Julia (Child) on CNN

You have to appreciate a celebrity chef who acknowledges the five-second rule. Julia Child wasn’t above brushing off a little dirt from kitchen mishaps, which was one of the reasons she was so fun to watch. For years, she was also the original and only really notable TV chef. If she were alive today, she would probably have her own streaming channel, but the magnitude of her success in her time was still no can of corn. Julie Cohen & Betsy West chronicle Child’s life and career in the documentary Julia, which airs tomorrow on CNN.

Before she served dinner, Child served her country as a staffer for the OSS, Wild Bill Donovan’s forerunner agency to the CIA. Her family insists she never did any spycraft, but that still seems like a good idea for a fictional thriller. Regardless, she met her future husband, Paul Cushing Child, when they were both posted to Ceylon. Eventually, his career in the Foreign Service brought them to France, where she met Simone Beck and started collaborating on Mastering the Art of French Cooking, an unusually detailed cookbook, intended for American readers.

Public television was pretty grim in the early 1960s, but WGBH viewers appreciated how she livened up a book review program, by demonstrating the proper technique for making an omelet. As a result, they took a chance on a show of her own, The French Chef. The best part of the doc gives a behind-the-scenes view of its early, by-the-seat-of-its pants years. The production process might have been an adventure, but the show was an immediate hit.

Everyone gives Child credit for making PBS watchable, yet Public Broadcasting thought it was time to put her out to pasture in the early 1980s, so she signed with Good Morning America instead. It is clear throughout Julia that Child was a shrewd capitalist. However, Cohen & West (whose RBG celebrated Justice Ginsburg for having a kneejerk political record on the bench, rather than a coherent judicial philosophy) do their best to transform Child into a divisive figure, by celebrating her liberal activism.

DOC NYC ’21: Come Back Anytime

In 1985, Tampopo put ramen on the cinematic map. Since then, it has become a favorite culinary subject for art-house cinema, appearing in films like Eric Khoo’s Ramen Shop, Koki Shigeno’s documentary Ramen Heads, and the film Big Tony Leung sold his soul for, Midnight Diner. Viewers hungry for more get to visit the kind of legit neighborhood ramen joint travelers always want to go to (but usually wind-up in over-priced Shinjuku tourist-traps instead) in John Daschbach’s Come Back Anytime, which screens as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

Masamoto Ueda always worked long hours and he never got rich, but he earned enough money with his small unassuming ramen shop to support his family. More importantly, many of his customers became lifelong friends. Now reaching retirement age, Ueda is mulling how much longer he wants to do this. His general idea is to close the store when he is ready to hang it up, rather than sell it off, but he still hasn’t reached that point yet.

Daschbach’s film is largely set in the ramen shop, but he follows Ueda on a couple of related excursions, as when he helps a regular harvest his tasty looking pears. We also get a bit of time alone with his wife, who has her own identity and hobbies. She is also charming, like just about everyone is this totally endearing, but somehow never cloying film.

Pig: Nic Cage Cooks Truffles

Seattle has coffee and Oregon has truffles, but don’t call them white truffles. Oregon truffles are their own thing. Robert Feld has a pig with a nose for finding them. She is so good at sniffing out the delicacy, she gets pignapped. Feld deliberately turned his back on human society, but he dives back into the seamy Kitchen Confidential-side of Portland’s fine dining scene to find her in Michael Sarnoski’s Pig, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Feld is shaggy looking, but gentle in demeanor, at least when left to his own devices. He was once culinary figure of great local renown, but he now ekes out all the living he needs selling truffles to Amir, a young fine-food dealer trying to follow his father’s footsteps. When junkies steal Feld’s pig at the behest of a mystery villain, Amir gets to be his driver and wingman. It turns out the grizzled hermit knows more of the city’s dirty restaurant secrets than he does.

Pig has been likened to a “John Wick with a pig,” but it is far different tonally and stylistically. Like Oregon truffles, Pig is its own thing, in a refreshingly distinctive way. In place of action set pieces, Sarnoski explores the ways in which foods are tied to memory and emotional responses. It all builds to a third act climax that was definitely a bit of a gamble, but Sarnoski and his small cast pull it off nicely.

As Feld, Nic Cage looks like a wild man, but he is in nearly-silent mode this time around. He still broods harder than ever and goes all in during scenes depicting physical extremes. However, Cage forgoes the raging and snorting we have come to expect from him, in favor of quiet sheer power-emoting. This is restrained work from the master of mayhem, but Cage is genuinely magnetic on-screen.

Wolfgang (Puck), the Documentary

There is a small army of Food Network stars who owe their gigs and fortunes to Wolfgang Puck. He didn’t quite singe-handedly create the concept of the celebrity chef (as this documentary suggests), but he certainly established a professional template for later chefs to follow. David Gelb (the food documentarian) chronicles Puck’s life and career in Wolfgang, which premieres Friday on Disney+.

