Musical Monday with Coldplay

Magic (2014)
Starring: Ziyi Zhang, Chris Martin, and Peter Fonda
Director: Jonas Aakerlund
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

The best music videos are those that are narrative short films, be they silent movies where the song they are made promote serves as the score, or mini-musicals. Beautifully shot and skillfully edited performance videos where someone is just standing around singing while the band plays are nice and all, but they are far less interesting and creatively worthwhile than something that tells a story.

And, boy, does this video tell a story.

In "Magic", a female illusionist in a traveling show (Zhang) is married to a vicious, abusive man (Fonda). Her assistant (Martin) is secretly in love with her, and, to not only become closer to her, but to also free her from her situation, he becomes not only a master illusionist but actually masters real magic. 

This is a well-acted little fantasy film (unsurprising, since both Zivi Zhang and Peter Fonda are talented, experienced actors) that blends seamlessly with the song it underscores as the narrative weaves its way around Chris Martin singing and practicing magic. If the plot had unfolded just a tiny bit different (in regards to the fate of the villainous Fonda--there's nothing necessarily wrong with it but I just wanted more) this would have gotten Ten of Ten Stars!

Check it out. I'm fairly certain you won't see anything more magical on this Musical Monday!

Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla

It's Sunday morning, so it's time for another coffee review! (As is standard when I do these reviews, I tried the coffee black; then with Unsweetened Almond Milk; and also with sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer. I also drank it hot, room temperature, and iced in all three modes.)

"Drink coffee like you're one those French girls."

COFFEE BEANERY: FRENCH VANILLA

I may be developing a hot-and-cold relationship with Coffee Beanery... and I'm not referring to drinking their coffee either hot or iced. No... it's because I disliked their French Vanilla blend as almost as much as I loved their Michigan Cherry blend, which I reviewed last week.

French Vanilla-flavored coffee is one of those drinks that comes in as many varieties as there are coffee shops and roasteries. Often--like with this blend from Coffee Beanery--it's a medium-roast that's done with vanilla beans added, or a vanilla flavor infused through other means. Other times--like if you go to Starbucks--the French Vanilla is a medium- or light-roast with some variety of vanilla syrup added, and perhaps a little milk. Heck, the coffee shop might just break out the vanilla flavored almond milk, like they used to at my favorite (now sadly gone) indie coffee stand. (On a similar note, the best French Vanilla coffee I have had anywhere was the stuff they used to serve at Seattle's Best... another coffee outlet which is now gone. Their blend is still available in grocery stores, thought, and I've had the same good experience with it at home as I used to in the shops.)

However it's arrived at, the desired result with a cup of French Vanilla coffee is that it's on the milder side when it comes to the intensity of the coffee, with the vanilla flavor either being there in place of some other sweetener or manifesting itself as a pleasant aftertaste. A smooth, creamy quality is also typcial, hence the reason why it's often made with at least a splash of milk in the cup.

I am a big fan of well-made French Vanilla coffee. I often drink my home-brewed coffee with sugar-free French Vanilla creamer or with Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. Unfortunately, what resulted when I brewed a sample package of Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla blend, what resulted was not well-made. If I hadn't read the label, I wouldn't have known it was a medium-roast, nor allegedly French Vanilla.

The coffee smells nice as it brews--when does coffee not smell nice as it brews?-- and it both looks and smells promising as it's poured into the cup. But the flavor? The flavor is that of burned coffee. I couldn't detect any vanilla in the foreground, background, or as an aftertaste. All I got from a black cup of Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla was a burnt flavor with a sour aftertaste that put me in mind of that terrible cup of Starbucks Pike Place blend I had a few months back. Since I rarely drink any coffee black, I thought that was perhaps the reason for my reaction and that it would get better when I added some "mixers" to it.

This turned out to not be the case.

When I tried this brew with the Unsweetened Almond Milk, the aftertaste grew worse than better and it did very little to improve the burned taste. I then tried a cup with sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer. This was sweet enough and strongly flavored enough to overcome the basic vileness of the coffee, but it still wasn't very good. It tasted like ashy dirt mixed with Italian Sweet Cream. And there was still no hint of vanilla flavor. Drinking either mixture at room temperature did not improve the taste much, although the aftertaste was a little milder.

In attempt to tease out the vanilla flavor, I broke with the usual protocol here and tried a cup of Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla with some Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk and a little Stevia. The only vanilla I could taste was the vanilla in the milk, and the nasty aftertaste was as bad as ever.

