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Kamome Diner (2006)
a/k/a Rice Balls

Welcome to Helsinki, Finland, where a Japanese woman opens a cafe specializing in Japanese soul food, which mostly means rice balls. Problem is, zero customers come in, day after day.

More than the menu, this is about the mood, and everything’s always a smidgen off-kilter — things that make you say, “Huh.” It’s unique, but akin in spirit to the great Baghdad Cafe or I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, only less wackadoodle, which is actually a good thing.

No bad guy. No good guy. Minimal plot. Just a lot of rice balls, which are mild, but very satisfying.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Kimi (2021)

Kimi is a virtual assistant for the home, like Alexa or Siri, but what makes it better (we’re told) is that Kimi keeps track of interactions that error out, and they’re resolved later by actual human employees. No worries, the data has been randomized, so it’s totally anonymous.

An exec describes these human-powered corrections as “the fastest way for Kimi to get better fast, if that makes any sense.” Which it does, I guess, though I’m skeeved out by the listening, and the whole concept. Skeeving is the proper response, too, because this flick is a thriller.

Angela (Zoë Kravitz) is one of the voice stream interpreters, listening to those errored-out AI interactions. She works from home, and the job must pay very well, as her apartment seems to be an entire floor of a skyscraper. And then one night, in a twist you might see coming but I didn’t, Angela overhears a violent crime in the middle of one of these failed commands.

She reports it to management, but the company’s security department needs to meet with her and play the files, in person, at the office. And here’s the wild card — Angela is a survivor of assault, which has given her a phobia, exacerbated by the 2020 pandemic and lockdown. It’s traumatic for her to leave her apartment, double traumatic going into the office, and triple traumatic when she realizes that the company sees her, not the violence she’s overheard, as the problem.

The story and tech are solid, with a smart, tough woman driving the plot, and even a good guy who’s a fat dweeb! As for fears and phobias, it sure plays into mine — the movie was filmed in Seattle, with a key scene at a bus stop where I used to wait after work. And it’s quadruple traumatic, believe me, to watch a scene like that knowing what shops are off-camera and what buses are coming and remembering an argument years ago in the crosswalk…

Written by David Koepp (Apartment Zero, Jurassic Park), and directed by Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, The Limey).

Kimi is a fresh and nearly perfect slice of suspense. Except for Angela’s ginormous apartment, my only complaint is: How the heck had I never even heard of this movie?

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) was born to the wealthy, aristocratic D’Ascoyne family, but only technically. His mother had married a commoner, which got her disinherited, and left young Louis cut off from the uppercrust life he believes he deserves, so to set things right, he begins killing numerous D’Ascoynes.

This is a famous British black comedy, and all the murders are committed with good British manners. It’s droll, frequently funny, and perfection if you’re in the right kind of bad mood.

I first saw Kind Hearts and Coronets as a dialing-for-dollars movie on TV when I was a kid, and enjoyed all the killing, certainly, but key elements zoomed right past me when I was 7 — including the central brilliance of having Alec Guinness play all eight of the doomed D’Ascoynes.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Kindred (1987)

Rod Steiger gets last billing, big paycheck for the big star in a supporting role. Steiger did some good stuff, but at the end of his career “and Rod Steiger” at the end of the credits is the beginning of a bad movie. Like this one, for example.

Steiger looks like death himself, which is fitting, since he’s playing a mad scientist tinkering with death, but a thousand better films have tinkered better.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

The King and I (1956)

In 1862 Siam (Thailand), a schoolmarm is hired as teacher for the king’s children, of which there are many. Deborah Kerr plays the teacher, Yul Brynner is the king, and they both sing a lot. A few of the tunes are catchy — “Getting To Know You,” “Shall We Dance” — but others aren’t, and cripes this story is primitive.

His Royal Highness has no personality beyond being hyper-authoritarian, and Anna hasn’t much, beyond showing spunk enough to occasionally say no to the King, a word he’s never heard before.

A subplot concerns one of the King’s many wives, who’s having an affair that ends in tragedy, but it’s merely a plot device and is never mentioned again. I’m assuming the Siamese ballet and any other Thai culture bits are Hollywood horseshit.

Mostly, though, my problem with The King and I is the plot and premise, that kings and men should rightly rule, and women should promptly bow to both. It’s so provincial, it’s like 1862.

It’s a true story, sort of. Some British dame (Anna Leonowens) really did work as governess to Siamese King Mongkut’s many children, and wrote a book about it, which an American writer named Margaret Landon turned into a novel, which John Cromwell turned into a film, which Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II turned into a Broadway play, which Walter Lang turned into this movie, produced by Charles Brackett, with choreography by Jerome Robbins.

The names Rodgers, Hammerstein, Lang, Brackett, and Robbins should yield something special, and most agonizingly, the script is by Ernest Lehman (North by Northwest, Sabrina, West Side Story), but the whole shebang wavers between a yawn and an annoyance.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦

Love Your Neighbour (1952)
a/k/a Neighbours

This is a live-action stop-motion short subject, eight minutes of mayhem after two neighbors, buddies and best friends, quarrel over a lovely flower that unexpectedly sprouts on the lawn between their two houses.

