Category: Film

Tidy Tidbits: On Screen and Plate

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FRENCH WHODUNIT

Anatomy of a Fall ($ Amazon Prime, Apple TV)

Vincent, a lawyer & Sandra (The Daily Beast)

This is the third excellent new movie we’ve watched this season.  Sandra, her husband, and their son Daniel are at home in Switzerland.  Sandra, a writer, is being interviewed.  A thud is heard.  Investigation reveals the body of a man lying in the grass.  How did he get there? 

This French film, much of it in English with subtitles when French is spoken, is a fascinating and occasionally suspenseful examination of what or who caused the man’s death.  It’s also an excavation of a marriage, a fractured one with issues and disappointments.  One spouse has been more successful than the other, and their son had an accident which compromised his capabilities.  

French filmmakers like dialogue so perhaps some viewers might wish it were more concisely written. Nonetheless, the Chief Penguin and I were fully engaged.  The courtroom scenes with a cool and calm Sandra are especially compelling.  Highly recommended!

CRIME IN GOTLAND

Murder in Sweden, Season 2 (Prime Video)

Sebastian & Maria (PBS SoCal)

Titled, Maria Wern abroad, Murder in Sweden is an outstanding crime series.  Lead inspector Maria is a youngish widow and mother of a son and a daughter.  She’s also in a developing relationship with her colleague, junior detective Sebastian.  The rest of the team consists of two other men, Ek and Arvidsson; a tech person, and their boss Hartman.  Together they tackle challenging cases from chilling attacks on a politician, to death at a teen party, to the strange illness of a man on a plane claiming a murder has been committed.  

The cases have a dark side that can be hard to watch.  One of the most unsettling ones concerns online bullying and threats to Maria’s son’s high school class.  Over the course of the season, Maria both learns more and has more questions about her policeman husband’s death ten years before. 

Each case is solved in two episodes and there are 8 episodes total.  In my opinion, Season 2 is better than Season 1, which I also watched.  Recommended!

LUNCH OUT

Indian fare near Venice

Our good friend in Venice invited us down for lunch at Tikka Indian Cuisine.  This is a popular small restaurant located in a strip mall on the 41 Bypass with a Big Lots.  We were advised to arrive early as it quickly fills up.  And indeed, we got there about 11:15 and by noon, it was almost full.  When we finished, folks were lined up at the door awaiting tables.

Sample Tikka lunch (yoursun.com)

The lunch menu offers a selection of appetizers (samosas and the like) and combo lunches.  Combos include your choice of entrée with sides of rice, naan, and chef-selected appetizer and dessert.  We three ordered the korma, rogan josh, and vindaloo, all with chicken.  Other options were lamb, shrimp, paneer cheese, or vegetable.  The korma was appropriately mild, my rogan josh was medium spicy which was plenty of hotness for me, and the Chief Penguin bravely went for the vindaloo.  Even at medium level, it was very spicy—but then vindaloos are typically the hottest of Indian curries.  

Each combo was served on a thali (round metal tray). The day’s appetizer was a generously sized samosa and the dessert a rice pudding.  For vegetarians, there are several main dishes including yellow lentils, chickpeas, and a potato and cauliflower dish.  And if you dine in the evening, you can select from several tandoori dishes including one with salmon that our friend recommends.  Yum!

Tidy Tidbits: Winter Pastimes

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MOVIES—MEN AT WORK, PHYSICS & MUSIC

Oppenheimer ($5.99 on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, et al)

Einstein & Oppenheimer (Digital Spy)

Oppenheimer, one of the big films of 2023, is an almost mesmerizing portrayal of one individual’s huge impact on history.  Physicist Oppenheimer was a complex man and an intriguing one.  Brilliance, coupled with ego and drive, propelled him in overseeing the development of the atomic bomb.  This invention led directly to the end of World War II and, initially, accolades for Oppenheimer.  To what extent, Oppenheimer carefully considered the level of destruction use of the bomb would wreak is a question one can debate.  

Several years after the war, he was accused of being a Communist and a security threat. Based on the biography, American Prometheus,the film is multi-layered and nuanced in its depiction of Oppenheimer and those involved in the Manhattan Project.  And the special effects are stunning.  Highly recommended!