If you want to see a film about Wolfgang Puck, this would definitely qualify as one. Gelb covers Puck’s entire life, starting with his difficult childhood in Austria. Puck’s Teagen-esque step-father bullied him to brink of suicide, but he found refuge in a part-time kitchen job. Briefly working with a French chef in-residence inspired Puck to study in France. From there, he was off to American.

Puck was largely responsible for resuscitating the now legendary Ma Maison, but restaurateur Patrick Terrail (who fearlessly appears in the film) was loathe to give a lowly chef credit or an equal stake. As a result, Puck set out on his own, with the help of his partner (and now ex-wife) Barbara Lazaroff (who also participated in the film) opened Spago. (Like Ma Maison, the name of Spago might ring bells with viewers, but they might not know why. The film does a nice job explaining their cultural and media significance.)

The Trip to Greece: One Last Jaunt

Greece is the birthplace of the marathon and EU austerity budgets, but neither represents the style of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s culinary tours across Europe. It is only five-star restaurants and hotels for them, but if the formula works, why fiddle with it? The British comedic actors return for one more jaunt playing hyper-meta versions of themselves in Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip to Greece, which actually opens today in a handful of cities and also releases on-demand.

Coogan has won seven BAFTA Awards—and don’t you forget it. However, the caricature he has created of himself is somewhat lonely and regretful, especially compared to the uber-meta Brydon, who is a happily contented husband and father. Throughout the series, he has been totally fine to receive second-billing to Coogan, especially since it gives him the liberty to deflate his friend’s self-important pretensions.

This time around, they will be reviewing the finest restaurants in Greece, but they are well aware they have done this several times before (in Spain, Italy, and the North of England), as their jokes will attest. Turkish viewers might possibly object to the title, since they retrace Odysseus’s trek, starting at the site of ancient Troy in Turkey. Mortality will also cast a shadow over this Trip, because Coogan will constantly call his fictional son for news on his ailing fictional father.

Of course, the heart and soul of the latest Trip remains their improvised banter and one-upping celebrity impersonations. They revisit greatest hits, like Michael Caine and Roger Moore, but they probably get their biggest laughs doing Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Tony Leung’s Midnight Diner

This chef has had almost as many media lives as the heroine of the often-remade Miss Granny. He debuted in Yaro Abe’s manga and has subsequently come to life in multiple Japanese TV series and movies, as well as Korean and Chinese television series. His work is tasty, his wisdom is sage, and his late-night hours are convenient for his restless clientele. This time, “Big Tony” Leung Ka Fai takes his turn behind the grill as “The Master” (or “The Chef,” translations vary) and behind the camera as the director of Midnight Diner, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Originally, the Master’s cozy eatery was nestled away in a Shinjuku back alley, but Leung moves it to Shanghai. The hours are still the same: midnight to 7:00 AM, or whenever the Master feels like opening up for customers who look like they are in need of comfort food. He has several regulars, including his Alon, his adopted brother with anger management issues, and his old crony, Uncle Zhong. Plus, three scatterbrained millennials nearly always stop by.

However, most of the drama focuses customers, who are irregular regulars, like the dopey boxer, who only comes to the diner to retrieve his mischievous mother (and partake of the stir-fry clams). With the help of the Master and his mother (which he never requested), the big lug might have a puncher’s chance romancing the pretty single-mother nurse living in the neighborhood with her wheelchair-bound daughter.

We also meet a lovelorn brand marketing specialist, and a poor, scuffling singer-songwriter, whose stories have varying degrees of bittersweet tragedy. Yet, the tale of two country naïfs, whose bumpy romance cracks under the pressure of mega-urban life is probably the centerpiece of the film.

It is all very nice, but the concept probably works better as a series, allowing characters to more easily enter, exit, and intermingle without the pressure of reaching a quick resolution. Nevertheless, the good-looking cast is certainly pleasant to spend time with. The diner itself is also quite a warm and inviting setting (it still looks very Japanese, but whatever).

Unfortunately, the film has been clouded by controversy completely outside its scope. Reportedly, Leung’s Diner has been on the shelf for two years awaiting the go-ahead for release on the Mainland, which was suspiciously granted shortly after the actor appeared at a rally for the Hong Kong police—even though they have been recorded on video violently attacking pro-democracy protestors, with absolutely no provocation or justification. Sure, Midnight Diner is an agreeable film, but it is not worth selling one’s soul over. (Coincidentally, the film depicts Alon as a cop, whose rage drives him to physically abuse innocent citizens.)

Big Tony, you’re breaking our hearts, especially since you seem so warm and down-to-earth as the Master. It is a side of Leung we rarely see on-screen, while Zhang Li lends the film surprising grit and human frailty as the disturbed Alon. Jiao Junyan is also quite poignant as Snow, the ill-fated singer. Zhang Yishang and Vision Wei are both quite charismatic as the young provincial couple, but their tale of underdog love rent asunder by life is pretty familiar stuff.

