reviews
Short Notes on: Bad Education * Finding Neverland * Garden State
* Hero * Hotel Rwanda * I ♥ Huckabees * The Incredibles * Kinsey *
Maria Full of Grace * Sideways * Ray *I have no time these days for full length reviews. But as a volunteer opinion-maker I feel the need to say something, anything, about the films I see. Without further ado...
Welcome to Thanksgiving Dinner @ the Film Experience. This meal has been especially prepared by your usual host Nathaniel R (in consultation with a guest chef)
Thanksgiving Potluck |
Where to begin? Everything looks so delicious. The variety on offer leaves one speechless, though the unmoving lips may feel the dart of the tongue --mouths are sure to be watering. The table is filled to overflowing with traditional Thanksgiving dishes. There's barely room for the guests. To make do, we'll be eating in two hour shifts. This way everyone can attend the feast. If you haven't yet surmised, the table of which we speak is the movie theater. And the dishes provided for your gluttonous indulgence are the films of the holiday season. Dig in...
If you've a sweet tooth, you can start with the candied yams (Garden State). OK, so the chef made that one long ago. Some say it was made in the 70s under a different name. But don't believe it. It's merely a few months old. The chef responsible, Zach Braff (the lead actor from TV's under appreciated sitcom, Scrubs), is merely taking his cues from that time period. His dish premiered earlier this year. Now, essentially the yam is a vegetable. Garden State wants to believe it's healthy for you, too, tricked up as it is with potent cinematography and sincere psychological profiling. But this yam has been unnaturally sweetened. Some chefs roast them in brown sugar. Braff roasted his with oddball comedy and the gooey sweetness of Natalie Portman. She's the most memorable thing about his concoction. She takes an impossible role and somehow makes it work. Now, candied yams have their fans but it's odd that something that thinks it's a profound vegetable is actually a too-sweet dessert. If you haven't got a sweet tooth, you need to skip this dish altogether! Trust me. Braff's final brushstroke (the ending) is a marshmallow topping. If you like that sort of thing you might be able to digest it, but those with a more sensitive palate may find that it kills any flavor that remained from the original ingredients. Braff's candied yams are such a self-consciously weird thing. A vegetable turned into a desert that is an appetizer. What is it? Should it ever have been? (C+)
Maybe you'd be better off with the jello salad (Hero)!? This old school dish, rather like the wuxia genre, has remained popular against all odds. Even if it's not something you'd normally reach across the table for, it can be a delight at the right time and place. I think you'll agree that this qualifies as a special occasion. If you've had too much bland American cuisine this year, this cold fruity and altogether elaborate concoction may be just the palate cleanser you need. You can tell that this particular salad took forever to make. Zhang Yimou applied so many layers. Narratively, metaphorically, politically, he just piled one colored layer on top of another. And he used only the best ingredients in this painstaking process. It's hard to go wrong with Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love), who are the delight of many a cineaste's taste buds.
Jello salad is awfully flexible as a food you must admit. Now, a word of caution. In the wrong hands this dish's assorted ingredients: fruits, nuts, even cheese (!) can make for a wobbly mix of unappealing odds and ends. Yet, in the hands of a master like Zhang Yimou, the clashing mix of ingredients serve as complimentary embellishments. The word is that he stole this one from Kurosawa's masterful Rashomon cookbook. But I say only the best modern chefs know how to update original recipes. Every layer Yimou uses is a new color. Every color is a new act. Every act has a new flavor. There are so many flavors here that you may not even be sure of what you ate after you've swallowed your last bite. I certainly wasn't but I cherished it all the same. (B+)
Have you had too much dessert?
Try the green bean casserole (Hotel Rwanda). Theoretically, at least, it's good for you. Green vegetables are the best for your health. This casserole is the obligatory concession to a balanced meal. Serious true-life stories of war and the triumph of the human spirit are required for a well balanced holiday film festival and a required course during awards season. Most of the offerings this time of year are just striving to entertain you --they only want to taste great. But you and I and the chef involved, director Terry George, know that you also have to feed the soul. And feed the soul this casserole does.
Unfortunately the healthy aspects of this particular vegetable creation are counteracted, by that velvety mushroom cream sauce, topped with cheese and crunchy crisp onions! As green bean casserole goes, I it's too canned, too traditional, too generic. Rwanda's chef, I fear, is a line cook. It's a competent dish (those green beans sure are there) but it's no more than that. But again, it's worth emphasizing: Vegetables are good for you. By all means --if you need something healthy, chew on this anyway. You'll feel proud of yourself for having digested it. (B-)
Ahhhh, mashed potatoes (Finding Neverland) ! I know you were waiting patiently for a huge fluffy serving of these. One of the superstars in the world of comfort foods just as faux Merchant/Ivory efforts are the superstars of comfort films. They remind you of the past (comfort). Everyone within them is familiar (double comfort) -even the villains. This particular dollop on your plate also has cute little kids (triply comforting!). It's particularly smooth, richly buttered with production values, creamy with emotion and a tinkling fairy-ish musical score. The prestige actors(Depp, Winslet, Christie), prestige genre (biopic), prestige topic (artistic creation), are all eager to please. It's pure potato goodness. But, that's too much starch for me. I'll pass. I like films and food to feel handmade. I swear these potatoes have been pureed. Not a lump in sight. There's nothing difficult or challenging here --even death is rapturously art-designed and accompanied only by a slight cough. For a film about the author of one of literature's rowdiest and most mischievous protagonists, Peter Pan, it's far too bland, slow, and mopey. Peter Pan would want some surprises in his mashed potatoes.
Hey, wait a minute!!! Were these store bought? I know Marc Forster supposedly mashed these himself but I swear to god he bought them at the Miramax superstore. They're totally processed. They taste exactly like last year's mashed potatoes. And the potatoes before that. And the potatoes before that. (C-)
Still Hungry? ... (page two)
