by Michael Guillén
There’s no doubt about it, Martin Scorsese has clout. If he decides the national cinema of Poland deserves international attention, so be it, as he has proven with his touring retrospective “Masterpieces of Polish Cinema,” which premiered earlier this year at New York’s Lincoln Center and now arrives at Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive (June 14-Aug. 21, 2014). Continue reading
by Janne Barklis
Here’s what I like: beer, mood appropriate music, movie theatres, my living room, and easy access to food—generally high-caliber food, but I have been known to eat an open bag of stale Fritos if it is within arm’s reach. Continue reading
by Kelly Vance
Look at poor little Muley. Skulking in the dry fields at night, ducking headlights, peering through windows, moaning and whimpering like a hungry ghost. We recognize actor John Qualen by his voice but the rest of him is shadowy and more frightened than usual, even more anxious than Qualen’s Earl Williams, the timid killer from His Girl Friday. Muley’s share-cropping family was tractored out by the cats and now he’s left to haunt the empty homestead in John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath. But he’s not the only one.
Cheryl Angelina Koehler, editor of the East Bay culinary magazine Edible East Bay, proudly announces that they will be hosting a tasting extravaganza of handcrafted local foods at Berkeley’s 44th annual Live Oak Park Fair on Saturday & Sunday, June 14 & 15, 10:00AM–6:00PM. Come sample handmade products such as jams, granolas, baked goods, teas, and juice crafted by local food producers. Continue reading
by Gaetano Kazuo Maida
I’d known the late Les Blank pretty much since I moved to Berkeley over 20 years ago. We’d cross paths at those intersections of food, music and film for which he is justifiably famous for documenting. He had a keen eye for odd characters and a taste for interesting food and drink, and his films were always a treat. Somehow you always wanted to know what had been going on between the takes. Continue reading
In Roadshow! , film historian Matthew Kennedy tells the fascinating story of the downfall of the big-screen musical in the late 1960s. It is a tale of revolutionary cultural change, business transformation, and artistic missteps, all of which led to the obsolescence of the roadshow, a marketing extravaganza designed to make a movie opening in a regional city seem like a Broadway premier. On Thursday, June 26, Kennedy will deliver a Slideshow Presentation from 7:00-8:30PM at Folio Books, 3957 24th Street, San Francisco, preceded by a wine and cheese reception. Read an excerpt from the book here. Continue reading
—Billy Wilder, interview in Conversations with The Great Moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age at the American Film Institute
by Peter Moore
This week’s edition of EatDrinkFilms is focused on the Philippines. I’ve had good Filipino food, but have never really cooked much of it. Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan’s book Memories of Philippine Kitchens is an amazing and invaluable guide to the ingredients, history, and techniques of cooking from these islands that are a true melting pot of world cuisine. They used to have Cendrillion restaurant in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood and now run The Purple Yam Restaurant in Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park. Continue reading
The Old-Fashioned is a complete history of one of the world’s most iconic and beloved cocktails—now the poster child of the modern cocktail revival—with 50 recipes for classic variations, regional specialties, and contemporary twists. Continue reading
by Francis “Oggs” Cruz
The task of mapping the Philippine archipelago must have been daunting for early explorers. Composed of more than seven thousand islands, separated not only by bodies of water but also by language, culture, and religion, the Philippines cannot be captured by any single definition and description. However, despite the blatant diversity, the country has succeeded to be united by several elements, the most prominent but least acknowledged of which is probably the love for movies. Continue reading
by Michael Fox
The popularity peak presently enjoyed by documentaries and reflected in the ongoing success of SF DocFest (opening June 5 and continuing through June 19 in San Francisco and Oakland) owes a great deal to a pair of galactic mainstream-media shifts over the last two decades: Hollywood lost interest in depicting the reality-based world and TV networks abdicated the work of investigative journalism. Continue reading