As a work of cinema considered with strict critical formalism, Leung’s Midnight Diner constitutes a number of engaging performances (particularly Leung’s own) and some lushly shot cooking scenes. That can be enough for an enjoyable night at the movies, but Eric Khoo’s similarly themed Ramen Shop is a deeper, richer film. However, those who are closely following the Hong Kong protests will probably prefer to get their Midnight Diner fixes from the Japanese series (one of which is available on Netflix and another is on Prime). Recommended for loyal Leung fans, Midnight Diner opens this Friday (9/20) in New York, at the AMC 34^th Street.

Eric Khoo’s Ramen Shop

Japan was one of Singapore’s most important trading partners during the city-state republic’s early years of independence and it is still true today. The two nations enjoy strong economic and political ties, yet many older Singaporeans still bitterly remember the pain of the Japanese occupation. These long harbored resentments led to a schism within a Japanese ramen chef’s family. However, he will find cathartic healing through food in Eric Khoo’s Ramen Shop, which opens today in New York.

If you want to get technical about it, Masato will leave the film’s proper ramen shop after about fifteen minutes, following the death of its master chef, his emotionally detached father Kazuo. While going through his father’s effects, he found letters and his Singaporean mother’s Mandarin journal. Although he cannot read them, they fire his curiosity regarding the family she was estranged from. Hoping to find answers, as well as recipes for the local-style comfort food she used to cook for him, Masato impulsively returns to the Singapore he only knew as a small boy.

With the help of Miki, a food blogger he met online, Masato tracks down his Uncle Wee, who is delighted to welcome him into the family and teach him the recipe for Bak Kut Teh, or pork ribs soup. Unfortunately, the grandmother Masato never met will be pricklier to approach.

In many ways, Ramen Shop is a text book example of weepy culinary cinema. Many a sentimental tear will be shed over warm bowls of soup. However, Masato’s smart and sensitively drawn relationships with Uncle Wee and Miki elevate the film to a higher level. Khoo and screenwriters Tan Fong Cheng & Wong Kim Hoh deliver plenty of the expected big hanky moments, but the real pay-off is surprisingly subtle. It also should be stipulated pork ribs soup looks delish, even if it isn’t as photogenic as other movie-memory-stirring foods.

Takumi Saito is achingly earnest as Masako. He also develops some warm and deeply compelling chemistry with Mark Lee and Seiko Matsuda, who both ironically overshadow him as Uncle Wee and Miki respectively. Lee provides the film some comic nervous energy, but never gets remotely shticky, whereas the luminously charismatic Matsuda truly lights up the screen. The same can be said of Jeanette Aw. She and Tsuyoshi Ihara generate more tragically romantic wistfulness as Masato’s parents seen in flashbacks than entire marathon of Nicholas Sparks movies.

It might be tempting to call Ramen Shop something like Departures with better food, but it happens to be more upbeat than the Oscar-winning gold standard of Japanese tear-jerkers. Plus, the film’s consultant chef, Keisuke Takeda really put the resulting Ramen-Bak Kut Teh hybrid dish on his restaurant’s menu, so you know the food is legit. Sometimes, it is just nice to see a quiet film that is completely free of cynicism—exactly like this one. Recommended for audiences of foodie movies and ultra-accessible foreign films, Ramen Shop opens today (3/22) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Ramen Heads: You’re Supposed to Slurp

Osamu Tomita is a lot like Jiro Ono, but he dreams of ramen instead of sushi. Ramen is so much his thing, Tomita visits other ramen restaurants on his day off. It is mostly just to eat, rather than for purposes of industrial espionage. For the fourth year in a row, his ramen has been recognized as Japan’s best, so his competitors are more likely to steal from him, rather than vice versa. Yet, he boldly welcomes viewers into his kitchen to watch him prepare the next day’s broth and noodles in Koki Shigeno’s documentary Ramen Heads (trailer here), which opens today in Chicago.

Ramen is probably the most quintessentially Japanese meal. Originally, it was cheap but filling food the large class of struggling post-war laborers could afford, but it has evolved into a culinary art form. Yet, all the real ramen restaurants are small neighborhood establishments. To the uninitiated, Tomita’s place in Matsudo, Chiba looks like clean, unassuming establishment, but there are always long lines in the morning to buy timed-entry tickets for a table.

We see Tomita mix his broth, knead his noodles, and boil his bamboo shoots (none of those are euphemisms). Perhaps astute ramen chefs will pick up a step or two from what Tomita shows, but his secrets are safe with us. In fact, we feel like we more than sufficiently get it after a while. Fortunately, Shigeno eventually opens the film up a little, introducing us to some other notable ramen chefs and giving us a sly animated history of ramen. Frankly, Shigeno could have spent more time with the other ramen masters, because some of them must have stories to tell, especially seventy-two-year-old Katsuji Matsouka, who will nonchalantly sling 800-1,600 bowls of ramen each day at his Tsukiji Market stall.

Shigeno, a well-established director of Japanese TV food programming, gives viewers an insider’s perspective, which is obviously intended for hard-core ramen heads. However, he captures some of the vibe and every day details of Japanese ramen eating. This would be a good film to stream before visiting the country as a tourist, even if you have no intention of eating at Tomita’s shop.

