Movie and a Dinner

Jurassic World

directed by Colin Trevorrow
starring computer-generated dinosaurs and some actual people

In the original movie of this franchise, there were two moments when the computer-generated dinosaurs genuinely seemed utterly, terribly, frighteningly real: the kitchen scene when two pre-teen children are hiding from velociraptors among the cabinets; and the moment soon after when one launches itself up through a grate in the ceiling. Those two moments scared me as much as any movie moments, and are the main reason why, having seen them once or twice, I don't care to see them again. Yet I also remember the sense of magic I felt the first time the dinosaurs took the screen, and when the stars of that first movie found themselves in a stampede of critters, hiding under a log. It was truly, truly amazing stuff.

Fast forward twenty years and change. The amusement park for the first movie has been reborn as Jurassic World, a successful destination for a prosperous fun-seeking world. But success isn't good enough for the corporation that owns the project: it must always grow and expand and attract more and more visitors and more and more dollars. Okay, we get it: greed and shareholders are the root of evil.

Yada, yada, yada. The plot here is a formulaic rehash of every decent movie. Just sit back and watch. It's a technical achievement, not art. It contains the usual mash-up of dime-store philosophy and blatant obviation deemed necessary by Hollywood types who feel unable to let viewers' imaginations fill in facts. Cardboard people do things for simplistic reasons, or for no reasons. Jurassic World is an ironic attempt by those who own the movie to grow and expand and attract more and more dollars. Nothing more.

It has no moments of shock and surprise like the first Jurassic movie. The dinosaurs look, at best, as good as they did two decades ago; not always, though. Their motions seem more obviously computer-generated, the lines of sight don't always coincide precisely, and the creatures don't always know about the laws of physics. The plot lines advance in predictable ways through a story held together by peanut butter and chewing gum. As entertainment, it's good for a matinee, which is where I saw it.

Afterwards, we headed back down to my neck of the woods for a visit to
Attagirl
726 East Mistletoe

(at Kings' Court, just off the St Mary's Strip) 

I had noticed this place when I went to the restaurant next door for dinner a few months back, and was reminded of it by a laudatory review in the local weekly throw-away rag. The friend I was with is known to be a big, big fan of fried chicken, and that is this restaurant's specialty. Seemed a natural choice.

In actual fact, Attagirl isn't really a restaurant; it calls itself an Ice House, which people who've been around San Antonio for a while know means a place where you can get a beer and maybe something to eat. An apropos description.

The main feature of the place is its comfortable ambience. It's in a modest hundred-year-old building, just two rooms with a patio facing the side street, and no parking of its own. Luckily for the neighbourhood, Attagirl is small enough that it's unlikely to add much to the density of cars already blocking driveways and knocking around trash bins. We found a place half a block up Kings' Court, at 8:00 on a Thursday evening.

There are a couple of tables inside, and a couple more on the patio, but mainly the layout is geared more to the casual: benches along the patio walls, counters with barstools along the inside walls. Very Depression-era. Half the interior space is taken up with the bar and kitchen, including a large cooler for bottled beer, and taps for the dozen or so craft beers offered.

What's that mean?
Last city inspection: June 18, 2015
0 demerits

I chose an overpriced local brew billed as "kölsch." It wasn't really kölsch, which even I know is impossible, but it was vaguely kölschish, and drinkable. To go with this I ordered the chicken and waffles, a "traditional" southern dish that is relatively new to my southern-boy awareness. My friend Roland thinks it's a black thing, and he may be right; although he said he never had chicken and waffles growing up: they always had pancakes. Well, close enough, I suppose. Anyway, I'm pretty sure none of the black folk growing up in Dixie and beyond had Belgian waffles with their chicken. Not sure it makes a difference to any but a purist, and when it comes to chicken and waffles, that ain't me.

My meal consisted of three larger-than-natural chicken wings, well battered and deep-fried. There was a touch of honey to them, which gave them a pleasing resonance with the dollop of maple syrup on the (Belgian) waffle. The waffle was smallish, sufficient for its purpose and not the overlarge sort we Americans seem to have come to expect. It was large enough for any Goldilocks. It was, though, a bit overcooked, and consequently slightly too dry to really please. 

My friend Roland had a different type of batter on his chicken, which I didn't try; he did, however, give me a taste of the potato salad he had ordered, and which we had overheard another customer raving about. She, I think, has low standards. This was just plain ol' potato salad, dryer than one gets at HEB but similarly seasoned. In the kingdom of potato salads, this version can be found hiding behind the throne while mayonnaise is passed out.  It fails to live up to its $4 price tag.