Bulletproof "The Mentalist" Coffee: Do Not Bother

At the grocery store the other day, I saw Bulletproof "The Mentalist" Coffee on sale. So I picked it up. TL;DR: Do Not Bother.

The coffee touts itself as "especially free of mold and other contaminants," as if that were its primary selling point. That's not its primary selling point. It's primary selling point is that it's a medium-roast coffee that was extraordinarily slow-roasted.

This has two effects: first, it releases and preserves every last molecule of caffeine. High-temperature roasting tends to degrade the caffeine found in coffee beans. Americans have been taught to enjoy "dark roast" not because it's the most flavorful or the most caffeinated, but because it provides a uniform bitterness over the cheaper, soapy flavors that might be found in some cheap coffee beans. "Medium" roast coffee beans tend to have much more caffeine.

The slow-roast process is similar to sous-vide: hold the beans at a temperature that won't cause chemical degredation of the caffeine, but will also achieve the touted effect of guaranteeing that any living organic matter with the bean is also destroyed. Which is great, if that's what you want.

Second, coffee is not just bitterness and caffeine. Good coffees come with a host of oils, esters, and terpenes that strongly influence the flavor of the coffee. The long-roasting process used by Bulletproof boils these off and the result is a coffee that is simultaneously jitter-inducing even in the most caffeine-tolerant human beings, and yet also the most boring coffee yet invented. It's not "instant" coffee; that takes longer to out-gas and results in that flat, "brown" flavor that's endemic to brands like Folger's. It's just that there's nothing there to enjoy.

The nootropic "lifehacking" hacks often seem like joyless machines doing one thing: optimizing themeslves to manipulate the capitalist system. Bulletproof Coffee, especially a line named for a profession based on deceit, trickery, and sleight-of-hand, is perfect for them.

I, on the other hand, am going to toss this bag and go buy some Ethiopian or Columbian medium-roast from the local co-op.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters [movie, review] ★

Omaha and I recently watch Godzilla: King of the Monsters. We were disappointed. I'm a big fan of Godzilla (2014); I think it did a good job of introducing Godzilla and showcasing what Godzilla was all about. I was a little disappointed that Byran Cranston's role was cut short, but the overall objective of the film was well-satisfied by the content and the visuals. Screenwriter Max Borenstein did a masterful job of understanding what a Godzilla movie should be about.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters screenwriter and director Michael Dougherty is made of different stuff. His Godzilla is the campy latter-day monster which gave us such ridiculous lines as "Gamera is friend to all children!"

In the first film, we were introduced to a relatively small but well-funded group known as Operation Monarch, a joint US-Japanese program in the wake of World War 2 to understand this thing that had been awakened in the aftermath of the Bikini Atoll experiments, this creature known as Gojira. Monarch knows of only two: a dead one whose radioactive remains have been stored away, and Gojira. The film opens with a third one attacking the nuclear power plant where Bryan Cranston and his wife work, and set up an epic battle between it and Godzilla. The movie follows a cinematographically coherent and competent course as the beast leads Godzilla on a chase from Japan's eastern coast to Hawaii, Las Vegas and ultimately San Francisco for the final battle. The capabilities of the human beings are fairly mundane and ordinary; we have jets and airplanes and we even try to nuke the bastards. Godzilla 2014 was not a science-fiction film.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is an over-the-top Avengers wannabe. This is a science-fiction universe. Operation Monarch has super-bases hidden all around the world, they have their own military force, and to top it all off they have the USS Argo, which is basically a SHEILD Helicarrier. It's a ridiculous piece of kit that the movie should never have imagined.

Not only do our heroes have absurd tech (did I mention the underwater drones they use to chase Godzilla around are rated for 2000 meters, but they can also fly?), but it's proposed that Ghidora, the three-headed super-beast that rivals Godzilla for strength and toughness, isn't even a part of the Titan ecosystem, but an alien who crash-landed on Earth before the advent of humankind and who has been battling with Godzilla ever since for dominance over the planet.

To add insult to injury, Godzilla's nest is in the heart of the sunken city of Atlantis.

There is one deliberately funny line in the whole movie.

The camera work is fair-to-average in this movie. Zack Snyder, for all his faults and they are legendary, is a master at communicating highly kinetic action. Director Dougherty is not. He does an okay job; it's definitely not the visual mess of a late Michael Bay film, but it's not really that grabbing. Speaking of Michael Bay, this movie is very, very teal-and-orange, giving Transformers 2 a run for its money. The movie is almost entirely shade-of-teal until Rodan, a lava-based monster, shows up, at which point it vacillates between the two colors, almost without rhyme or reason.

At one point, while watching the movie, I said, "So, we're gonna steal the 'open the bay doors' scene from 2012, huh? And we're really gonna steal the 'save the surviving child' scene from San Andreas, huh? And now we've stolen the 'fall-from-orbit' scene from Pacific Rim, too!" It was that kind of film, a sort of stew made from other, fresher movies.

Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins are trying hard to reprise their roles, but they could clearly see the writing on the wall as neither of their characters makes it out of movie alive. Kyle Chandler was so obviously chosen because he comes across as Bryan Cranston Lite™ that it's a little sad to see him trying so hard. Aisha Hinds kicks ass as the Colonel in charge of the Argo, and Millie Brown does a very good job as a stressed-out teenager being torn apart by her parents' personal battles and the end of the world. Brad Whitford plays a hapless and somewhat useless scientist on board the Argo whose only job seems to be to say "What?" and give other people a chance to say, "Well, as you clearly may not have grasped, Bob..." It's a fine writing trick, but to heap it all on one dude is a bit unfair.

Godzilla was a good entry into the Godzilla pantheon. Godzilla: King of the Monsters should be allowed to sink beneath the waves, never to be heard from again.