I knew this movie would be fairly brainless, but that’s okay, I often enjoy that stuff. Also, I love Scarlett Johansson, so I was willing to be quite forgiving. But this was painful to watch. Bad.

If I were to go vegan again, I’d rather not eat cheese than have to eat soy cheese. It was chalky …

I think that I would have liked it better if my expectations weren’t so high, but it was nevertheless a fulfilling story.

Just … wow …

I think it will take a few days before I can figure out where to start talking about this masterpiece. But I’ll say now that I’ve never had such a wonderful post-film conversation as the one I had with my friends after watching it.

And on a completely superficial note, the transition between a hardcore sex scene and a group of ducks is officially my all-time favourite cinematic transition. Hahaha.

I freakin’ love this movie. So hilariously bad, it’s kind of adorable. Perfect rainy day movie.

It may not engage everyone as much as it did me, as not a lot happens, but I empathised strongly with the young Coetzee/narrator (it’s semi-autobiographical.) There were quite a few moments where his sentiments really affected me, especially his musings on an inability to connect to others. I’m looking forward to reading some of his better known works now.

I say ‘Worth it!’ just for the relationship between the characters played by Lily Tomlin and Tom Waits. Otherwise, I was maybe leaning towards ‘Wishy Washy,’ just because I’m not a big enough follower of anyone in the ensemble cast for that to be a significant drawcard. All in all, an engaging film. Better than average.

When at my middle school’s cafeteria in France, I would turn my nose at Port Salut, thinking, “I could just as easily eat something like this in Australia.” Since this is probably the last time I would ever be at a school with a selection of fine cheeses in its cafeteria (lunch was pretty much the highlight of my school day for that reason alone), I used to always opt for camembert or something with blue veins.

But I bought some at a Sydney Woolworths yesterday, and it did not disappoint. Perfect cheese to nibble on when you want your tastebuds to be satiated, not challenged. I.e. When you just want CHEESE.

I’ve had felafel wraps at two different kebab outlets (one at the St Kilda festival, one in the Sydney CBD), and been sorely disappointed. Even with plenty of sweet chilli/garlic sauce, I found them too dry and plain to enjoy or even finish. I want to like them though! So many people seem to be obsessed with them, so I must be missing something.

The one exception is Sumo Salad felafels! Yum! I work there, and we make them the size of rumballs then put them on the grill with olive oil. At that size, they’re more digestible and golden brown, kind of like felafel ‘nuggets’. We serve them either in wraps with hommus, tabouleh, roasted capsicum and sweet chilli, or in a salad with pumpkin mint cous cous, Spanish onion, rocket, roasted capsicum, and covered in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. So good!

Hot dogs are probably the least difficult product to soyify as the traditional ones don’t really taste of any particular meat. The just have that unmistakeable hot dog flavour. Sanitarium (Australia) does great ones. I was never even that keen on meat hot dogs, but I actually really like these, because they have the flavour without the unhealthy aftertaste and dodgy texture. So yeah, you should try them even if you aren’t vegetarian!