(January 13, 2024)
Cheryl Hess has been doing the film festival circuit with her hilarious short documentary about a vegan recipe at a Meatball Contest.
And we have that recipe for you below.
Category Archives: Humor
NEW YEARS CHEER- A Nostalgic Look at Past New Years Through Images, Movies and Music
Welcome 2023!
We have brought back some of our favorite images, videos and music from our last version of this celebration and added new finds and fun. You will find music, food, drinks, photos and more. From Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald to Chuck Berry, Etta James, The Ramones, L’l Nas, Nina Simone, and watch The Grateful Dead’s New Year’s Eve 4+ hour concert to close Winterland following a collection of Dead NYE concert posters. There are superheroes, favorite cartoon characters, movie stars from the silent era onwards, comedians including Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Laurel & Hardy and the Three Stooges plus how to countdown to midnight with Star Wars.
They Were Calling It the Twentieth Century
An excerpt from Dana Stevens’ “CAMERA MAN”
(Greatly updated December 3, 2022)
In this genre-defying work of cultural history, the chief film critic of Slate places comedy legend and acclaimed filmmaker Buster Keaton’s unique creative genius in the context of his time.
Buster Keaton will be celebrated at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive during the month of December, 2022. Starting Sunday, December 4 with SHERLOCK JR. and two shorts and continuing through Wednesday, December 21, five features and 15 shorts will be screened with musical accompaniment. Author Dana Stevens will introduce several programs. Continue reading
THE AUTOMAT–Recipes, In The Movies & More
Assembled by Gary Meyer
(Updated November 21, 2022)
The theatrical release of a new documentary by Lisa Hurwitz, The Automat, has taken me back in time with its wonderful clips from classic movies and discussions of food favorites of our youth from Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Chicken Pot Pie to Custard Cups and Pumpkin Pie. It is essential viewing for those interested in the history of restaurants in the 20th Century, the combining of technology and home-cooked meals and a trip down memory lane even if you were born too late to actually visit one. But we also cover contemporary attempts at automated food. We have included many photos, film clips, recipes, music, and related links to supplement your enjoyment of The Automat now playing in theaters and at film festivals—only on the big screen.
ANIMATION EXPLORES NEW DIMENSIONS IN 2022
By Robert Bloomberg
In 1928, inspired by the talkie that changed the world, “The Jazz Singer,” Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created “Steamboat Willie,” the first cartoon with fully synchronized music and sound effects, demonstrating the potential power and delight of animation.
The ten films in this year’s Animation Show of Shows perfectly illustrate the culmination of that potential. Most of the shorts, curated and presented by Acme Filmworks founder Ron Diamond, require no subtitles and rely solely on that marriage of image and sound.
4 PAWS UP for CatVideoFest 2022 – Catnip for Cat Fans
By Marilyn Freund
There are only three certainties in life: death, taxes, and cats on the internet. People love cat videos, and if you have any doubt about the universal truth of that, let me throw a few numbers at you, based on my admittedly cursory research.
Continue reading
Back In The Criteriumb Closet
Last year we published Eric Drysdale‘s spoof on The Criterion Closet, short videos where filmmakers and others get to select Criterion Collection films to add to their own collections. These sessions offer fun and surprising insights into people’s interests while often inspiring our own choices.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Red Panda?
By Mihaela Mihailova
On paper, Pixar’s Turning Red, a film about a thirteen-year-old Chinese Canadian girl whose entry into puberty causes her to transform into a large red panda every time she feels a strong emotion, is not for (or about) me. I am not of Chinese descent. I did not grow up in Toronto (or in North America, for that matter). My parents are not immigrants (I am). I have yet to transform into a large beast, unless we count persistent pandemic weight gain. More importantly, I am not one of Oscar-winning director Domee Shi’s friends and immediate family members.
FELLINI 100 : A Celebration in Images, Words and Music
by Gary Meyer
“Why don’t you make films in color?” Federico Fellini was asked shortly after his 1963 black and white hit 8 ½. He explained that it was not his right to determine for the audience the exact color of, say, a blade of grass or the blue in the sky. I was a teenager with a passionate interest in all kinds of movies, especially the exotic foreign films playing at theaters like Mel Novikoff’s Surf Theatre, Pauline Kael and Ed Landsburg’s Studio & Guild Cinemas and at the San Francisco International Film Festival— this intriguing answer that made sense to me until his next feature came out where he more than broke his rule. Juliet of the Spirits was so overwhelming in its use of color one might have thought it was soon to be banned and he needed to splash every tint and tone across the screen while he could. I loved it in 1965 and can’t wait to see it again on the big screen as part of the Fellini 100 celebration through May 14, 2022 at BAMPFA.
FOOD & DRINK IS THE BEST WAY TO OUR HEARTS
Assembled by Gary Meyer
Food and beverages play an important part in our love lives. Enjoy a sampling of Valentine images around food and drink, vintage and current. We even link to a few recipes.
MESSAGES FROM JULIA
by Peter L. Stein
For many years I saved a phone message from Julia Child on my answering machine. Back then, in the early 1990s, I was a television producer at KQED, San Francisco’s public television station. Despite my frequent encounters with talented artists through my work, as well as a growing friendship with chef Jacques Pépin, with whom I had been producing several seasons of PBS cooking programs, I can still remember the shiver of excitement when I retrieved a message on my office voicemail which began, in that unmistakable forceful warble, “Hello Peter, it’s Julia Child!”