This blend did not fare better iced when consumed black. The burned flavor was present, as was the aftertaste; both were milder, as would be expected from an iced coffee, but they were unmistakable. I admit that I didn't even bother trying it with just the Unsweetened Almond Milk, but instead added a little Stevia immediately. The coffee was better tasting this way, but still nothing that I would recommend to anyone else; everything I've complained above was still present although milder. Iced and with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer, is where this blend worked best with the nastier flavors being almost completely washed out. Of course, the reason for this was probably because 1/3rd of the cup was creamer, since I was almost out of the blend at this point. (The Coffee Beanery sample packs only yield one pot, so I only have about two-thirds of the coffee to work with that I've had with many of my other reviews.)

No one around here is dancing with joy after drinking this French Vanilla blend.

So... in the end, I have nothing good to say about Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla blend. It's possible that I somehow screwed up when I brewed the pot upon which this review was based... possible, but not very likely. I made this post as I've made pots of coffee ever since I got that particular coffee maker 2-3 years ago. If you've tried this blend, and you've had a different experience than the one I did, please leave a comment below.

For now, I hope my next sampling of what Coffee Beanery has to offer is more like their Michigan Cherry than their Frend Vanilla. Keep an eye on this space to see if that hope comes true.

Saturday Strangeness with Xing Xu

Mushrooms (2022)
Starring: Laura Dromerick
Director: Xing Xu
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A woman wanders a lakeside orchard and... oh, just watch it. You tell ME what makes a good summary.

YouTube is a great place for filmmakers to share short films that otherwise might never be seen by random members of the public. Sadly, they mostly end up in obscure corners of the site, so while they may now be out there to be discovered and appreciated, they still go mostly unseen. But at least they're there for ME to find and feature in post here, upping the chance of these creative efforts to be seen.

Every so often, I come across one such film that makes me say, "I don't think I know what this film is about, but I like everything about it!" The latest of these is "Mushrooms" from New York City-based writer/director Xing Xu. She describes herself as an artist who makes "music videos and magick art".

I might classify "Mushrooms" as a music video--the spooky, sometimes chilling music by Nurse With Wound is a prime driver in this two-minute film--if not for the free-verse narration. It's a non-narrative bit of filmmaking that I THINK is about beginnings and ends and the life that exists between them, but it could also just be a bit of spookiness that I should have saved for the 31 Nights of Halloween extravaganza crossover with Terror Titans in October.

But why don't you take a couple minutes (literally) to check out this neat little bit of art. And, like I asked above, if you can give us a good "teaser summary"--share it!

(Also, keep an eye out for another work from Xing Xu on a future Musical Monday.)

Happy birthday, Gina Gershon!

Actress Gina Gershon turns 60 today. Here are some pictures celebrating her decades in front of cameras!

Then there's that time the world ended...

Koko's Earth Control (1928)
Starring: Max Fleischer
Director: Dave Fleischer
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

In 1928, the world was destroyed through the actions a psychopathic cartoon dog that gained that power due to the irresponsible behavior of an animator (Fleischer) and his magic ink. Clearly, some superior being must have stepped in and remade the world, or you wouldn't be reading these words, or be able to click below to watch the video evidence of the horror that unfolded.

Princesses of Mars, Part 42

           

June is the month for marriages, so here are some images of the Princesses of Mars with their princes.

The Evangeline Lilly Quarterly

It's a Musical Monday with Evangeline Lilly... and we're leaving some things to the imagination!

Coffee Beanery's Michigan Cherry

After a year of mostly reviewing the wondrous flavored offerings from the Bones Coffee Company, I am close to having covered all of them. With that in mind, I am going to be turning to a different source for stuff to write about while feeding my caffeine addiction: The Coffee Beanery.

 

The Coffee Beanery is a roastery and coffeeshop chain based in Michigan. Founded in 1976, the company presently offers 50+ varieties of flavored and regular coffee that can ordered through the mail or enjoyed at one of their 80 or so retail outlets. You can read a brief history of the company at Wikipedia.

As their logo signals, they're a little more staid in their approach to marketing their products than other roasteries from whom I've been sampling wares. Where I was first attracted to Bones Coffee by their creative packaging and amusingly named blends, Coffee Beanery came to my attention through a lawyer I know who recommended I check out some of their blends. Like their logo, those blends are mostly named in ways that describe exactly what they are, with equally straightforward graphic designs on the packaging. All the blends I've looked at so far have been labeled "100% Arabica Beans".

Much like with the majority of my Bones Coffee reviews, the Coffee Beanery pieces will be based on sample packs. I will state up from that these reviews might be a little more barebones, as the Coffee Beanery's samplers are half the size of those sold by Bones. As a result, I only get one pot of coffee out of each. Maybe I'll exert some self-control and drink the coffee in smaller mugs, or maybe I'll think of some other way to keep things in line with the Bones Coffee and Signature Select reviews. Time will tell!

