Meatball And A Movie

Tagliatelle, ragu alla bolognese, ricotta, parmesan from Cento. Seconds, 1966, directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Rock Hudson. Booed at the Cannes Film Festival, it continues to gain a larger audience with each passing decade. I didn't think I had seen Seconds, but while watching it, I realized I had. I may have been holding a personal John Frankenheimer film festival quite a while ago, and this was one of his films I viewed.

Cheese ravioli in marinara sauce. I bought it from the grocery store. I sprinkled some crushed red pepper over the top and served it with crusty bread. Not like fancy restaurant food, but it was tasty. Intermission dessert was fancy; triple chocolate brownie a la mode with a strong cup of coffee. They Live By Night, 1948 London premiere, released in the USA in 1949. Directed by Nicholas Ray, starring Cathy O'Donnell and Farley Granger. Criterion did a great restoration of the movie.  

Braised wild boar served over egg pappardelle pasta. Prepared by the Osteria Papavero restaurant, Madison Wisconsin. Donna and I had this dish during our visit to Lucca, Italy. All the food was so good in Italy. There are too many wild boar in Italy, so people eat them. Delicious if prepared correctly, a slow braise. I had it at another restaurant in the United States. They were clueless. It had the chewiness of pencil erasers. But Osteria Papavero put just the right finesse to it. I'd say they rate a very close second to the Lucca restaurant. The Mechanic, 1972, directed by Michael Winner, starring Charles Bronson and Jan Michael Vincent. Charles Bronson played Charles Bronson for over 50 years, and nobody played him better.

The "Meatball" was a change-up this week. I walked over to Taste Of Madison, an annual event the city holds around the Capitol Square. There were around 70 restaurants participating, so I had to go through the list and pick a couple. I chose the Chicken Roti from Mediterranean Cafe and something called a Mo Mo from Little Tibet. I also got a miniature carrot bundt cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes for my intermission dessert. Blue Collar, 1978, directed by Paul Schrader, starring Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel. I was attracted to viewing the film because of the uniqueness of these actors working together. I wanted to see what that would be like. The film is rough around the edges. All the stars and Schrader were pretty young in the late 1970s.

Ragu from Common Pasta, Madison Wisconsin. High Noon, 1952, directed by Fred Zinnemann, starring Gary Cooper and the beautiful Grace Kelly. Anything I could say about this movie has been said scores of times. My only footnote is that Gary Cooper had the good sense to marry Grace Kelly, unlike that knucklehead Jimmy Stewart (fictionally, of course). A critique of the pasta. Common Pasta's ragu is an oddity. It is sweet, more than a little sweet, and it interferes with the overall balance of flavors in the dish. I've encountered this once before. It was a sauce made by my girlfriend (circa 1984), Nina. She said she had a family recipe calling for a copious amount of honey to be added to the sauce. I stood next to her as she raised the jar. I said, "Are you sure about this." She was insistent. So in went the honey. As our guests tasted the dish, I could see confused and dismayed expressions around the table. Back to the Common Ragu problem. I needed to kill the sweetness...

House of Bamboo, 1955, directed by Samuel Fuller. Filmed in Japan on location in Cinemascope. Fuller had some money behind him for this one. Sausage and mushroom pizza from Lucille, Madison Wisconsin. Intermission sweet was a cookie, actually two thin sugar cookies filled with chocolate and pinched together before baking. Very chocolatey. 

Pizza from Lucille, Madison Wisconsin Very good pizza. Pecan bar, topped with ice cream, served with strong coffee. Mon Oncle, 1958, directed by Jacques Tati

Lasagna with extra marinara, and baguette. Brownies with ice cream. Coffee. Leave Her To Heaven, 1945, directed by John M. Stahl, in Technicolor. Gene Tierney is sitting across from you on the train. Should you flirt? Should you read your newspaper? Hmm  

Tortellini and ravioli. The most chocolatey brownie in the universe. The Champ, 1931, directed by King Vidor, starring Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper. Beery won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a washed up palucka who tries for a comeback.

Ravioli and tortellini tossed with some olive oil, salt and pepper, served with some bread. Delicious. Pulp Fiction, 1994, Quentin Tarantino. If you're getting 8.9 stars on IMDb nearly thirty years after theatrical release, you've got one for the film archives. This movie is always a lot of fun to watch, with standout performances in big and small roles.

