexican restaurant in Lawrence: Tres Mexicanos

Actual green chile sauce, cheap beer, terrific fajita chicken, nice staff (except for that one waiter that Stacey can’t stand), good tamales, fantastic carnitas, and cheap beer. The biggest hindrance since it opened, for me, has been location. From our house, we might as well be driving to Kansas City. But with Stacey back to commuting now, it’s actually a nice meeting spot on Friday nights. I can pick up Gabe and we can all be sitting in a booth by 5:30.

“Favorites” are a fluid thing, of course – I can be easily won over elsewhere. Close runner-ups (Tortas Jalisco, Cielito Lindo, La Parilla) are all just one good meal away. But considering value – the three of us consistently eat at Tres Mexicanos for ~$25 with drinks – and taste…well, that’s where I stand today.

Feel free to convince me otherwise, though. Especially if you’re buying.

Movie-a-Week: 6 to go

I Love You Phillip Morris (imdb.com)

Well, that was something.

Somewhere (imdb.com)

I loved the heck out of this boring movie. Maybe it was just the mood I was in, but Coppola’s slow tempo reeked of high school ennui. Yet it totally worked for me. I’m a sap. The long one-shots that often bring the story to a halt are stylistic, and they just keep going, and then you say to yourself, “hmmm…this has been going on for awhile,” and then they keep going, and then – and this is when it starts to work – your mind drifts off into related melancholy in YOUR life, and you start going deep inside your own head…and the long shot just keeps going, and then you’re back in reality saying, “wow, I haven’t thought of that in a while” and maybe you have a good cry, and there’s that shot – still going, and then… yeah, then you’re pretty much done with thinking about anything other than nachos (or maybe that’s just me, cause I’m always thinking about nachos), but they keep going…

Seriously, there are moments in the movie that are like the coffee scene in “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”… but I don’t think it’s supposed to be a joke.

And yet – seriously – I loved this movie. Stephen Dorff is immensely watchable as a disconnected celebrity. It’d be easy to make fun of the film with “oh no, look at the rich kids and their problems,” but it didn’t seem to play it for sympathy. More about how isolation and loneliness is both self-imposed and indiscriminate. Dorff and Fanning both do a great job not overplaying their conflicts. Whether you’d like the movie or not (I’d guess “not,” and I might not either if I watched it tonight), it’s more evidence that Sofia is one of the top “actor’s director”s around.

Or maybe I was wrong on this one. I refuse to watch it again to find out. I have good feelings about it, so why mess that up?

That “no plans” relaxing weekend…

…sure had a lot of plans.  And wasn’t what I would call relaxing.  Fun, but not relaxing.  I hope yours went the same way (or differently, depending on what you were looking for.)

Ah, Bach, Episode 020

DP and AJ Take on KU

I’m sure most KU fans have seen this, but it’s quite amusing.

Checking her hair color, and… yep…

I love that.