Right now, at this moment, the review that will launch the quest through the Beanery Realm is of a flavor that I was one-hundred percent certain I was going to love. (It could also lend itself to some off-color references, but I'm far classier than to engage in that sort of thing. Yup. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)

 

COFFEE BEANERY: MICHIGAN CHERRY

I love the taste of cherries. One of the do-it-myself flavored coffees I enjoy is mixing either a light- or medium-roast with sour cherry juice, a dash of Unsweetened Almond Milk, and some Stevia. It works best iced, but it's also pretty good hot or room temperature. 

When I opened the Michigan Cherry sample pack, I felt certain I was going to love the coffee that would be brewed from it; the grounds within gave off a fabulously delicious aroma of cherries. That wonderful smell hovered around the coffeemaker as it brewed, although it was not so strong so as to fill the kitchen nor be detectable down the hall in my office.

The cherry aroma remained strong as I poured to coffee into the cup, and it blended tastily with the medium-roast coffee flavor as I took the first couple sips of the coffee, black. By chance, I got distracted and did not get back to the coffee until it had cooled to room temperature. I tried it like this, and I found that it tasted almost like it had hot. Unlike some other flavored coffees, the Michigan Cherry blend did not shift significantly in flavor between hot and cool... the cherry flavor grew a bit stronger but that was it. 

When consumed with Unsweetened Almond Milk, the cherry flavor was enhanced while the coffee flavor retreated. This was even more true when I drank it with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer. Again, the flavors remained stable as the drink cooled, and it was a mellow and pleasurable drink throughout.

If you are drinking Coffee Beanery's Michigan Cherry for the cherry flavor, though, the best way to have it is cold and over ice. The cherry flavor is front and center whether you drink it black or with milk or creamer added.

The one thing that I LOVED about this blend, even more than drinking it, was the aroma. The smell of cherries rose from every cup--whether hot, room temperature, or iced--and it lingered even after the cup was empty. I can't explain how a drink with such a mellow flavor could have such a strong aroma, but I loved it.

When it comes time to replenish my coffee supply, I'll be getting a bag of Coffee Beanery's Michigan Cherry. I want to try this blend with Unsweetened Almond Milk or Unsweetened Chocolate Milk, or a mix of those;, I want to try it iced and with vodka; I want to try this blend mixed with a whole host of other flavors mixed in, and I think they'll all be great!

SHADES OF GRAY COFFEE FACTS #1:

Jackie Kennedy hated bad coffee with an almost psychotic intensity. Every time she drank a cup, her husband, President John F. Kennedy, prayed to God he wouldn't be called upon to nuke Brazil.

Coming Soon to PBS!

Witness a bold re-imagining of the immortal classic when the farmer's daughter, Sally, falls in love with Opie, a hunky man who is cursed to turn into a swan while the sun shines.

See Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" as you've never seen it before! Check your local listings for the date and time!

Mary and Jim are gonna marry! Nothing will stop them! Except...

They Would Elope (1909)
Starring: Mary Pickford, Billy Quirk, and James Kirkwood
Director: D.W. Griffith
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A young couple (Pickford and Quirk), convinced their families are opposed to their desire to get married, decide to elope. But Fate keeps trying to stop them.

I almost gave up on "They Would Elope" roughly one minute in, because it felt stagey even for an early silent movie. Not only that, it felt stagey in a bad way, with the actors performing on a stage that was far too small for the scene they were attempting. (Her parents walk in on the young lovers canoodling, but they don't notice them initially, despite standing right next to them and talking. And the young lovers don't notice the parents intially, despite the fact they are standing right next to them, talking. The scene is so badly done that I found it hard to believe that it was in a D.W. Griffith film.)  

I'm glad I kept watching, though, because moments later, an amusing twist was introduced into the story... and from that point forward the film went down a very deliberate, very silly path. Even as it grew more silly, it grew more charming. I went from almost turning the film off to eagerly wanting to see what would happen when the young lovers inevitably reunited with their families.

I think "They Would Elope" is the first comedy from D.W. Griffith I've seen. While it has its flaws, it's just as fast-paced as his dramatic short films, and I think modern audiences will be as entertained by it as they were in 1909. One thing I personally realized (or perhaps rediscovered after forgetting, because I feel like I should have known this already) is that filmmakers were making full-on satires of melodramas as far back as the early days of cinema. 

I am embedding "They Would Elope" via YouTube to make it easy for you to enjoy this fun movie. Feel free to leave a comment on this post if you think my estimation of it is off.