Fishbones

Located at 2119 Walker Ave. in Greensboro, Fishbones specializes in fish and seafood dishes. Burgers, salads, and tacos are also available. Fishbones offers a full-service bar, a late-night menu, chalkboard specials, and outdoor seating.

If the intersection of Walker and Elam is a wheel of dining and drinks, then Fishbones is an oft-neglected spoke. It may not boast of quite the same recognition as Sticks n Stones or the Lindley Filling Station, but on food quality alone, it can hang comfortably with, if not outshine, its neighbors.

For a restaurant with “fish” in the name, Fishbones offers a surprising amount of diversity. Thai beef salad, adobo pork tenderloin, Tex-Mex turkey, and a fried bologna sandwich are among the non-piscine menu options. And while a number of these looked tempting, you can’t go wrong by sticking with the ocean’s bounty. The crab soup, a house specialty, was rich and disarmingly spicy (I had expected a smoother, bisque-like soup, but this version is enjoyable in its own right). A snapper on blackboard special tasted fresh, and it was well-paired with fried green tomatoes and a bed of sweet potatoes and greens. My companion’s fried Cajun catfish was light and flaky, and her sides well exceeded expectations. The blackened green beans were smoky and irresistible, the rice and beans were hearty, and the garlic spinach provided a potent kick.

Pricing is quite reasonable for the quality of the food. My companion’s $12.50 catfish was generously portioned and plated; my slightly more expensive snapper somewhat less so. Still, nothing here breaks the bank. Even salmon and tuna entrees top out at $13, and there are plenty of sub-$10 options.

Were this the extent of the Fishbones experience, one could eat here and leave as happy as a clam. However, there is also the ambience to contend with. In terms of décor, Fishbones is essentially an aging bar superficially dressed up with metal fish sculptures. While some find quaint comfort in the well-worn wood floors, there is little of the same to be found in the high stools and closely spaced two-seat tables. Should you opt for outdoor eating, you will have more space but also plenty of traffic (foot and vehicle) to offset it. The servers are generally efficient, but as Fishbones fills up easily, expect slowdowns when busy.

Just like with the other spokes on the dining wheel, the popularity of the Walker-Elam location is both a blessing and a curse. You can expect a lively atmosphere well-suited for a good time among friends, but you can also expect crowding and waits. In Fishbones’ case, you can also expect uncomfortable seating and food that will be good enough to ultimately make it worth your while.

7.75/10 

Now You See Me

Four magicians – illusionist J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), his ex-girlfriend escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fischer), mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), and sleight-of-hand expert Jack Wilder (Daniel Franco) are hired by an unknown party to pull off a complex scheme. Calling themselves the Four Horsemen, they create a highly popular act, which just so happens to coincide with a series of seemingly impossible high-profile robberies. This attracts the attention of magic debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), and Interpol agent Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent). As the Horsemen’s act becomes more and more audacious and the investigators more and more determined to take them down, questions arise regarding what they are really after.

Caper films are nothing new, but Now You See Me comes across as a refreshingly original creation: an action-comedy-mystery….with MAGIC! Admittedly, a concoction that convoluted sounds like a recipe for failure. And yet because it balances those elements and changes gears quite fluidly, Now You See Me is more often than not a success.

Just as the Horsemen’s act is a team effort, so too are this film’s triumphs. Boaz Yakin’s script is fresh and funny. It drops hints and lays the seeds for numerous twists and turns without ever giving too much away. The lines are engagingly delivered by a seasoned cast. There are no slackers here, but Freeman’s jaded skeptic and Harrelson’s shameless horndog characters stand out. Louis Leterrier, primarily an action director, keeps the film moving. At no point does the film’s momentum grind to a halt.

Where Now You See Me suffers is in its conclusion. The contrived wrap-up resolves some lingering plot questions, but its reveal casts much of the film in a preposterous light. Too many by-chance happenings are passed off as the machinations of a master planner, and the blatant sequel hook is an insult to audiences.

To borrow from the magicians’ lingua franca, Now You See Me offers an intriguing setup and a fun performance but botches the prestige.

7.5/10

The Moose Cafe

Located at 2914 Sandy Ridge Road inside the Piedmont-Triad Farmer’s Market in Colfax, The Moose Café is a “farm to table” restaurant specializing in country cooking. The restaurant is open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There is a country store on-premises, and a sister location can be found in Asheville.

