This past Wednesday we went to see Runaway Jury. We were hesitant to see it because of the trashing it took in the local paper. We were very pleasently surprised. It is not like the book for those of you who are Grisham fans. The story is well told. For gun enthusiasts it is a bit on the wrong side of your fence and is a bit preachy against your position. Gene Hackman as villan was excellent. I especially liked the ending scenes and how he is portrayed. I thought the story was pretty tightly wound, but Kathy got a bit bored in the middle. It is a movie that deals with justice and revenge and does so in a creative way. There are some good future sermon illustrations hiding in this story. Kathy said that it was a movie she wouldn't mind buying when it comes out which is high praise indeed coming from her.
The Hugen family is trying to do the Atkins thing, so after the movie we went to Iron Grill on the northeast corner of Tanque Verde and Sabino Canyon. This is a restaurant where the raw foods are in containers and you place the raw ingrediants in a bowl, mix and match your sauce preferences, and hand it to a young man who throws it on a large iron grill. After cooking he sweeps it all into a clean bowl and i is brought to your table. It is served with rice and either egg drop or hot and sour soup. Because of our diet, we avoided the heavy sauces and went with soy sauce, a hint of ginger water, a touch of garlic sauce and lots of sesame oil. I added a bunch of red chili, but Kathy doesn't like it that hot. We bypassed the rice and only tasted the hot and sour soup. Someone had made the soup a bit to vinegary and it wasn't as good as before. Kathy said the iced tea (China Mist) was excellent. Good tea and clean bathrooms so she was fairly happy. The meal cost $17.75 for the two of us. If you arrive before five you can get a 'one trip' option. After five it is 'all you can eat' which means you can keep going back until even Mr. Atkins would roll over in his grave. The great thing about Iron Grill is that you can get all meat (chicken, beef, pork) or all vegetarian (carrots, celery, water chestnuts, onion, mushroom, etc). Or you can pick any spot between the extremes. It is a great place for Atkins adherents.
On a scale of five stars, we would give the restaurant four stars for ambiance, three stars for food, and four stars for service (even though it is somewhat self-serve, eager people keep your glass filled and pick up the mess).
Runaway Jury gets four and one half stars from Kathy and four from me.
Rod |