Regardless, it is always refreshing to see someone like Tomita, who has a passion they are happy to share. Frankly, Ramen Heads is more accessible and energetic than the weirdly over-hyped Jiro Dreams of Sushi, but not nearly as fun as Mirai Kinishi’s Kampai! For the Love of Sake. Recommended for foodies and armchair travelers, Ramen Heads opens today (4/20) at the Siskel Film Center in Chicago (and also screens 4/22 and 4/28 as part of Udine’s Far East Film Festival).

SFFILM ’18: Ulam (Main Dish)

There is a large expat Overseas Filipino population—an estimated 10.2 million, or roughly 10% of the 106 million in-country population. As a result, you would expect to find a growing international market for Filipino cuisine, but it might also morph and evolve as Filipino chefs incorporated other local culinary elements. It took a while, but both trends are finally coming to fruition, judging from the success of the Filipino restaurateurs profiled in Alexandra Cuerdo’s documentary Ulam (Main Dish), which premiered yesterday at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival (trailer here).

As many of Cuerdo’s interview subjects note, there were always a number of Filipino head chefs overseeing high profile restaurant kitchens, but they were still cooking in French, Italian, or Continental styles. Most Asian cuisines were readily accepted by American patrons, but there was still a dearth of Filipino restaurants. However, the success of several new elegant but accessible Filipino fine dining establishments has led to a boom in interest among the culinary press.

Cuerdo is quite fortunate most of them are young and eloquent, especially on the subject of food. Amy Besa & Romy Dorotan, from Purple Yam in Brooklyn, are the veterans among the film’s participants, with twenty years of New York restaurant experience, but the camera loves them. Nicole Ponseca (from Jeepney) is probably the most sensitive to issues of authenticity, since her chef and partner, Miguel Trinidad, is Dominican, but they convincingly argue nobody applies such purity standards to the chefs at Italian restaurants (and besides, no Filipino chefs were willing to join her when she first struck out on her own).

In fact, Ulam is not just about food. It also pays tribute to the entrepreneurial spirit, which is very cool. Perhaps nobody better illustrates that than Alvin Cailan, who started working multiple kitchen jobs (often for free experience) but has since parlayed his Eggslut food truck into a mini-empire that includes “incubator” space for up-and-coming chefs. Of course, family is also critically important to these success stories, especially for Johneric Concordia and Christine Araquel-Concordia’s restaurant The Park’s Finest, where nearly every employee was a relative (often “drafted”), in its early days.

Cuerdo maintains a mostly upbeat, breezy tone, as most viewers would prefer when it comes to their food docs, but there are plenty of positive lessons to glean from it. Along the way, her interview subjects revisit some rather touching memories. They make it very clear that food, family, culture, and honest hard work are all closely intertwined in the Philippines.

The dishes we see all look delicious too. Ironically, in some cases they have taken roadside Filipino food and turned it into haute cuisine, but it is still more substantial and flavorful than most of what you might find in trendy Soho spots. Recommended as a low-stress, pleasantly engaging celebration of Filipino cuisine, Ulam (Main Dish) screens again today (4/8) and Tuesday (4/10), as part of this year’s SFFILM.

This is not What I Expected: Chinese Culinary Romance

It must be an olfactory thing. Gu Shengnan and Lu Jin can’t stand each other unless she is cooking for him. She is a sous-chef and he is a hotel tycoon, so they both know food. They just don’t know they’re in love yet, but her dog Boss, an adorable English Bull Terrier, knows it just as well as we do. Somehow all that cooking pays off in Derek Hui’s This is not What I Expected (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Lu Jin has checked into room 1123 of his latest Shanghai acquisition—and if the kitchen staff does not impress him with something before he checks out at noon, the entire hotel is in trouble. Bafflingly, Gu’s boss (and the ex who just dumped her) waits till the very last minute to ask her to take a shot, but her flair for flavor and aroma saves the day. Soon she is constantly creating dishes to meet room 1123’s challenges.

Much to her embarrassment, Gu realizes Lu Jin is the same rich jerk she previously met under rather disadvantageous circumstances, so she will go to great lengths to avoid a face-to-face meeting. Yet, fate keeps conspiring to bring them together. After years of eating alone, is Lu Jin finally really for ramen for two? If you doubt it, go ask Boss.

Frankly, TINWIE might be the most misnamed film of the year. It is pretty much exactly what we expected, but Hui sure knows how to stage some culinary indulgences. In fact, the cooking scenes are executed with such colorful visual panache, they pull us through the predictable storyline. Plus, Boss certainly holds up his end as well.

The food and the dog up-stage everyone (basically, W.C. Fields was right, he just didn’t take it far enough), but Zhou Dongyu (still red hot popular in China for the local smash SoulMates) is ridiculously cute (and only slightly cloying) as the plucky, brow-furrowing Gu. On the other hand, Takeshi Kaneshiro’s Lu Jin is such a cold jerkheel, it is hard to believe he never gets a Wüsthof through the heart from someone on the exhausted kitchen staff. However, Lin Chi-ling adds some heat as Gu’s third act culinary adversary and perhaps romantic rival as well—in fact, the film suggests they are basically one and the same.