At first glance, The Moose Café looks like a less corporate Cracker Barrel. The menu screams “country” and you walk by the store upon entry. However, there is much more to this establishment than meets the eye.

For starters, the variety is astounding. We arrived between breakfast and lunch and perused one of each menu, each of which came with an insert for specials. On the breakfast side, you’ll find everything from hearty combination plates (eggs, pancakes, grits, meat, etc.) to omelets and skillets. The lunch selections read like management mugged a Southern grandmother. Chicken and biscuits, pulled pork, fried chicken, collards, and slaw are all accounted for here. No matter what you opt for, you’ll be able to enjoy it with complimentary biscuits and apple butter, both of which taste fresh, homemade, and delicious.

Whatever you pick, you will likely receive lots of it. Portion sizes are plentiful, and the pricing is unbeatable. The lunch plates typically range from $7-$8 and include two sides and cornbread. Each plate easily yields two meals’ worth of food, which may make you feel bad the next time you drop $8 on a sandwich.

The execution here is mostly spot-on. Though “homemade” is often an empty buzzword, the farmer’s market location adds credence to the concept, and several items can be sourced to specific local farms. Plus, your taste buds will do their own convincing. The pulled pork had a pleasantly surprising sweetness, the sweet potato casserole (made from roasted potatoes) was smoky and melt-in-your-mouth good, and the fried green tomatoes were simply but enjoyable. Even the few missteps are forgivable. An oily succotash redeemed itself by packing an unexpected kick and creamy-but-bland cheese grits were nothing some pepper couldn’t fix. The sweet tea, served in glass jars, was the genuine article.

Given the busyness of the farmer’s market when we arrived, service was impressively quick. We were seated with zero wait time, and our food came out earlier than expected. Despite the high volume of patrons, both our hostess and our server were friendly to a fault. The one slip-up – my companion received non-sweet instead of sweet tea – was quickly and apologetically corrected.

Country cooking, perhaps understandably, gets a bad rap, but The Moose Café can make a believer out of you. If you’re at the farmer’s market, it’s a must-stop, and if you aren’t, it’s well worth the drive. What you spend on gas, you’ll save on the leftovers you’ll inevitably have, and your stomach will thank you for it.

8.5/10

Oblivion

In 2017, a group of alien invaders called Scavengers attack Earth. Humanity prevails, but the resulting war makes the planet’s surface uninhabitable. The majority of the survivors have migrated to the space station Tet while a few remain stationed in sky towers to service energy harvesting drones. Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one such drone technician. Though he has taken his coworker Vika (Andrea Riseborough) as a lover, he is haunted by trace memories of a woman (Olga Kurylenko) from his past. When Jack witnesses the drones behaving erratically, he begins to realize that there is more to his world than he knows.

Oblivion is the brainchild of Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski, and it owes more than a passing debt to his previous film. The nifty “bubble ship” helicopter that Jack pilots is more than a little reminiscent of a light cycle, especially during the film’s chase and combat scenes. Were that the extent of the homage, there would be no qualms raised. Unfortunately, Oblivion has nary an original idea to offer, borrowing shamelessly from everything from Portal to The Matrix to Independence Day. The resulting patchwork plot is as contrived as it is unoriginal.

Though the cast features some big names, they do not exactly elevate the material. Action veteran Cruise does the requisite running and jumping and bleeding and yelling, yet as a protagonist, Jack is merely adequate and not particularly memorable. An enigmatic, poetry-reciting, gun-toting Morgan Freeman is in good form; unfortunately, his screen time is minimal. Kurylenko and Riseborough at least try to give their characters emotional depth, but the roles are thinly drawn and often illogical. Melissa Leo, sporting an unnerving Texas twang, fares the best as Jack and Vika’s mission control.

Disappointing as it may be, Oblivion is rescued from abject failure by quality aesthetics. At times, it’s a breathtakingly beautiful film, and it offers great visual contrasts: the placid sky, the ruined Earth, the white-clad survivors, and the black-armored Scavengers. French electronic band M83, like compatriots Daft Punk before them, delivers an appropriately epic soundtrack.

On a visual level, Oblivion offers enough to sights and sounds to justify its two-hour existence, but its cliché-ridden story will inevitably remind you that you can spend those two hours watching better films.

6.75/10