Tierra Unica is a destination blogsite focusing on world travel, entertainment, cuisine, news, popular culture, sports, business, technology, humor, and events from around the world with an emphasis on the USA and South America (Peru, Argentina, Brazil, etc).
"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend." ~ Bruce Lee.
Bruce Lee was the 1960 and early '70's global superstar icon, martial artist, Hollywood actor, movie producer, teacher, businessman, philosopher, husband, father, and founder of "Jeet Kune Do". From 1971 - 1973, Bruce Lee was the world's biggest celebrity and most famous person on Earth surpassing Brazil's Pele and the U.S.'s Muhammad Ali.
Cooking Up Dreams (Trailer) - Ollas y Sueños: This excellent documentary about the Peruvian Cuisine movement and the hottest food trend world-wide over the last few years was released last Fall in Lima, Peru. It will premierefor the first time in the U.S. this weekend in New
York, Chicago, Texas and Toronto. This movie is about the 500 years of cultural mixture or miscegenation (not fusion) of Peru with respect to it's rich gastronomical history, culture, migration, and it's various foods and cuisines within the country and abroad.
San Francisco Chronicle's SF Gatequote - "NO CON-FUSION HERE: "The very first place there was
fusion cuisine was Peru." -- Chef Patricio Gaston Herrera, relating
how New World and Old World cuisines melded nearly 500 years ago with
arrival of "invaders" -- the Spanish."
The premiere will take place on
Saturday April 17, 2010 at the Havana Film Festival in Manhattan, New York,
an important showcase for Latin American cinema. I've seen this
excellent film about Peru & Peruvian Cuisine. It is a must see!!!!
Details of Cooking Up Dreams (Trailer) - Ollas y Sueños:
Feature Documentary: "Cooking Up Dreams"
Original title: De Ollas y Sueños
Directed by: Ernesto Cabellos
Produced by: Televisión América Latina (TAL) and Guarango Association
Format: HDV 1080i60
Release date: August 2009 (Lima, Peru)
Images of Peruvian Cuisine and the international & domestic chefs in the documentary:
"Mesa de Chefs" (The Chefs Table)
Picture of Teresa Izquierdo (Afro-Criollo Peruvian Cuisine), Gaston Acurio (Haute-Peruvian Cuisine), and Hector Solis (traditional Criollo Peruvian Cuisine).
Bernardo Roca Rey - restaurateur, local newspaper owner, and one of the founders of the "Novo Andino" (New Andean) cuisine movement in Peru and abroad dating back to the early-1980s.
Peru is the birthplace of the potato. The Ancient Peruvians (pre-Inca civilizations) cultivated and domesticated the potato almost 10,000 years ago. Of the roughly 4,500 varieties of potatoeson Earth, 3,000 are indigenous to Peru.
Ernesto Cabello - Peruvian film director of Ollays y Sueños (Cooking Up Dreams)
Johnny Schuler - Pisco (Peruvian Brandy) ambassador, President of the Peruvian Pisco Association, TV personality, Pisco entrepreneur, and big investor of the U.S. Pisco market.
In Peru, there are hundreds of variety of "Choclo" (Peruvian corn).
The world famous "Choclo Blanco Gigante de Cuzco" (giant Peruvian white corn of Cusco). The delicious "Choclo Cusco" is the biggest corn in the world, they grow abundantly around the Valley of the Incas.
Top celebrity chefs leading the Peruvian Cuisine world conquest movement - Peru's Toshiro Konishi (Peruvian-Japanese Mixed Cuisine called "Nikkei"), Spain's Juan Mari Arzak (haute Spanish-Basque Cuisine), and Peru's Gaston Acurio.
Peru's Gaston Acurio- The #1 celebrity chef in all Latin America, owner of La Mar Cebicheria Peruana, Astrid y Gaston, & Tanta restaurant brand, TV personality, and leader of the Peruvian Cuisine movement world-wide.
Ferran Adria(haute Spanish Molecular Cuisine) - The #1 celebrity chef in the world, owner of Bulli (highest Michelin rated restaurant in the world), and now follower of Peru's Gaston Acurioand Pedro Miguel Schiaffino.
Pedro Miguel Schiaffino - Leader of Peru's haute Amazonian Cuisine movement, chef professor, and owner of Malabar in San Isidro, Peru (Food & Wine Magazine's 4th best bar in the world).
With the much anticipated 2010 Winter Olympics in British Colombia, Canada just a few weeks away. The eternal question pops up again but with a twist in last month's DVD release of docu-drama classic Downhill Racer. The film asks those of us with some talent and ability - "How fast must a man go to get from where he's at?"
The 1969 sports classic movie "Downhill Racer" starting a very young Robert Redfordtries to answer this pondering question that all of us with a crumb of talent and ability ask ourselves everyday. How much ambition to you have in you to take your talent and ability to the next level? Can you take it to the highest level in your chosen field or career? At what cost?
What if you get to the top and you find out you never really left from where you started?
What gets me about this classic sports/love movie is that Gene Hackman has hair!!!
According to Hollywood critics, Downhill Racer is the best sports movie ever produced with some of the most spectacular ski scenes ever filmed. It is not really a sports movie par se (Olympic downhill ski racing is just the setting), but more of a romantic drama told in documentary style in exotic ski locations like the Lauberhorn at Wengen, Switzerland and the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbuhel, Austria. Also included were Megeve, France and St. Anton, Austria.