The battery of screenwriters hit every predictable note, at least once, but Hui and art director Ben Luk Man-ah make it all look fresh and frothy. Somehow, it doesn’t feel as slapsticky as it would sound if you broke it down scene-by-scene, thanks in large measure to Zhou’s soulful pluckiness. If you have to go to a “date movie” this weekend, TINWIE is hands down the most stylish choice available. Recommended accordingly, This is not What I Expected opens today (5/5) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Juzo Itami’s Tampopo

We call any old instant noodles ramen here in the West, but in Japan, there are very definite rules as to what constitutes ramen and how it should be prepared. It is a deceptively simple but nourishing dish, like many great Japanese films. When it released in 1985, it launched the culinary movie trend best represented by the likes of Babette’s Feast, Le Grand Chef, and Eat Drink Man Woman. It also predates the other great “noodle neo-western,” A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop. You will learn to respect and crave ramen in Juzo Itami’s newly 4K-restored Tampopo (trailer here), which opens this Friday at Film Forum.

While his partner Gorō drives, Gun reads a book of ramen reminisces that makes both of them hungry. Fatefully, they stop at Tampopo’s ramen restaurant. Frankly, her ramen is not very good, but Gorō rather enjoys her company. In fact, when a thuggish contractor creates a scene, Gorō two-fistedly settles it outside, despite being out-numbered. Thus, an ambiguously romantic friendship is born between Tampopo and her champion. As an unlikely ramen expert, he also starts coaching her in ways to improve her noodles and broth. Soon, he recruits a rag-tag team of specialists to lend their particular expertise and eccentricity.

In between Tampopo’s worst-to-first campaign, Itami intersperses loopy food-related interludes, including a scene involving a grocer stalking a serial produce-squeezer that plays like a send-up of the supermarket scene in Stallone’s Cobra, except Tampopo predates that film as well. Periodically, Itami returns to an unnamed Yakuza in hiding with his lover, whom he sexually relates to through food.

Like so many of the foodie movies that followed it, Tampopo definitely uses food as a metaphor for life and love. However, few films are as willing to be as randomly goofy as Itami’s ramen opera. Clearly, there are things that happen solely because Itami thought they were funny—which they were and still are. Arguably, he raises silliness to a high art form. It is hard to imagine a film like this making it through focus groups and studio note-writing screenings today, so it is enormously refreshing to have it back again.

Amid all the lunacy, Itami’s wife and muse Nobuko Miyamoto shines like an Ozu heroine as the title noodle purveyor. Tsutomu Yamazaki is wonderfully sly and hardnosed as Gorō, like a vintage Clint Eastwood. A ridiculously young looking Ken Watanabe adds earnest vigor as Gun, while a relatively youthful Kôji Yakusho becomes the symbolic face of the film as the Yakuza in the white suit. In fact, Tampopo is absolutely bursting at the seams with fine supporting performances, in both the main narrative and the periodic interludes.

You just can’t see films like this anymore, because screenwriters now all read the same books that tell them how to structure a script, literally beat-for-beat. Tampopo breaks all the rules and it is a much richer viewing experience as a result. The humor is often outrageous, but it holds up quite well over the years and crossing cultures. It is funny, but it is also acutely human. Indeed, there are good reasons why so many ramen restaurants were renamed “Tampopo” after the film released internationally. Highly recommended for culinary movie fans and Nipponophiles, the 4K restoration of Tampopo opens this Friday (10/21) in New York, at Film Forum.

Naomi Kawase’s Sweet Bean

Dorayaki is the favorite sweet treat of manga character Doraemon. Consisting of two pancakes stuffed with sweet bean paste (“an”), they resemble large Macarons (which in turn, are very different from macaroons). Sentaro has no taste for them, yet he manages a dorayaki stand. Of course, neither Sentaro or his two closest associates need to be told life is not fair. However, the experiences of septuagenarian Tokue will profoundly move him and their teen-aged friend. Food and natural beauty will provide some consolation in Naomi Kawase’s Sweet Bean (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Sentaro is a quiet, solitary man. He rarely speaks to his customers, but he makes an exception in the case of Wakana. Unlike her shallow classmates, she will probably not be attending college. Instead, her neglectful mother expects her to start working fulltime. Work represents something entirely different for Tokue. She is willing to take half the wages Sentaro is offering for a part time assistant, but her age and scarred hands make him skeptical. However, when he tastes a batch of her home-made sweet bean paste all his reservations melt away.

Despite his reserve, Sentaro quickly warms to Tokue and their customers quickly warm to their greatly improved dorayaki. Unfortunately, their pleasant days together will not last. According to the owner of the dorayaki stand, to whom Sentaro. is deeply indebted, Tokue is a long-time resident of the quarantine center-turned assisted living facility for Hanson’s disease patients. That would be leprosy, so she naturally wants Tokue out. Sentaro will drag his feet, but he is employee just as much as she is.

