My thoughts on the Beowulf movie.

So,. the other day, temima and I saw the Beowulf movie, in IMAX 3-D.

I'm sure most of you have seen Hal Duncan's review of the movie, and, the thing is, while I cannot find a single thing to disagree with him about, I somehow feel that I enjoyed the movie more than he did.

See, here's the thing: in the movie, everything that, in the poem, somebody else also saw, Beowulf does, more-or-less. Oh, there are changes: Wiglaf, far from being a young warrior in his first battle when he faces the dragon, is Beowulf's oldest friend and comrade-in-arms -- the very first time we see Beowulf, he and Wiglaf are talking. And the battle against the dragon is entirely different. When fighting Grendel, Beowulf manages to wrap a big ol' chain around the monster's arm, and get it around a post, giving him the leverage he needs to rip off the arm, but he DOES rip off the arm and it IS a superhuman feat of strength.

But, the things which nobody but Beowulf sees? Those may be entirely different . . .

Beowulf is always in the company of other warriors, except once -- when he goes in to fight Grendel's mother. So, who's to say that his account is accurate? And that whole bit of the movie is the bit which most people seem to hate most, but which, to me, works the best.

The movie uses the source material of Beowulf to tell a different story than the poem. The movie creates a story from which the poem could have possibly been created -- but it's not the same story. The idea is that the poem is the story that Beowulf is letting people believe -- but it's not, entirely, the true story.

And I find that kind of subversion a lot of fun.

My further adventures in pie

So, the pie I eventually made was the buttermilk pie zarhooie suggested, recipe here. Although I took zarhooie's suggestion of upping the heat a little and baking it until it was totally set rather than just barely set.

It was very, very good, and I fed it to my parents. (I went over to their house and brought quiche and buttermilk pie so that Mom and Dad wouldn't have to cook for the meal or two after Dad came back from the ER with his broken sternum.)

However, although it was very good, it was almost too sweet, and too plain. It tasted really good, but also like it really wanted to be a base for something else.

Lis said that what it really needed was a contrasting flavor -- something tart. Something like cranberries.

So I made another one, replacing some of the sugar with brown sugar, and filling the pie crust only halfway. And then I made a cranberry sauce, and, after the buttermilk pie cooled, I spread the cranberry sauce over the top of the pie in a second layer, and chilled it.

I rate the result a "B". And the only reason it's that low is because I chickened out. I added a bunch of apples into the cranberry sauce, as well (well, we HAD a bunch of apples that I had to use up), adding a fair bit of sweetness to the cranberry sauce. The final sauce didn't have the bite that Lis was hoping for, and it would have been better that way. It's still a tart cranberry sauce, but it should be tarter than it is. It doesn't have the really crisp contrast between the smoothness buttermilk custard and the bite of the cranberries.

But it's still damn good. (I made two pies, one to eat ahead of time to test it out, and one to bring on Thursday.)

I also made my chocolate pie, and the sweet potato crunch that I'm always required to make for Thanksgiving.