American Symphony (Netflix)

Suleika & Jon (Variety)

Until I read reviews of American Symphony, I had not heard of Jon Batiste.  He’s a composer, pianist, pop performer, and winner of numerous awards.  In this film, produced jointly with Higher Ground Productions (the Obamas’ company), the viewer experiences the creation of the musical piece of the title. Simultaneously, it follows the travails of Batiste’s wife Suleika Jaouad as she copes with a recurrence of leukemia.  Batiste is a dedicated and hard-working composer, but he is also tender and supportive of Suleika.  

I enjoyed parts of Jon’s creative process and admired her for her bravery and her willingness to share the raw as well as the joyful moments of her treatment.  Overall, I’d give the film a mixed review.  I thought it was unnecessarily long and would have edited out some of the composition scenes.  

As a side note, Suleika’s memoir Between Two Kingdoms about her earlier cancer journey was published in 2021.   I read it when it was released and included it in a blog post in Sept. 2021.

READING—GRIEF & LOVE

Lost and Found: A Memoir by Kathryn Schulz

Memoirs are one of my preferred genres, so I approached Lost and Found expectantly.  It is both emotional and scholarly in tone.  Schulz focuses on grief and love.  Besides detailing how and why we lose or misplace objects and citing a range of research articles about loss, she delves into her grief over her father’s death and describes his long physical and mental decline.  Anyone who has lost a parent or other loved one can relate to this section.  

Her other main topic is love and how one goes about finding one’s true love or life partner: what makes two people click and how does one arrange to have the right circumstances at hand for this to happen.  Schulz had a long search, sometimes fraught with self-doubt, before meeting her right person and then settling down together.

I confess to skimming some; I was more interested in her personal experiences than I was in the scientific explanations for loss and love.  My response may be colored by being older than the author with several decades more life experience.  Overall, I give it a qualified recommendation.  

LOCAL CULTURE—GREAT MUSIC

The Sarasota Orchestra was in fine form on Friday night for their first concert of the season at Neel Performing Arts Center in Bradenton.  Their playing was spirited with all sections performing strongly.  This concert, under the baton of guest conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, included a recent work by composer Clarice Assad, an impressive rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by pianist Stephen Hough, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations.  All fourteen of them, each variation clearly delineated one from the other.  It was truly a great night for our local musicians.  Bravo!

Note: Header photo is of ducks over a pond in California in Jan. 2014 ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Tidy Tidbits: End of Year Reading & Watching

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RECENT NOVEL: LARGER THAN LIFE

An American Beauty by Shana Abe

Arabella (Huntington Library)

An American Beauty, Abe’s recent “novel of the Gilded Age” is fascinating historical fiction. Belle Yarrington was a child of poverty. Left a widow, her mother Catherine struggled to feed and clothe her five children. When Belle was fifteen, she arranged for Belle to work at Johnny Worsham’s club. Beautiful Belle played the piano, charmed the male clients, and attracted the attention of wealthy railroad man, Collis Huntington.

Several years later, Belle became Collis’ mistress. He supported both her and her family over many years.  The part he played in Belle’s life, her role as a shadow wife, and how she came in her later years to have two husbands are what one might expect to find only in the tabloids. From poverty to show girl to wealthy woman philanthropist in her own right, Belle’s story is an engaging one.

Collis Potter Huntington (1821-1900) was one of the Big Four in San Francisco (others were Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) and instrumental in the building of the Central Pacific Railroad.  Collis’ nephew, Henry Huntington (1850-1927), is perhaps better known.  He was also a railroad magnate and the founder of the Huntington Library and gardens in San Marino.  Both men have roles to play in this novel.

NEW FILMS: COMPLICATED LOVE STORIES

This is the time of year when the Chief Penguin and I get serious about trying to see as many films as possible that are Oscar contenders.  Fortunately, several of them are already available on Netflix or Apple TV. 

Maestro (Netflix)

Lenny & Felicia (Digital Spy)

While charting Leonard Bernstein’s trajectory from wunderkind filling in for Bruno Walter to widely acclaimed conductor and composer, Maestro is primarily the story of the complex and sometimes tortured 30-year love affair between Lenny and his wife Felicia.  These two smart individuals come together, produce several children, and pursue their successful careers.  Felicia organizes his life, and he supports her acting, while continuing to indulge his attraction to men.  It’s a bittersweet tale of much joy alongside moments of pain and anguish.  

