Watching a movie is tricky business when you’re dating a filmmaker. It’s never just a casual, “Let’s just throw something in the DVD player” kind of deal; it’s usually a: “Would you rather watch Wild Strawberries or Piranha 3-D?” Luckily, my resident filmmaker is in New York editing his own movie and I have total dominion over the remote control these days. Last night, I found myself clicking through the Criterion collection on Hulu Plus and my cursor made its way over to a movie that I had always meant to see but never found the time to: Babette’s Feast.
Long time readers of the blog probably know my friend Lucy Alibar best as the creator of these incredibly easy, incredibly delicious chocolate peanut butter cookies. Now she’s gone and created something slightly more ambitious: a little movie she wrote called “Beasts of the Southern Wild” that’s taking the world by storm. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, the Camera d’or at the Cannes Film Festival and earned rave reviews all over the place. I saw the movie two weeks ago and was blown away by its vision of life in a place called “The Bathtub” where a little girl named Hushpuppy and her dad struggle to survive against all odds, still finding room to celebrate life with feasts of crab and other seafood dumped ceremoniously on long tables. Because food plays such a big part in the story, I asked Lucy if she would answer some food-related questions about the movie. She kindly obliged (and even sent along the pictures you see in this post).
Last night, at DuPar’s in the Farmer’s Market, Craig ordered an apple pie and decided to reenact a scene from one of our favorite movies. Can you name it?
Many of you know that my partner, Craig Johnson (the guy you see in all of my posts), is a filmmaker. His first feature, TRUE ADOLESCENTS is finally here and I’m so excited that you, my loyal readers, will finally be able to see it. The movie stars Mark Duplass (who you may know as the co-director of “Cyrus” and the star of many indies, including “Humpday” and the FX show “The League”) as the misfit nephew of Academy Award-winner Melissa Leo. When his girlfriend throws him out of their apartment, Duplass comes to stay with Leo and Leo asks a favor: will he take her son and his best friend on the camping trip she promised them? The movie follows their adventure to the Olympic peninsula (remember when I went there to help scout for the movie?) and what ensues is both hilariously funny, slightly shocking and very, very moving.
I don’t know how it took me this long to discover Xtranormal.com, the website that lets you produce, write, and direct your own little animated movies, but I’m hooked! Above, then, you’ll find a short dialogue piece I created called: “Ramps, A Dialogue.” My first effort, “Food Blogging 101,” you can watch by clicking here. Have a great weekend!
I noticed a curious phenomenon yesterday at the movies. I was seeing “Sex and the City 2″ (which I expected to hate and actually enjoyed) when a trailer for the new Drew Barrymore romantic comedy “Going the Distance” came on screen. And in this mildly amusing trailer, Drew Barrymore gets BBQ sauce all over her face (screenshot above) and Justin Long kisses it off. Ok, fair enough.
[Hey, this is Adam The Amateur Gourmet. I'm on vacation in Barcelona, Spain and while I'm gone I've asked some awesome people to fill in for me. Today is talented female filmmaker day, with our first post from the incredibly accomplished, incredibly gifted writer/director Kim Spurlock. This post is an amazing guide to New York's best movie theater butterflies and mushrooms. I'll let Kim explain. Take it away, Kim!]
It occurs to me that the title of this entry might lead you to believe that I will be frying up some funky fungi. Nothing doing. For one thing, psilocybin is illegal. Besides, no amount of butter or salt or good intentions is going to make those magic mushrooms melt in your mouth. Or at least that’s what I hear. Luckily, the same can’t be said for popcorn!
Many of you know that my boyfriend Craig (whose birthday is today) is a film director who wrote and directed his first feature, True Adolescents, two summers ago in the Pacific Northwest. Now–at last!–the movie is having its premiere: it was announced today that Craig’s movie is one of only 7 movies (out of 750 submissions) in the Narrative Features competition at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas. And so, yes, that means we’re heading to Austin in March (my first time in Texas!) and we hope to see YOU at his screening. But in the meantime, please join the True Adolescents fan page on Facebook, bookmark the True Adolescents website, and make the awesome poster (created by celebrated comic book artist Cliff Chiang) your desktop image. Also: root for Melissa Leo at the Oscars–she’s in Craig’s movie and now she’s up for Best Actress for “Frozen River.” This is going to be an exciting year and I’ll definitely keep you posted here as our journey into the glamorous world of Hollywood–or, rather, Independent Cinema–begins.
