Tag: Bridge Street Bistro

Movies: Oscar Nominees

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We have made a concerted effort to see as many of the Oscar nominees as possible and continued this week with three more films.  All were noteworthy in some way, although I can see why Nomadland is favored by a number of critics for best picture.  I agree with them.

Time (Amazon Prime $)

Ms. Fox Rich on the phone to the prison (decider.com)

Time is nominated for best documentary feature and was made in conjunction with the New York Times.  It is an especially relevant film as this country re-examines our prison system and inequities in the sentencing and treatment of Blacks and other minorities.  Combining home movies going back twenty years with contemporary film footage, Time documents one mother’s challenge to raise six kids alone.  

Sibil Fox Rich’s husband Rob was sentenced to 60 years in jail for robbing a bank.  As the driver of the getaway car, she herself served three years.  Over the years, she visits him in prison and works tirelessly to try to gain him a reduction in his sentence and early release.  Sibil is an amazing study in fortitude, determination, and love as she works hard at her jobs and instills in her boys good values and the importance of education.  

Shot in black and white, the opening scenes are almost dizzyingly jerky given that they are home movies.  I hesitated initially and then got caught up in this family’s story. 

Promising Young Woman (Amazon Prime $)

Carey Mulligan as Cassandra (variety.com)

I had put off viewing this film since I wasn’t sure I liked the overall revenge premise. But I kept reading about Carey Mulligan’s great performance and felt I needed to give it a try.  I found it painful, even shocking, but watched to the end.  

Cassandra, a medical school dropout working in a coffee shop, plots ways to get revenge on the individuals who played a role in the tragedy of her friend Nina.  Cassandra’s schemes are clever, but then verge on outrageous, and you realize she is somewhat unhinged.  Even her boyfriend Ryan does not emerge untarnished.  The film is billed as a comedy thriller and is one answer to the #MeToo movement. Despite its black humor, I didn’t find it funny, especially given the ending.  

The opening scenes made me think of the vulgarity of Carnal Knowledge which appalled me (I was young when I saw it).  Later scenes in Promising Young Woman echo testimony given at Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate hearing.  My advice:  approach with caution, as I don’t think it adds up to a cohesive whole.

Nomadland (Amazon Prime $, free after 4/27)

Fern and her van (harpersbazaar.com)

This is a quiet film with some gorgeous scenery.  No violence, no sex, no great events, just the wide outdoors and folks living rustic lives on the road.  When her husband dies and the plant where she also worked closes, Fern leaves Nevada in a van and wanders the country. She tells people she is houseless, not homeless. Picking up temporary jobs here and there: at an Amazon warehouse, as a host at a van park, and as kitchen help, Fern occasionally joins up with other van nomads.  The life is hard and often not a choice, but folks are genuinely kind to one another and amazingly resilient.  

Frances McDormand is superb as Fern.  She is joined by actor David Straithaim as well as by real-life nomads playing versions of themselves.  Nomadland is definitely deserving of the Best Picture award and director Chloe Zhao of the Oscar for Best Director.

CULINARY CORNER

Bridge Street Bistro

(opentable.com)

After the long year of Covid, we returned to Bridge Street Bistro for dinner with friends.  This upstairs restaurant in Bradenton Beach is both popular and very good.  In fact, the food was even better than my recollection.   Grilled salmon over herb risotto with spinach and shrimp alongside was wonderful!  Although a bit overdressed, the tasty Caesar salads easily served two.  Others in our party ordered crab cakes, lobster mac and cheese, and the stuffed chicken.  Service was good despite it being mostly full.  We were happy diners!   

Tidy Potpourri

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DINING FIND

Thanks to our friend Sue, we finally tried Bridge Street Bistro in Bradenton Beach.  If you just walk by, you’ll see and probably hear a noisy set of diners on the ground floor.  But, if like us, you prefer quiet and a more elegant dining room, then head up to the 3rd floor.  Here is a windowed dining room, one side with a view toward the gulf, and an attractive bar set apart from the tables.  Linen napkins, a menu of seafood and Italian fare, and attentive, helpful service.

We shared a Caesar salad and then enjoyed very tasty veal saltimbocca and the grilled salmon topped with spinach and a lemony sauce over saffron risotto.  Both excellent dishes and generous enough that we left with some for the next day’s lunch.  No need for a reservation this time of year, but I make one anyway just to be safe.

SARASOTA MUSIC FESTIVAL

This week’s Thursday concert of performances by several of the festival faculty was another musical treat!  Current festival music director Jeffrey Kahane and former director Bob Levin teamed up on two Schubert piano pieces for four hands, while Leone Buyse on flute and Michael Adcock on piano played the marvelous Sonatine by Walter Gieseking, a work previously unknown to me.  Ms. Buyse was sitting behind me after the intermission, so I got to thank her and particularly compliment her on the lively Vivace movement.

The concert ended with Beethoven’s Piano Trio No.5 with violin and cello which brought down the house.  We’ve vowed to go to more of these concerts next year—some of the best music in Sarasota!

 

SMALL SCREEN

Loch Ness (Acorn).  This Scottish series is quite dark, but once I got past the first episode I was hooked.  Two women are the lead inspectors trying to locate what appears to be a serial killer while the brooding lake of the title is a character in itself.  There is just one season and it’s one continuous story over the six episodes.  Complex characters, small town anxieties and tensions, and lots of twists and turns in the plot.

Lives in Squares (Amazon Prime).  This three-part series from the BBC captures the messy, passionate lives of the Bloomsbury Group, with Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf, being the focal point.   This set of talented writers and painters spent a lot of time together and several lived in each other’s pockets.  If you aren’t already familiar with some of the relationships between the sisters and their coterie, you might be puzzled.   Adding to the viewer’s potential confusion is the fact that the actors playing the principals change as they age.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed the series and would recommend it if you’re a fan of this period. Thanks to Patricia for suggesting it.

SUMMER READING—TRACKING TWENTY

#5  Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

This long novel was named one of 2017’s ten best books by the New York Times Book Review.  In it, Lee traces the lives of four generations of a Korean family who move to Japan and yet are never considered full members of the society.  The novel opens in 1910 and ends in 1989, during which time Korea is annexed by Japan, fought over in a war, split in two, and later closed to many Korean Japanese residents who wish to return.  When Sunja, a young boardinghouse owner’s daughter, becomes pregnant by Hansu, her older married Japanese lover, she is offered marriage by Isak, a sickly young minister.  He takes her to Osaka where they raise two sons.

How these sons and the succeeding generations deal with poverty, limited career options, and the need to hide their true ethnic heritage makes for a moving saga about immigration and living as an outsider.  A pachinko is a Japanese slot machine and several characters run pachinko parlors and become wealthy.  I found the novel overly long, but more absorbing in the second half.  Not sure it would have made my list of 10 best.

Note: Photos and coloring by JWFarrington.