This Sunday's Meatball And A Movie was a little unusual; I attended a poolside cookout at my condo building. So it was Cookout And A Movie. Defending Your Life, 1991. Albert Brooks takes us places. He has taken us into the home of the Yeager family in Real Life. He took us for a ride across our great nation in Lost In America. And, unexpectedly, he took us to the afterlife in Defending Your Life. A delightful story. And who will ever forget Albert's sushi bar dining companion who beat out his 'nude dancing' competitors by offering 'totally nude' dancing.

Chicken Parmesan with baguette. Intermission dessert; quadruple chocolate cookies and coffee. The Bookshop, 2017, directed by Isabel Coixet. Starring Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson and Bill Nighy. Good storytelling. Won a lot of awards in Europe, none in the United States. Not highly rated by Imdb or Rotten Tomatoes. Go figure.

Chicken Parmesan. And a piece of baguette from Bosque Baking Company, Albuquerque. "The Accidental Tourist," 1988, directed by Lawrence Kasden, starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Geena Davis. Ms. Davis won an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.  Here's a question for you. And I'm speaking in a 1988 scenario; Geena Davis or Kathleen Turner? The first time I saw The Accidental Tourist, and I was enchanted by the Muriel Pritchett character. Part of that, of course, is the beautiful, statuesque Geena Davis. But it's really what Geena Davis brings to the role that makes the movie. She gives us such a great Muriel Pritchett. If you study the backstory you find out why. Geena loves the books of Anne Tyler, and immediately latched on to the Muriel Pritchtt character in The Accidental Tourist. Geena started a hunt for that film role in the same determined fashion that Muriel immediately sets her sights on Macon Leary. Geena's Muriel Pritchett ...

Lasagna with baguette from Bosque Baking Company, Albuquerque. Also double desserts; cheesecake and a brownie. There's Something About Mary, 1998, directed by the Farrelly brothers, starring Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz. Also Matt Dillon and Chris Elliott. Wonderful musical narration by Jonathan Richman. Good comedic performances, lots of laughs, a great Sunday matinee. If I remember correctly, this was Cameron Diaz's first comedic lead role.

Spaghetti and meatballs. High Sierra, 1941, directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart. Warner Bros put their top shelf production people on this, and cast Lupino and Bogart in the lead roles. Really, no shabby talent in front of the lens. An entertaining movie.

Lasagna. "Lost in Paris," 2017, written, directed and starring Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel. I'll start with the elephant in the room; Tati influences. Abel & Gordon pay homage to Tati in some of the gags, no denying that. But they also draw heavily from Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin. In terms of direction, shooting style, pace, storytelling and editing; no this is not a Tati-esque picture. One of the supplements is a short film by a Variety writer who tries to draw stronger ties between Tati and Able & Gordon. I could make a much stronger argument to the contrary. Okay, let's put that to sleep and move on. This is an entertaining film. Watching Fiona Gordon perform physical comedy, alone, is worth the price of admission. Unfortunately, she is now 65 and I don't think she is going to be able to perform at this physical level for many more years. That's a shame, as there aren't many female actors with her abilities. In addition to its salute t...

Lasagna, a three-peat. Also carrot cake with coffee. It's time for a different Italian dish. An Angel at My Table, 1990, directed by Jane Campion, starring Kerry Fox, Alexia Keogh and Karen Fergusson as Janet Frame from childhood to adult. This was the film that made us fans of Jane Campion. I hadn't seen it in many years. It's still a great film. To me. I don't think it's a crowd pleaser.

Lasagna once again. I also had a brownie with coffee. The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946, directed by Tay Garnett. Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch wrote the screenplay, based on the novel by James Cain. Starring Lana Turner and John Garfield, but Hume Cronyn steals the show with his scenes (opinion). I hadn't seen this one in a while. An okay entry in the noir genre. It could have been better if ... We need the two leads to show us there is heat between them, enough steam to drive them to murder. Lana Turner and John Garfield never raise the temperature that high. There's that first shot of Lana's legs, and it's iconic, and you think she's going to set the house on fire just standing there. Then, nothing. Maybe two other stars could have made this happen. Second thing. MGM, wasn't known for noir. And, true to form, they couldn't resist throwing in some melodrama. Which really breaks the noir spell. Juxtapose that approach with the scene between Bogart and Ast...