Sweet Bean could well be Kawase’s best and most accessible film to date. There is still the hushed vibe, but the drama is acutely human. Frankly, Sweet Bean is a lot like Japan’s Oscar winner Departures, but the emotions it draws out are even subtler and more complex. Despite the relatively brief amount of time Tokue spends with “the Boss” and Wakana, the connections they forge are deep and meaningful.

Kirin Kiki is quite remarkable as Tokue. Earnest yet down to earth, she keeps the film from descending into maudlin melodrama. Her real life granddaughter Kyara Uchida is also soulful beyond her years. Yet it is Masatoshi Nagase (the coach in Kano) who really lowers the boom down the stretch. There are no fireworks in Sweet Bean, but the central trio play off each other perfectly.

All the thoughtful hallmarks of Kawase’s auteurist style are present in Sweet Bean, but none of her wind-rustling-through-leaves excesses. Granted, there are plenty of character establishing scenes that do not necessarily advance the narrative (as when Wakana reads to a little boy in a library), but those are the moments that really stick with viewers. Like Tokue’s bean paste, Sweet Bean is lovingly crafted and richly rewarding. Highly recommended for general audiences, it opens this Friday (3/18) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza.

East Side Sushi: Raw Fish and Hot Peppers

It’s tough working a fruit cart in Oakland. Juana would know. She is about to be held-up and roughed-up by the thugs targeting cart workers. Frankly, it is hard to make a go of anything in the economically distressed city, but its sushi restaurants seem to be uncharacteristically healthy. Juana will still have to create her own opportunities to become a sushi chef in Anthony Lucero’s East Side Sushi (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

Even before the robbery, Juana wanted a better way of life. She thinks she might have found it in one of the Japanese restaurants owned by Mr. Yoshida. You could say he is reasonably progressive in that all kitchen employees receive health benefits, but he has very definite ideas about who can prepare sushi up front. They have to be male and Asian, preferably Japanese, or at least trained in Japan. She is neither, but as she learns from Aki, the talented but timid sushi chef, she starts to harbor ambitions. She also makes her new found passion for sushi relatively palatable for her daughter and father by incorporating poblanos and jalapenos. Maybe she’s onto something there.

East Side is a hard film to take critical stock of, because it takes absolutely no risks, but there is no denying its earnestness and the charisma of its principles. If enough people see it, East Side could be a word of mouth smash, precisely because its predictable arc is like comfort food. Still, there are moments that stay with you. Lead Diana Elizabeth Torres truly brings tears to viewers’ eyes when she desperately declares “I deserve an opportunity.” You can just hear centuries of the American dream welling up under her.

Likewise, Yutaka Takeuchi is terrifically understated as Aki. Roji Oyama also brings unexpected nuance to Mr. Yoshida. However, old Pops is an annoying combination of bluster and soft cultural prejudice. In general, the restaurant ensemble is much better than the home ensemble, but Torres is terrific working with both.

Maybe the big sushi roll-off does not completely follow the standard issue template, but it does not deviate too far. Yet, there is no denying the film takes you to a satisfying place. All kinds of nice, East Side Sushi is recommended for people who do not go to the movies very often and want to see something a lot like the last thing they really enjoyed when it opens tomorrow (9/18) in Los Angeles at the NoHo 7.

NYAFF ’14: Zero Pro Site—The Movable Feast

Master Fly Spirit’s food was sort of slow and reasonably local. Most of all, it was entirely traditional, making it difficult to replicate in these times. His daughter Chan Hsiao-wan is learning that the hard way. She had always planned to be an actress or a model, but she is falling back on the old family catering business after tasting the cold hard realities of showbiz in Chen Yu-hsun’s awkwardly titled Zero Pro Site: the Movable Feast (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 New York Asian Film Festival.

Chan was always better at being cute than responsible, so she would be just the type to innocently co-sign on a deadbeat boyfriend’s loan. When he takes to the wind, two loan-sharks come to collect from her. Fleeing Taipei, she eventually reconnects with her stepmother, “Puffy” Ai-feng who is also evading debt collectors. Unfortunately, “Puffy” earned her new nickname when she sacrificed her savings and her late husband’s reputation in an ill-advised showdown with his faithless apprentice. However, Chan’s sunny personality and a few long forgotten traditional dishes start attracting customers to their greasy spoon.

Not surprisingly, Chan has been a poor steward of her father’s recipes, so she seeks help from a variety of sources, including his happily addled teacher Master Tiger Nose and the itinerant “Dr. Gourmet,” a.k.a. ex-con Yeh Ju-hai. However, just as things start to develop between her and Yeh, he jumps ship to assist his teacher, the gangster caterer Master Ghost Head. Even without Yeh’s help, Chan places her future hopes in a national catering competition, duly impressing the loan-sharks into kitchen service, as could only happen in romantic comedies. Yet, to truly cook in a traditional manner, she will have to fully engage with the past.

