2B - Thursday, September 29, 2011

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

FOOD WARS
Each week, one Ann Arbor staple menu item becomes a
battlefield as Daily Arts editors butt heads over
which restaurant makes it best.
FALAFEL

COURTESYOFVERAYU AND DAVID LI

PITA PIT
615 East University Avenue
Service is fast, but prices are a bit steep.
Meat costs extra and this addition brings
the falafel to more than $8, while the veg-
etarian option plays around $6. The ingre-
dients lack pizzazz; they don't embrace
one another. The result is a pita of Philly
cheese steak, hummus and pickled vegeta-
bles that sit in your mouth but never blend
to make something greater.
OASIS
1106 South University Avenue
At Oasis, the falafel itself - the little
fried spheres of heaven incarnate - are
clearly cooked with a carefully seasoned
touch. While the wrap in totality could
use a little less tahini and a bit more fla-
vor, the crispy chickpea shells and the
crunchy pickles come together to bring
the dish to a new scrumptous textural
level.

PITA KABOB
619 East William Street
Pita Kabob knows what falafel is. It's fast
food - no matter how you slice it - and
here, they embrace it. Deep fried falafel
balls, lathered in the patron's choice of
excellent hummus or baba ghanouj (at no
extra charge, too!), and garnished with
pickled parsnips so that every bite is as
savory and flavorful as the last. And all this
deliciousness at only $4.89? Not bad at all.
LA MARSA
301 South State Street
La Marsa's falafel comes in a warm,
crispy pita with yogurt sauce, tomatoes, let-
tuce and pickles. The consistency is flawless
with the crunch of the pita, the crispy fried
goodness of the falafel and the fluffiness of
the delicious chickpea inside. There is also
a surprising cilantro-lime taste that coats
the falafel, giving it a zesty flavor. At first
bite, the tastes blend harmoniously.

B-Side Buzz
The Violin Monster
On Main Street near Parthenon
Why do you wear a wolf mask?
It was the best mask I saw when I went to the costume shop.
People seemed to like it.
Why do you think people like wearing creative things on their
heads?
To get in touch with their creative side. I think for a lot of people, it's
kind of repressed, but I think everybody has something to offer.
Are you single?
Yes.

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So your face isn't secretly hideous or anything?
I don't think so.
Excerpts are taken from the B-Side Buzz video,
which can be found on MichiganDaily.com.
Interview by Jeff Waroniok
TRAILER REVIEW

And the winner is: La Marsa
SINGLE REVIEW

It's no secret many who were
enraptured with Ryan Adams's
breakthrough record, Heart-
breaker, have
been waiting
for the former a
Whiskeytown Ashes & Fire
frontman to
mine its sound Ryan Adams
ever since. PAX-AM/Capitol
Shades of
Adams's brand
of plaintive mythmaking have
cropped up here and there on
songs like "Oh My Sweet Caroli-
na" and "Come Pick Me Up," but
he's shied away from the naked
Americana of his debut. Twelve
years and 12 albums later, it
seems Adams is finally ready to
dress it back down again.
The title track from the
upcoming Ashes & Fire shows
Adams playing every bit the
alt-country elder statesmen he's
become; a rollicking Appala-
chian waltzwinds beneath some

L
of his strongest and most tune-
ful vocals in years. Underpinned
by a whirring B3 organ from
Benmont Tench (Tom Petty &
The Heartbreakers) and some
scattershot piano string plucks,
"Ashes & Fire" typifies the kind
of heartbroken wisdom and

In 1987, Oliver Stone made
a movie where some Wall
Street guy with a fancy suit
made money
screwing **
people over.
Charlie Mrfl ai
Sheen was Roadside Attractions
in it. It won
an Oscar. And then Hollywood
stopped caring about "Wall
Street."
Then, the economy collapsed.
Suddenly, Wall Street was sexy
again. First came the BBC docu-
dramas. Then the liberal ram-
blings of Stone, back again for
another run at the trough. HBO
did their obligatory true-to-life
blow-by-blow. And now, on the
heels of superior competition,
we get "Margin Call."
It's "inspired by true events"
in the same way that "300" was,
which means almost none of
it actually happened. It's got
all the Wall Street stereotypes.

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unabashed sincerity that gave
Adams his career and, here, lets
him get away with lines like,
"Cool and silvery eyes / And a
heart that's fit for desire." The
difference these days, though, is
that he actually means it.
-MIKEKUNTZ,

down; busy "professionals" rush
through Manhattan, splitting
their time between strip clubs,
exclusive (not strip) clubs and,
on rare occasions, the office,
where its all "uh-oh, we're
screwed!" followed by politi-
cal shenanigans and unethical

ways to get not screwed. There's
something' about market cap
and other, complicated finan-
cial terms that may or may not
be properly.used. And that guy
from "Heroes." He has a pen in
his mouth.
-DAVID TAO

E

I

ASANTE
SANA
SQUASH
BANANA...
WRITE FOR,
DAILY FILM.
IT'S THE
CIRCLE OF
LIFE.
E-mail join.arts@
michigandaily.com.

TRAILER REVIEW

First off, let's begin with an
equivocation: The trailer for
"The Double" is not entirely a
waste of pre-
cious min-
utes of your*
life. There The Double
are some
strong per- ImageEntertainment
formances
here, not only from Richard
Gere ("Brooklyn's Finest"),
who shares the film's top line
with Topher Grace ("Preda-
tors"), but also from Martin
Sheen ("Apocalypse Now") and
Stephen Moyer (TV's "True
Blood"). The trailer's ground-
work hints at a taut, if by-the-
numbers thriller that in any
other context would probably
be suspenseful.
Gere plays a retired CIA
operative who spent his career
chasing a Soviet assassin code-
named Cassius. Grace is an FBI
agent investigating a murder
that features all of Cassius's
evil-Soviet-secret-agent trade-
marks. Naturally, they've got

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to work together to find Cas- on super thick with the whole
sius and neutralize him. "I WAS BETRAYED!" angle,
But then the trailer loses etc., etc., etc. Maybe there'll be
it, and starts defecating plot a twist where Gere isn't actu-
details like a dysentery-rid- ally a turncoat. Or maybe the
den traveler in a third-world director wants us to focus on
country. Halfway through, we the chase between Cassius and
learn that Gere's character was his former bosses. But sadly,
actually the assassin all along, there's no reason to spend $10
morphing into a crazy evil to find out.
maniac! Grace starts laying it -DAVID TAO

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