Lasagna! Something Wild, 1986, directed by Jonthan Demme, starring Melanie Griffith, Jeff Daniels and Ray Liotta. Cameo by John Waters. Music direction by John Cale and Laurie Anderson.  This film is driven by the fantasy of an Audrey "Lulu" Hankel swooping into our lives. Jeff Daniels plays a decent foil to Melanie Griffith. Ray Liotta's "Ray" is formidably menacing. An entertaining character movie , even if it isn't a compelling story.

Chicken parmesan with extra marinara and a piece of warm crusty bread. Carrot cake and coffee for dessert. "Bronson," 2008, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Tom Hardy. This is a violent and disturbing film, though well done. I chose it because it was mentioned in Blood, Sweat & Chrome as work Hardy had starred in prior to "Fury Road." In this review by Roger Ebert, he concludes some people are just pure evil. I thought about that. The movie doesn't tell us, it avoids conclusions. The storytelling seems to emanate from Bronson's mind, a very sick mind, one supposedly impervious to the psychiatric drugs presently used as cures. That takes me back to Ebert's 'pure evil' label. I believe in science. I think neuroscience is a ways away from helping Bronson. The medicine is under development in some lab somewhere. Not in time for Bronson, but maybe for the next guy. As for the portrayal, I wouldn't recognize Fury Road's Tom Hardy...

Chicken Parmesan with extra marinara and baguette to gather up all the sauce.  The Professionals, 1966, directed by Richard Brooks. Starring all the testosterone in Hollywood; Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Jack Palance. Woody Strode was the token black actor in this film. He was also a professional athlete. He did a good job with his role. I suspect he would have been in more big features if he hadn't been black or if he was born about thirty years later. The film also featured Claudia Cardinale's breasts. Which I guess wasn't uncommon at the time, token blacks and breasts.

Meatballs and marinara over pasta.  Mulholland Dr., 2001, written and directed by David Lynch, starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Mark Pellegrino and Robert Forster.

Lasagna, extra marinara and baguette.  Belfast, 2021, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan and Jude Hill. We know the story. It was in the newspapers every day. Kenneth Branagh made it about the characters and conversations. Just brilliant.

Lasagna from Whole Foods.  The Player, 1992, directed by Robert Altman, starring Tim Robbins and everyone in Hollywood.

Pasta with meatballs and red sauce (frozen from last Sunday) accompanied by a piece of baguette from the local baker. No Time To Die, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, starring Daniel Craig. Shoot 'em up, car chasing, guys and gals punching and tumbling all over the place. I give this movie 007 stars. Give me more 007s and Star Wars space cowboys and Star Trek warping here and beaming there and I'll watch them all.

Spaghetti (actually rotini) and meatballs (meatballs from Whole Foods).  Stand by Me, 1986, directed by Rob Reiner, starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell. I didn't know it was based on a Stephen King novella.  

Lasagna from Whole Foods.  Big Fish, 2003, directed by Tim Burton, starring Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter, Alison Lohman, Robert Guillaume, Marion Cotillard, Steve Buscemi, and Danny DeVito..

Lasagna from Whole Foods. The Whole Foods lasagna is okay. I'm not going to make it for myself, so it's the best lasagna ever, till someone makes me some. The French Dispatch, 2021, written and directed by Wes Anderson. I'm a Wes Anderson fan, so I'll watch whatever he brings to the screen. It's a fun time at the movies.

Chicken Parmesan with a piece of baguette from my local bakery. 5 Fingers, 1952, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, starring James Mason. It was pretty good, a good Sunday matinee. 5 Fingers also starred Michael Rennie. He played the role of Klaatu in Day The Earth Stood Still. The world could benefit from a visit by Klaatu and Gort right now.

Lasagna. Paddington 2, 2017, directed by Paul King and written by King and Simon Farnaby, starring Ben Whishaw as the voice of Paddington, with Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, and Hugh Grant in live-action roles.