Yes, there is a lot of food in ZPS, as metaphors, comedic props, and a way to celebrate Taiwanese cultural identity. Yet, it only serves a limited courtship function. While the film certainly has a dash of romance it is more about familial legacies and finding one’s place in the world. Like Chan’s turtle-stuffed chickens, the film is also bursting at the seams with supporting characters, so if one is too goofy and outrageous for your tastes, just wait for a more understated type to come along.

As Chan, Kimi Hsia is relentlessly silly and sweet, without getting viewers’ nerves. She forges some respectable screen chemistry with Tony Yang, even though Dr. Gourmet largely vanishes during the second and third acts. Top-billed Lin Mei-hsiu initially mugs something fierce as Puffy Ai-feng, but she reins it in to some extent as the dramedy starts to develop. Although there is a lot of colorful wackiness going on, the film draws a lot of heart from its senior cast-members, such as the recently reunited old couple, who want Chan to cater their wedding in the manner they remember from their youth.

ZPS is fun, it is endearing—it really could have been ninety some minutes. Over two hours of food and nostalgia is starting to push it. Still, Chen ties up all his subplots fairly neatly. He might have more secondary characters than Around the World in Eighty Days, but he develops a rather high percentage of them. Frothy and pleasing, it delivers some potent wistfulness along with its liberal servings of food and scrappy underdog resiliency. Recommended for fans of generation-spanning culinary cinema, Zero Pro Site—The Moveable Feast screens tomorrow (7/5) at the Walter Reade Cinema, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

A French Bon-Bon: Romantics Anonymous

Chocolate is the food of romance and indulgence. Two social misfits still love it anyway. They might just love each other too, if they can psyche themselves up enough to take a chance. That will be a very big “if” in Jean-Pierre Améris’ Romantics Anonymous (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Angélique Delange is a gifted chocolatier, but she is paralyzed with shyness. Through sheer force of will, she manages to apply for a job at a down-market chocolate company, run by the gruff but ragingly insecure Jean-René Van Den Hugde. Sensing a fellow chocolate devotee, Van Den Hudge hires her on the spot. Unfortunately, it is for a sales position she is spectacularly unsuited for. Having accepted already, Delange tries to timidly carry on as best she can. Eventually though, Delange realizes she must use her true talents to save the floundering company.

Working under a veil of secrecy, Delange once made confections that delighted French gourmets. However, when her protective boss died, the secret of his chocolatier “hermit” died with him. Yet, resurrecting the old hermit cover proves relatively easy. Going on a date with the boss is devilishly difficult, for both of them.

Like chocolate, Anonymous is sweet film with a hint of bitterness to make it real. While everyone plays it for laughs, Améris and co-writer Philippe Blasband never minimize the challenges of the would-be couples’ extreme social awkwardness. They are not portrayed as freaks or loons, but as people who need a little more encouragement to come out of their shells (granted though, Van Den Hugde certainly has his eccentricities).

Benoît Poelvoorde (probably still best known for the unsettling Man Bites Dog) is fantastic as Van Den Hugde, showing an aptitude for broad comedy while keeping the character totally grounded. Likewise, as Delange, Isabelle Carré engagingly projects both a brittle vulnerability and an arresting innocence.

Combining elements of food porn with the underdog romantic comedy, Anonymous was one of the most commercial international selections at Tribeca this year, which might be why they picked it up for their distribution arm. Sensitively helmed by Améris, it is a completely satisfying film, giving the audience what we want (even if it is predictable on some level). A real charmer, Anonymous opens tomorrow (11/25) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

The Kitchen Elite: El Bulli

Compared to a table at master chef Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli, getting a reservation at Nobu is just like snagging the corner booth at a White Castle. They only accommodated around 8,000 people per season, before packing up for the winter to develop a completely new menu of rarified culinary creations. Yet since the celebrated Catalan restaurant is schedule to permanently close its doors this coming Saturday, adventurous connoisseurs will have to settle for the vicarious meal developed in German filmmaker Gereon Wetzel’s documentary El Bulli—Cooking in Progress (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York at Film Forum.

There is no falling back on greatest hits at El Bulli. Adrià throws out the previous season’s set menu, thirty-some sequential small plate courses, starting entirely from scratch. The only guiding principle of El Bulli is originality, with a preference for ingredients employed in radically new contexts. Yet, Adrià and his staff do not carry on like crazies cooks let loose in the kitchen. Rather, they more closely resemble research scientists conducting closely controlled laboratory experiments.

Frankly, Cooking in Progress could use a bit of messiness. Save for one harsh verbal dressing down (that seems largely unwarranted), there is not much drama to found throughout the film. Instead, the audience quietly watches as they quietly refine each new course. While Gereon’s fly-on-the-wall observational style certainly leads to an appreciation of Adrià’s methodical approach, it can leave viewers rather cold.

In fact, it is rather difficult to glean a sense of Adrià’s personality and even harder for his trusted lieutenants, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatrach, beyond their master-apprentice relationships. Though they are definitely working under deadline as the new season approaches, Progress does not seek to exploit the ticking clock for dramatic effect. However, the unveiling of the new dishes delivers the hoped for pay-off. Even culinary laypersons will be impressed to see what the raw ingredients ultimately become. Indeed, cinematographer Josef Mayhofer nicely captures the elegance of both the striking coastal restaurant and its artfully rendered cuisine.

