My Romance with Toronto, Still the Festival of Festivals for Me
By Meredith Brody
Well, it really wasn’t my first film festival. I’d had flirtations with other, smaller festivals, but they were almost all fairly local. And my attendance at them was patchy, not obsessive.
My first deep-dish, long-distance festival relationship was in Toronto.
(Editor’s note: THE AUTOMAT will show twice on Turner Classic Movies, Tuesday, November 22. There will also be for classics with automat scenes.)
By Gaetano Kazuo Maida
(Updated November 21, 2022; originally published April 2022)
A film that starts off with the instantly recognizable dulcet tones of Mel Brooks gushing, “one of the greatest inventions, insane centers of paradise…” is irresistible even if you’ve never heard of the Automat. For those of us of a certain age from New York or Philadelphia (and yes, I’m one: born and raised in New York, with family in Philly), the Horn & Hardart Automat was a unifying experience of childhood delight and teenage necessity. You didn’t need a lot of money to eat, just a handful of nickels… In its heyday (1920s to the 1970s) it was, in just two cities, the largest restaurant chain in the country by any measure, at one point in the 1940s serving fully 10% of the population of Philadelphia. Continue reading
Regrets, I Have a Few
By Meredith Brody
When I was picking up my press pass in Toronto, I ran into the ebullient, ubiquitous Col Needham, the founder of the essential Internet Movie Database, and a tireless festival-goer. He was the first familiar Festival face I’d seen – at the first film festival outside of the SF Bay Area I’d been to since 2019. He was chatting with his Bristol friend Mark Cosgrove, of the Watershed, but I was so happy to see a familiar Festival face after two years of not running into anybody at all, much less at film festivals, that I blithely inserted myself into their conversation, Cosgrove turned out to be a sympathetic soul.
After a few minutes, Col said he had to rush off to a screening. “What are you seeing?” “MOONAGE DAYDREAM,” he replied. And I watched him walk off. I had already planned to go buy a catalogue, sit down somewhere quiet, and try to figure out the next few days.
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.
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.
By Meredith Brody
(November 5, 2022)
I’ve been a film buff ever since I first saw a re-issue of Cinderella at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland when I was just a tot.
I wasn’t able to fully exercise my film buff inclinations for the next decade or so, as I was dependent on my parents for transportation. They made the movie choices, as well. Oddly, since they were both New Yorkers and went to movies weekly or more often as children, there was a joke amongst my siblings and I: “They take us to two movies a year, whether we need them or not.”
By Meredith Brody
(November 5, 2022)
San Francisco is lucky to have Donald Malcolm’s French Noir Series, “The French Had a Name for It” at the Roxie.
The upcoming festival programs 15 films over four days at the Little Roxie, and once again I will be there for all of it. It unspools on Sunday November 6 and Monday November 7, and the following on Saturday November 12 and Sunday November 13.
by Julie Lindow
(Updated October 30,2022)
One would never expect such real-life horror to happen at the gorgeous, historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco. That fateful night, I was slinging candy and popcorn. The air was thick with that hot buttery scent as I salted the last bag of popcorn and patrons scurried into the theater. The manager clunked the heavy double doors closed. The calm after the storm. It was also the calm before the storm of Hallows’ Eve that was a few nights off.
By Marilyn Freund
(October 28, 2022)
Cat Daddies is a deceptive film, and therein lies its emotional punch. On the surface, director Mye Hoang’s documentary debut presents episodes from the lives of nine men whose lives have been changed by their relationships with cats. But underneath, it takes a look at what behavior our culture has traditionally considered to be “manly,” and how those stereotypes might be redefined today.
Truck driver David Durst visits Sedona, AZ with his cat Tora. Image by Mye Hoang.
by Gary Meyer
Magic and “live” ghosts, goblins and other creatures of the night go back a long way. What we refer to as “augmented reality” today is hundreds of years old. In 1584 Reginald Scot wrote in his study to debunk beliefs in witchcraft, magic and other superstitions, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, that people dressed in sheets had fooled believers certain they had seen ghosts.
Interpretation of Robertson’s Fantasmagorie from F. Marion’s L’Optique (1867)
(Updated October 30,2022)
Vincent Price was not only a great actor but an artist, a serious art collector with the Southern California Vincent Price Museum Art Museum, and most importantly, a fine chef. EatDrinkFilms is pleased to bring our readers a preview with some Halloween recipes.
