A Little Film, A Little Food: DEMOLITION / New BBQ Menu at NICK’S IN OLD CITY

Jake Gyllenhaal Good and Crazy Again

I was looking at Jake Gyllenhaal’s body of work. Because it seems like he’s one of those actors you see all the time (since “Brokeback Mountain”), but then when I really looked at his recent movies “Accidental Love” “SouthPaw” “Prisoners” “Everest” “Nightcrawler” the only one I’ve seen is “Nightcrawlers”, which is excellent! His portrayal of that weird, desperate, narcissistic freelance news cameraman is chilling. Similarly in this movie, “Demolition”, you’re pulled in by Gyllenhaal, despite the character’s lack of feelings and erratic behavior.

You must destroy to rebuild or as German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche would claim, “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.” As evidenced by the photo below, Gyllenhaal is very much that dancing star.- Silver Screen Riot

Davis (Gyllenhaal) is a guy who has a top seat at an investment firm because the firm is run by his father-in-law (Chris Cooper) . He seems to be merely adequate at his job and as a husband. The movie opens with he and his wife (Heather Lind) in a car where’s she complaining about his inability to pay attention to her and things around the house and in the middle of their conversation the car is slammed by a truck and she dies at the hospital. Now Davis is left to figure out why he’s not more grief stricken. This process is assisted by Karen (Naomi Watts), the customer service rep at the Vending Machine company which receives all of Davis’ overly personal and philosophical complaint letters. And her androgynous son, Chris (Judah Lewis) who’s having a crisis of his own. But mainly it’s some words of wisdom from his father-in-law, taken out of context, which starts Davis on his path of demolition.

Demolition is directed by Jean-Marc Vallée who had two back to back critically acclaimed
movies  Dallas Buyers Club (click for T&T post) starring Matthew McConaughey, and
Wild (which I saw, and liked, but never wrote post) starring Reese Witherspoon. Unfortunately, Vallée is not being given the same kind of praise for Demolition written by Bryan Sipe. Instead, most critics seem to be in agreement that although Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance is excellent, the movie on the whole, is a little contrived & clichéd and they hate the ending. I hate that a number of critics gave away the ending.

Bottom line: I find it hard to believe Davis could bulldoze his house in an affluent neighborhood and not a soul calls the police. The scene with he and Chris in the woods with the gun is just irresponsible to even put out there, cause some kid’s gonna try it and accidentally kill someone.  But is the movie worth checking out? I’d say yes. I like movies which mix drama and black comedy and just because Davis befriends a young, troubled teen (Chris), doesn’t necessarily make it cliched. I found a number of original moments in the film, particularly as I’ve never seen any other character deal with grief by intentionally deconstructing everything in their life.

T & T’s LAMB (movie bloggers association) Score:2.5 outta 5

New BBQ Menu Launch at Nick’s in Old City 

Attended another fun foodie event in Old City Philly to announce the change in name and menu at formerly Nick’s Roast Beef (16 South 2nd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106) to Nick’s Bar & Grille 

Owner Joseph “Joey Dog” Schultice and fiancée Nicole Viechnicki now have a smoker which allowed them to create a new BBQ menu: Smoked Applewood Chicken Wings (rubbed, smoked and fried) St. Louis Rack of Ribs, Pulled Pork with jalapeno slaw, The Double Pig (ground bacon & ground pork burger topped with pulled pork, jalapeno and drizzled onions), Old-fashioned Baked beans, Mac-and-Cheese and more…

Nick’s long-time dishes, like the Ground Bacon Burger, Roast Beef and Pork, six flavors of chicken wings and other bar favorites will also remain on the menu.

We also got to try a new Nick’s Bar & Grille cocktail the Makers Slush made with Makers Mark, Ice Tea, fresh mint, and lemonade.  Along with a sampling of several summer beers, but other than the Shiner Ruby Redbird Grapefruit beer, which I discovered last summer and love, I didn’t capture any info on the other samples. Note to Beer Reps, if you want bloggers to write about your offerings, come with descriptive hand outs so we can refer back to the info when writing the post.

Below is a little slide show from the evening:

Note: Slideshow will not be visible to those receiving Tinsel & Tine via RSS Feed. Click HERE to view

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