Made by Canadian master animator Norman McLaren, this won the Oscar as Best Short Subject Documentary, despite being in no way a documentary. Also, based on any reading of the credits, the title of the film is Love Your Neighbour, not Neighbours, but it was Neighbours that won the Oscar and all the accolades, while IMDB doesn’t even list Love Your Neighbour as an alternate title.

These are quibbles, of course. What matters is, Love Your Neighbour is frickin’ brilliant, perhaps one of the best shorts ever made, silly, surreal, smart, and still savagely on point even all these years later.

Verdict: BIG YES.

Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer.
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No talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.

our 85th weekly open mike

Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.

6/20/2026

Anything goes

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Riding to and from my mom & sister’s house takes me to the Renton Transit Center twice daily, and I’ve been intrigued by a vegetarian restaurant across the street, named simply Blossom. So what the heck, a few days ago I stopped there for lunch.

The place is kinda big, with probably more than a hundred seats, but business was not brisk while I was there, about 2PM to 3PM on a weekday. Which is OK by me. I hate crowds. Three tables were occupied when I walked in, nobody else came in after me, and I was the last customer remaining when I left.

This is an injustice against the universe, because Blossom fed me a pretty dang good lunch. And it was vegan, not merely vegetarian.

I ordered Tofu with Assorted Vegetables ($17), described on the menu as “Tofu with bok choy, broccoli, carrot, celery, zucchini, baby corn, mushroom, snow peas, cauliflower. (Rice not included).” I chose it because I’m increasingly weary of tofu pretending to be meat. Even if the restaurant nails it and you’d swear it’s chicken, beef, prairie dog, whatever, meatlessness is the point of being vegetarian, so eating fake meat seems peculiar.

$17 is a reasonable price for lunch in the Trump hyperinflationary era, but it made me suspect portions would be smallish. Being a fat man who hates leaving a restaurant hungry, I added an appetizer, the Blossom Fresh Rolls ($9.50). “Assorted mushrooms, tofu, carrots, jicama, lettuce, basil wrapped in rice paper, served with either peanut sauce or lime vinaigrette.” I went with the vinaigrette, because it was marked as vegan, and the peanut sauce wasn’t.

It took ’em twenty minutes or so to prep my lunch, which gave me time to absorb the place’s atmosphere, and there’s plenty. With wooden tables, heavy wooden chairs, and plenty of Asian décor, including inside trees and bushes and ferns galore, artsy sunflowers, paper lanterns, a bamboo and rock garden in the corner, a friggin’ life-sized statue of some woman/goddess, and lots of art all over the walls, Blossom looks like a place where a meal would cost plenty more than $17.

On my table were three mid-sized silver cruets, each containing who knows what. I neither peeked nor poured.

The waitress was college-age, efficient, courteous, and authentically Asian, complete with an accent from across an ocean or two.

The only drawback was the recorded music, which was weird and got weirder the more I listened. Sitar-heavy pop, heavy on the woo, with oddly over-romantic lyrics sung in a whispered, new-age style. The singers alternated, breathless female and male voices. The arrangement and performance were so damned mellow, it could’ve been fluffy Christian light rock, but instead of lyrics about Jesus it was all about love, bordering on creepy. One of the songs was “I Am Obsessed with You,” but that seemed to be the theme of all of the songs, for the whole hour I was there.

Then the food came, and it was way better than the music.

First, the appetizer: there were supposed to be three rolls, but there were four, each the size of an erection bigger than mine’s ever been. Wrapped in lettuce and a thin layer of some stretchy, almost elastic material, the rolls were exquisite, whether dipped in the lime vinaigrette or eaten without.

Then, the main course: It came on a pretty big plate (rectangular!), jammed with food enough to fill me, so ordering the appetizer wasn’t necessary (but I don’t regret it). All the promised vegetables were there, seasoned and sauced very nicely. The tofu was mixed in like it was another vegetable, and tasted fine.

Despite the menu’s statement, “rice not included,” a large mound of brown rice was present. It was bland and rather dry, same as rice almost anywhere (I’m not a fan), but it became something seriously special when I poured the leftover lime vinaigrette over it.

This felt like a major discovery — boring old brown rice becomes actually, honestly scrumptious, just by drenching it in the lime vinaigrette. Suddenly, that rice was better than the tofu, at least as good as the (very good) vegetables, almost as good as the (fantabulous) Fresh Rolls, and definitely the big surprise of my meal. Best rice I’ve ever eaten.

When I return to Blossom Vegetarian Restaurant, I’m ordering the Fresh Rolls again, with the lime vinaigrette, which I won’t use at all except to pour over the brown rice.

A fork and chop sticks were both supplied, and the latter were real, not cheap balsa wood. I’m a fork guy, though, and never touched ’em.

No fortune cookie, which is my preference.

The restaurant asked for customer feedback on both the tab and the credit card form, so both times I scribbled the same thing — excellent food, very good waitress, reasonable prices, and could you please axe the awful music?

Blossom Vegetarian Restaurant
Food & drink: excellent
Price: reasonable
Service: excellent
Transit: #101, #105, #106, #107, #148, #153, #160, #240, #560, #566, #907, RapidRide #F
Verdict: BIG YES.

6/19/2026

Cheap Seattle

itsdougholland.com
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