by Gary Meyer
Earlier this year we were lucky enough to see a truly inspiring movie about female empowerment against the odds with gorgeous plates of studded pilafs, mouth-watering freekeh dishes and stuffed grape leaves in Thomas Morgan’s SOUFRA.
In the midst of a successful film festival tour where it keeps winning awards, a beautiful cookbook has been published with many recipes you will want to try. And we are bringing a couple to you on EatDrinkFilms.
An Excerpt by Geoff Dyer
“It’s equally pleasing to read Dyer speak up for the pleasures of watching films, not in domesticated and tamed form on DVD, but at the cinema. Stalker itself, which is an immersive experience as much as it’s a visual spectacle, loses its magnetic force when watched at home. Dyer talks about the “possibility of cinema as semi-permanent pilgrimage site”. He also claims ‘the Zone is cinema.’
Beyond the book’s bravura formalism and in spite of the suspicion that it could be viewed as a highbrow take on live-blogging, it’s Dyer’s ability at moments like this to make pilgrims of his readers and to lead them on a journey in search of truths about love and about the nature of happiness that make Zona such an exhilarating achievement.” Sukhdev Sandhu, The Guardian
An excerpt from the new book by James Curtis.
Have you ever marveled at the “look” of certain movies? The art direction creates a memorable world. For example, The Son of the Sheik……
William Cameron Menzies’ original rendering of Ahmed’s desert retreat for The Son of the Sheik (1926). Economies scotched the design, a shame considering it would be Rudolph Valentino’s final film and a formidable commercial success. (courtesy of Pamela Lauesen)
John Huston and Ray Bradbury.
This excerpt from Ray Bradbury Unbound, Jonathan R. Eller’s new biography, follows Ray Bradbury’s complex relationship with director John Huston on the making of Moby Dick.
When everyone regrouped in London, tensions were still high between the two men. Casting was finalized during this period, but not before a large dinner at Huston’s private club with some of the production staff and other friends of Huston’s, including the silent film stars Bebe Daniels and her husband Ben Lyon, who had become television entertainers in the U.K. since leaving Hollywood. This group included Jeanie Sims; Lorrie Sherwood; Peter Viertel; Richard Brooks, who had been Huston’s cowriter on Key Largo in 1948; and Jack Clayton, who would go on to direct Room at the Top, The Innocents, and, eventually, Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Continue reading
When people think about Marlon Brando, they think of the movie star, the hunk, the scandals. Continue reading
William Castle was cinema’s Abominable Showman—the marketing genius who thought “outside the coffin” to dream up outrageous PR gimmicks like PERCEPTO! and EMERGO! Continue reading
by Richard Zoglin
His punchy, two-syllable name, so emblematic of the optimistic American spirit; the unmistakable profile, with its jutting chin and famously ski-slope-shaped nose; the indelible images of Hope performing for throngs of cheering GIs in World War II and Vietnam — it was once impossible to imagine a time when the first question that needed to be answered about the most popular comedian in American history would be: Who was Bob Hope, and why did he matter? Continue reading
Last week in EatDrinkFilms, Roger Leatherwood reviewed Shawn Levy’s new biography De Niro: A Life. This we week we present a pair of excerpts from the book, focusing on De Niro’s intensive character preparation and obsessive working methods for The Godfather: Part II and The Untouchables. Continue reading
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