Last week Pam Grady wrote about women flouting social norms in Pre-Code Hollywood. Continue reading
Author Archives: Kenn Fong
Q & A: The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture
In light of Spotlight’s six Oscar nominations – and the winners being announced at the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, Feb. 28 – we talked to Joe Saltzman, co-author (with Matthew C. Ehrlich) of the new book Heroes and Scoundrels: The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (University of Illinois Press). [Ed. note: Spotlight won the Best Picture Oscar.]
Saltzman is a professor of journalism and communication at USC Annenberg, and he maintains the comprehensive Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (IJPC) research database www.ijpc.org (more than 87,000 entries and counting). Saltzman previously had a long, award-filled career in newspaper reporting and editing, broadcast journalism and documentary filmmaking. Roger Leatherwood interviews him for EatDrinkFilms.
A Baker’s Dozen: Treasured Friendships and Treasured Recipes
by Dianne Boate
What do baking and letter writing have in common? Passion! Communication! Adventure!
Two of my most revered friendships came about because of letters I wrote. Last year I told you about Rose Levy Beranbaum; today, I would like to share another story about meeting M.F.K. Fisher, and share the recipe she loved most of all the things I made for her. The recipe is called “Starlight Sugar Crisps,” from a 1950s Pillsbury Bakeoff book, a croissant type of pastry laced with vanilla sugar.
Flashing back for a moment, someone lent me The Art Of Eating, an anthology of five books written by M.F.K. Fisher. Her style, sensibilities and wry humor captured me instantly. She made me fall in love with France all over again.
Spirit Works Distillery: Wheat, Women and Song
by Risa Nye
Two things drew me to visit Spirit Works Distillery in Sebastopol: They serenade their barrels with music, and they have an all-female distillery team. Unusual on both counts, it was worth a trip out of town to get a closer look at the operation. As a bonus, getting there provided a scenic view of the vineyards and the acres of brilliant yellow mustard flowers that pop up every year at this time. Continue reading
Critics Corner: EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT
Beautifully shot in black and white – a rarity these days – Ciro Guerro’s Embrace of the Serpent is Columbia’s nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, and deservedly so. An “elegy for lost cultures and an indictment of exploitation,” this saga of human endurance in the wilderness – also the theme of fellow Oscar nominee The Revenant – plays like “a rainforest fever dream.” Critics Daniel Barnes and Dennis Harvey present their takes on this vivid physical adventure, which opens across North America in February and March.
Eat Like the Stars – Diana Dors
Are you on a diet after the excesses of the holidays? I sure am.
Gwyneth Paltrow is by no means the first movie star to dish out advice on how to eat healthily, and drop some pounds along the way. Gloria Swanson raged against sugar in all its forms, Greta Garbo was bosom buddies with health-food guru Gaylord Hauser, and famously hearty eater Elizabeth Taylor wrote a legendary diet book called Elizabeth Takes Off in the 1980s.
But when I’m feeling an excess of adipose tissue, it’s Diana Dors who I turn to. Continue reading
His and Hers Beer Notes – Sudwerk Uncle Fester
by Daniel Barnes and Darcey Self-Barnes
Uncle Fester Batch #4 (Sudwerk) 9.3% ABV Available at Sudwerk Dock Store through Brewers Cut membership (16.9 oz. bottle) and poured into mini wine glasses. This barrel-aged doppelbock from Sudwerk.
Uncle Fester Batch #4 (Sudwerk)
9.3% ABV
Available at Sudwerk Dock Store through Brewers Cut membership (16.9 oz. bottle) and poured into mini wine glasses. Continue reading
Critics Corner: A WAR
The Danes think enough of Tobias Lindholm’s A War to nominate it for best foreign-language film in this year’s Oscars. See how Bay Area reviewers Daniel Barnes and Richard von Busack view Lindholm’s “… look at the burden of leadership and the psychological toll of living through hell” in this week’s Critics Corner.
Women flout social norms in Hollywood Before the Code
by Pam Grady
“Every train carries its cargo of sin,” says the Rev. Mr. Carmichael (Lawrence Grant) as the journey gets underway in Shanghai Express (1932), the fourth of seven collaborations between star Marlene Dietrich and director Josef von Sternberg. The cargo in this case is two ladies whose reputation precedes them — Chinese courtesan Hui Fei (Anna May Wong) and the notorious white “coaster” — a local euphemism for prostitute — known as Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich). They are but two of the fallen women to be found in Elliot Lavine and I WAKE UP DREAMING’s latest festival of classics, Hollywood Before the Code, screening at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre for six consecutive Wednesdays beginning Feb. 24. Continue reading
Eat My Shorts: Who Was Diana Dors?
Diana Dors is our featured celebrity chef in Jenny Hammerton’s “Eat Like the Stars.”
A Baker’s Dozen – Tarte Moutarde, the Star of the Show
by Dianne Boate
Just imagine for a minute that your kitchen is a rehearsal hall, your dining area a stage, and your favorite dishes as the actors in the dinner plays you produce and direct. It can put a different focus on what your favorites are and how many times you haul them out from the wings.
eatdrinkfilms.com 