This is Bradley Cooper’s film: he is producer, director, and star.  He becomes Lenny Bernstein, and he is superb!  Equally excellent is Carey Mulligan as the vivacious Felicia.  And the score—it’s all music composed by Bernstein.  It’s music that wraps itself around the viewer and deserves to be heard in the theater or at least on a good home sound system.  Recommended!

Past Lives (Apple TV+ $)

Nora & Hae Sung (Vox)

Past Lives, rendered partly in Korean, is tender and poignant.  It explores the connections to place or persons we develop in childhood and carry into our adult lives.  As a child in Seoul, Nora, an aspiring writer, becomes close friends with Hae Sung, a boy in her class.  At age 12, they depend on and support each other.  But she and her parents move to Toronto, and then she emigrates from Canada to New York. 

They have little contact for a time and then 12 years later, they talk online regularly.  There is then another long break before Hae Sung goes to New York to see her again.  She is now married.  Interwoven with the affection Nora and Hae Sung have for each other are cultural gaps, wildly different lifestyles, and quite different career paths.  Yet each, even the more successful and sophisticated Nora, has retained a strong bond to the other.  

The film unfolds gently. The scenes with Nora, Hae Sung, and her husband Arthur are especially moving.  Recommended! 

Watching, Reading, & Eating

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FEEL GOOD MOVIE

Downton Abbey:  A New Era

Lady Mary with family and staff (TVLine)

The characters in the original Downton Abbey TV series, are the favorites of many, me included.  This latest movie, the second one, brings everyone together again prompted by Tom Branson’s wedding to Lucy.  There are several children running around, Lady Violet is hanging on, just, and Lady Mary has grown into her lady of the manor role.  A short trip to France raises some puzzling family history.  Against this backdrop, Lord Grantham grudgingly agrees to let the abbey be the set for one of the first talking films.  The filming provides fodder for several subplots.

Isobel Crawley (Baroness Merton) & Lady Violet Crawley (NPR)

Overall, this is a set piece rather than high drama.  There are sweet vignettes between Downton’s married staff and some couples who aren’t.  Add in nostalgia and the recognition that the mantle is being passed on to a new generation.  What would have been the logical ending was instead followed by a scene preparing the way for yet another film.  

The Chief Penguin and I thoroughly enjoyed this return to Downton.  It’s fun and affirming in a good way.  

CIVIL WAR NOVEL

Wild, Beautiful and Free by Sophfronia Scott

Author Scott (Rob Berkley)

E-mails from Amazon bring newly published titles to my attention.  A few are freebies while others are bargains from mostly unfamiliar authors.  This new novel from Sophfronia Scott came via that route.

It’s the story of a Jeannette, a mixed-race young woman in Louisiana.  Her slave mother died in childbirth, her white stepmother loathes her, and her rich landowner father dotes on her and oversees her education.  He also tutors her in the layout of the Catalpa plantation and tells her she will inherit a portion of it one day.  When he dies, his wife sells her and sends her to a distant plantation.  

Jeannette’s greatest wish is to someday return to Catalpa and claim her heritage.  Narrated in the first person, this is a compelling story of hardship, danger, determination, and love.  Boldness and daring acts shape Jeannette’s journey, making for a most absorbing book. 

Scott began her career as an award-winning magazine journalist and is the author of other novels and numerous essays.  Her young son was at school in Sandy Hook on that fateful day in 2013; Scott’s memoir, This Child of Faith, outlines how religion has played a beneficial role in his life.

WHITE LINEN ITALIAN

Lusardi’s (Upper East Side, Manhattan)

We returned to Lusardi’s for dinner after a long absence.  It’s traditional and elegant in an Old-World sense. Wait staff is all male and the service is impeccable, but not stiff.  It’s perfect for a special occasion, but so welcoming that I could easily dine here frequently.

On this night, we shared an order of tagliolini cacio e pepe to start.  These pasta strands coated in butter sauce with Pecorino cheese and pepper and the added ingredient of strips of zucchini were sublime. The zucchini elevated the dish.  

For our mains, I had delicious almond-crusted John Dory on sauteed spinach while the Chief Penguin went for the chicken breast with black truffle sauce accompanied by butternut squash and Brussels sprouts.  It was a lovely meal. The menu has so many temptations, we’ve vowed to go back again soon!

Chicken with black truffle sauce (Lusardi’s)

Note: Header photo of Lusardi’s dining room is from lusardis.com