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.
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.
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.
As a child in London Charles Chaplin had a life of poverty and hardship. He was sent to a workhouse twice before he was nine years old. He got little to eat and there is speculation that is why there are so many food scenes in his movies.
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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.
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!”
eatdrinkfilms.com 