25 year old former Swedish glamour beauty and actress of the 60's Camilla Sparv in 1965.
Here is what Image Entertainment wrote about the movie:
"Astonishing Alpine location photography and a young Robert Redford in one of his earliest starring roles are just two of the visual splendors of Michael Ritchie's visceral debut feature, DOWNHILL RACER. In a beautifully understated performance, Redford is David Chappellet, a ruthlessly ambitious skier competing with an underdog American team in Europe for Olympic gold, and Gene Hackman provides tough support as the coach who tries to temper the upstart's narcissistic drive for glory. With a subtle screenplay by acclaimed novelist James Salter, DOWNHILL RACER is a vivid character portrait buoyed by breathtakingly fast and furious imagery that brings the viewer directly into the mind of the competitor."
Very Short List wrote last month of the new DVD release of Downhill Racer:
"Just weeks after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
made Robert Redford into a megastar in 1969, the actor turned up in a
very different kind of picture—a documentary-style movie about a
fearless skier with an all-consuming desire for Olympic gold. Downhill Racer
(available from Criterion 11/17) shows Redford at his early best:
outrageously charming, naturally physical and unrelentingly sexy.
Much of Downhill Racer—which was directed by Michael Ritchie, who reteamed with Redford in 1972 for The Candidate—is
a sort of thrill ride: Cameras mounted to actual skiers provided
bird’s-eye footage of what it’s like to careen down slopes at what
looks like a million miles an hour. Sure, there’s a love interest, and
a rival or two, but the film focuses mostly on the development of one
great undisciplined athlete into a bona fide star. Plus, Redford’s
coach is played by a young Gene Hackman, who gives us a peek at the guy
we love so much in Hoosiers."
32 year old Robert Redford on location in the Swiss Alps for Downhill Racer in 1969.
A young 40 year old Gene Hackman with hair - Un joven de 40 años Gene Hackman con pelo!
Originally published by Ben Parr on November 24, 2009.
"In a few weeks, one of the most anticipated and expensive movies ever
made will debut on movie screens across the world: Avatar. The sci-fi
epic is making huge buzz for its unparalleled film-making technology,
its award-winning director (James Cameron), and its record-breaking
$230+ million budget.
As you might expect, the promotional campaign is in full swing. While
several trailers have hit the web, we hadn’t stumbled across any very
unique web campaigns. That is, until we discovered theOfficial Avatar Adobe AIR app/interactive trailer.
Billed as the “Official Avatar Interactive Trailer,” the AIR program
brings Avatar’s Pandora natives straight to your desktop. Not only does
it house all of the already-released Avatar trailers, but it includes
dozens of video shorts that go in-depth into the making of the movie
and the background of the main characters.
Screen shot of the Avatar Adobe AIR App.
Now for the interactive part: whenever you watch a trailer, special
“hotspots” will come up where you can learn more about the characters.
Even cooler though is the integration of Avatar’s Twitter, Flickr, and You Tube feeds. You can get all of the latest news right from the interactive trailer.
Honestly? We’re very impressed with Avatar’s app. It’s slick, easy
to use, and chock-full of content. If this doesn’t fulfill your need
for an Avatar fix, then nothing but the actual movie will."
Now If you can't install the Adobe AIR App on your desk top, well here is the old fashion embedded video trailer for your viewing pleasure.
Here is the creepiest and most unusual music scoring of the sci-fi classic - "The Day The Earth Stood Still" (1951). This is the opening of the film without dialogue, the score
included electric violin, electric bass, 2 theremins* (treble &
bass), test oscillators, vibraphone, 4 pianos, 4 harps &
approximately 30 brass instruments. Unusual overdubbing &
tape-reversal techniques were used as well.
The film music composer
of this score Bernard Herrmann (1911-75) is particularly known for the
scores of Alfred Hitchcock's films (such as Psycho), he also composed
notable scores for many other movies (such as Citizen Kane & Taxi
Driver), radio broadcast & TV programs. His music is typified by
frequent use of ostinati (short repeating patterns), novel
orchestration & an ability to portray character traits not
altogether obvious from other elements of the film. In the last years
of Herrmann's life he did much to create interest in film scores as a
form of music worthy of appreciation & performance.
Retouched a little from a vlogger in Eastern Europe (Russia?), here is that unforgettable final scene of the 1990 classic "Ghost" between Patrick Swayze and actress Demi Moore. Ghost is one of the most memorable movies of the last 20 years.
A few pictures of Patrick Swayze in "Ghost" (1990) opposite Demi Moore and co-staring Whoopi Goldberg. A couple shots of Swayze in 2008:
This video features a newly developed robotic cop patrolling the streets of Johannesburg, South Africa?
Well, not really.
This
is actually a specific corporate video created by Neill Blomkamp of The
Embassy Digital Effects Inc. for a fictional company named Tetra Vaal - shows a robot cop policing the streets of a Johannesburg township.
The
effects go beyond the extraordinary (even the robot’s relaxed-alert cop
posture is stunningly lifelike), and the combination of the
documentary-style footage and computer-generated images is convincing
enough that you might find yourself wondering if you were on vacation
during the announcement that robots are indeed now among us. A little
scary? Definitely. An amazing video? No question.
It is one of the best digital effects that I've seen in a long time.
Yup, the worst movie fight scene ever has to be the 1960's Star Trek classic episode when Captain Kirk fights theGorn. It maybe very bad, but it sure was intense! Yeah, Kirk was awesome alright....
