New Things* #3: Alamo Drafthouse

This one gets an asterisk because for this run at 500 New Things, I wiped the slate clean so everything is new. Alamo isn’t truly new as I’ve been there countless time but for the sake of this challenge, it counts.

I love the film selection at Alamo and the audiences are respectful. Some of the food options have dipped since the company was sold to Sony. I don’t love the new ordering via phone but it’s not as bad as I initially feared. The DTLA Alamo is at The Bloc, which is now up for sale and could become a residential high rise in the near future so I’m nervous that we might not have The Alamo for much longer. With a 14 screen Alamo Hollywood coming in early 2028, I wouldn’t be completely stunned if the DTLA location shut down. Fingers crossed that it stays around but, honestly, the Regal LA Live isn’t terrible and it’s a quick train ride to Pasadena for some of the smaller indie films.

Recxpectations: Clayface

Recxpectations are my recommended expectation that people should have when they go into a movie. My latest trip to the theater was for “Clayface” (New Thing #2), the DC movie about the shapeshifting Batman villain.

EXPECT: A LIVE ACTION DC ANIMATED MOVIE
For years, people have been hyping up DC’s animated slate of films and TV shows. In fact, writer/producer Mike Flanagan said he was inspired by Batman; The Animated Series, I’ve tried to watch these shows and I’ve never been drawn in. They are pretty formulaic and bare bones and just not very interesting to me. “Clayface” seems to follow this approach. This is not a film that swings for the fences. They aren’t trying anything new or innovative here, they are simply giving you a straightforward origin story. And, honestly, given what a mess Sony has made of the Spidey spin-offs, that’s not the worst idea. “Clayface” works. It’s a animated show turned into a body horror movie. I can’t imagine it will be anyone’s favorite superhero-related movie* but, at the same time, I feel like only people expecting the next Dark Knight will hate it. It’s a perfectly fine film.
* I could see people saying it’s one of the best recent superhero films but I think that says more about the recent superhero films than it does Clayface.

DON’T EXPECT; A GREAT FINAL ACT
One thing that “Clayface” couldn’t fix was the superhero movie issue of having lackluster final acts. “Clayface” doesn’t become the usual CG1 fest like most Marvel movies but it’s a fairly forgettable, length action scene that doesn’t the bare minimum with a shapeshifting character. The most memorable section might be a bizarre dance moment that made me wonder if the film was devolving into camp.

EXPECT: MOSTLY FORGETTABLE CASTING
I’m a fan of Naomie Ackie and think she did well. Tom Rhys Harries did a good job with what he had to work with but didn’t really elevate any moments IMO. Beyond them, the characters kind of felt lackluster. David Dencik didn’t have a ton to do as the main baddie but he also added nothing to the character. Max Minghella does not give Gotham Homicide Detective to me and nothing about his performance really changed my mind on that. The henchman are immediately forgettable.

DON’T EXPECT: CAMEOS
I’m sure there are some Easter eggs that I missed since I’m not a comic book reader but this isn’t a film that throws in any cameos from other DC heroes. There also isn’t a post-credit sequence.

EXPECT: DCU NOT THE BATMAN U
While this is a darker film than Superman or Supergirl, this film feels more in line with those films’ DC Universe (where it is intended to take place) than the universe of The Batman movie and Penguin show. Personally, I felt like Lanterns felt more at home in The Batman universe. This almost feels like a standalone film. It doesn’t really introduce us to Gotham that much. As noted, there aren’t any cameos that I noticed that give a nod to the upcoming Batman

New Word Coinage - lAIzy

Laizy - pronounce Lay-EYE-zee - is the word we should use for AI slop that is just painfully lazy and without any quality control at all. A perfect example popped up on Amazon’s NBA broadcast last night. They have a new feature that is in BETA testing - which again, seems to have come to mean there will be no quality control - called Insights, that you’d think could be a cool deep dive of stats or callbacks that have related the game one is watching. The first “insight” for the Warriors/Grizzlies game was:

It was the third day of the season, people! The Grizz and Dubs literally hadn’t even finished two games in the season when this was posted. Making matters worse, there were only five insights for the game so it’s not like it would have been very hard for anyone to fact check these. Instead of fact checking and having one iota of quality control, Amazon Prime just threw a disclaimer on the bottom. WHAT IS THE POINT OF AN INSIGHT IF IT MIGHT BE WRONG?!

AI is an extremely useful tool but it is just maddening how corporations are rushing it out into the world before it is ready.

New Thing #1: Lucky's DTLA

To kick off 500 New Things for my 50th, I decided to try out the new steakhouse in DTLA - Lucky’s. Lucky’s is a bit of a chain with six locations and it was… fine.

I got the New York Strip with peppercorn sauce, which was a bit of a surprise because I ordered the NY Strip w/ Rocquefort which was one of Lucky’s “Special” steaks. The steak was fine. Nothing interesting about it. The peppercorn sauce was equally OK. The mashed potatoes were solid but nothing all that memorable. It’ll be interesting to see how long Lucky’s survives since it’s in a not-so-great area of DTLA. There are a few restaurants in the vicinity but I just don’t know if an semi-upscale steakhouse is really the best option for that area. It really needs to be a destination and, for me, Lucky’s is not that. I might go back to try out the Romanian steak - I overheard a waiter recommending it to the couple next to me - but odds are I probably won’t. Not with 499 new things still needing to be done!

As a reminder, The 500 New Things Challenge is something I do to get my butt out of the house and get me to be active. I need to try 500 new restaurants, shows, events, films, etc. In honor of me turning 50, though, I’m wiping my slate clean so everything is new! This will make the 500 a lot easier to get to but also, with so many places struggling nowadays, it lets me visit my favorite haunts at least once. The thing with LA is that there are so many options that you often can love a place and then never make it back. With the clean slate, there’s an added drive to revisit spots like Amigo Amore, a restaurant I really enjoyed but just never made time for a return trip.

The Launch of Old Man Mendo

Well, I hit 50 years old today so it seems like a good time for a fresh start. I have a lot that I want to do so I need to just admit from the jump that the blog isn’t going to be my top priority but I’m going to try to keep with it this time around. Yes, I’ve tried keeping up with a blog at least once or twice a year for the last three decades but, again, this is a fresh start and rule #1 for Old Man Mendo is stay committed and get things done. No more procrastination.

On the fresh start front, I’m also going to re-relaunch my 500 New Things Challenge but with a clean slate so everything is new! I also want to rework my Menu de Mendo (my favorite dishes in LA) and The Lists (Lists of my favorite spots, events, etc.) The end of 2026 is also going to be a chance to put to bed the scripts I’ve been toying with for the last couple decades so I can start 2027 working on new ideas. I also should just put some projects to bed as I’ll never get to them. Another blog post I want to do.. no, that I’m GOING to do is TIGS - Things I Gotta Stop. My initial TIGS is going to be a habit I broke once but have fallen back into - I Gotta Stop… drinking soda before noon.

Anyway, it’s a new decade of Mendo. Old Man Mendo doesn’t mean that I’m just going to sit around being decrepit - because I pretty much did that in my 40s - but it’ll be about making the most of the home stretch of my life. Maybe not the home stretch per se but the waning years of vitality. I think back to my aunt talking about how she went to Greece recently and she wished that she had gone earlier in her life because there were a bunch of things she couldn’t do because the walks were too hard or it was just too difficult for her to access at her age.