Progress is a cooking film in the purest sense. Hardcore Food Network viewers will probably be enthralled by it, but those lacking a serious culinary grounding, including seasoned doc watchers, might find it somewhat austere and slow. Yet, for the considerable target audience, Progress will be a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of a celebrated restaurant, soon to be remembered in mythic terms. Eminently respectable, Progress opens this Wednesday (7/27) at Film Forum, with chefs and culinary science experts in attendance for several opening week evening screenings.

NYAFF ’11: The Recipe

Rosebud is a bowl of stew. Kim Jong-gu is no Charles Foster Kane though. He was a serial killer fugitive. His dying words were not of defiance or regret, but of the doenjang (bean paste) stew he was relishing when the cops finally collared him. Rediscovering his journalistic curiosity, a jaded television news producer (is there any other kind?) sets out to discover if the stew really is that good in Lee Seon-goon’s The Recipe (unrepresentative trailer here), which screens during the 2011 New York Asian Film Festival.

The stew in question was the specialty of a rustic mountain lodge. Evidently, its savory flavor held Kim in thrall as the law encircled him. Unfortunately, recreating the stew in all its glory will be a bit tricky. The enigmatic cook Jang Hye-jin has disappeared (well after Kim’s capture), leading hack newsman Choi Yu-jin to fear the worst.

Essentially, Recipe is the foodie version of Eddie and the Cruisers, with a Silence of the Lambs prologue. Yet, despite the serial killer catalyst, Recipe is an unapologetically sentimental tear-jerker in the tradition of Il Mare, the Korean weeper remade by Hollywood as The Lake House with a bogus happy ending. As Kim tracks down the exquisitely pure beans, salt, yeast, and water Jang patiently collected, he pieces together her backstory. There was indeed a tragic romance, with the strong but silent vintner the villagers affectionately called the “Mountain Goblin.”

In keeping with Recipe’s elegiac romanticism, Lee Seon-gong (a.k.a. Anna Lee) maintains a mysterious and ever so slightly mystical atmosphere throughout, letting the puzzle pieces elegantly fall into place. As a culinary procedural, it is rather tightly constructed, but the star-crossed love is the real meat of its stew.

As Jang and “the Goblin” respectively, the lovely Lee Yo-won and scruffy Dong Wook-lee nicely project a contradictory blend of earthiness and ethereal allure. Unfortunately, Ryoo Seung-ryong’s Choi indulgences in a few too many rubber-faced reactions shots that clash with the film’s overall dreamy vibe. Frankly, we could use more shots of his back, like William Alland in Citizen Kane.

Regardless, Lee Seon-goon has a strong command of the material, avoiding cheap sentimentality in favor of the hard earned kind. Na Hee-suk’s gauzy cinematography also perfectly serves the film’s swooning spirit and soft fantastical elements. Even the hopelessly cynical should get a tad choked up at the end. Lee’s adroit genre hopscotching also makes Recipe a natural fit for NYAFF, where it screens this coming Tuesday (7/5) and the following Saturday (7/9) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Coogan vs. Brydon: The Trip

One is Welsh (and don’t you forget it). The other is from The North, but much of the time they sound like their roots are strictly working class cockney. Prepare for a pitched battle of Michael Caine impressions. There will also be gourmet food. British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, respectively, in Michael Winterbottom’s pseudo-fictional road-movie buddy-comedy The Trip (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

Coogan is one of the biggest stars in the UK. Just ask him, he’ll tell you. Divorced with a son he should see more of, Coogan’s personal life is pretty much a mess. His girlfriend has called a timeout and returned to America right before he is scheduled to take a culinary tour of the North of England on behalf of a major magazine. Stuck with a gig he only accepted because he thought she would enjoy it, Coogan invites along his old kind of chum Brydon in her place.

Hardly a big star, Brydon gets paid to make silly voices on the radio. However, the working class comic knows perfectly well there are worse ways to make a living. Happily married with a little girl, one hopes Brydon’s life is only thinly fictionalized. In contrast, we soon wish the moody Coogan portrayed in The Trip is largely an invented persona. They have one thing in common though. Both have very definite ideas on how Michael Caine should sound, which they demonstrate, repeatedly. Recognizing good material, Coogan and Brydon frequently return to the well and it is still funny each and every time.

Edited to feature length from the original six-part British mini-series, Trip is consistently droll, even when not plundering the Sir Michael comedy store. Stylistically very different, Coogan and Brydon play off each other quite well. Their mostly improvised bickering banter is always razor sharp, but never overly caustic. Coogan even offers a spot of credibly understated drama as his own rather miserable self. Yet, the film will not afford him the opportunity of blaming his parents, presenting them as warmly supportive and not at all embarrassing (at least by parental standards) when Coogan and Brydon pop in for a quick visit.

Throughout Trip, viewers also get a driving tour of the North, which looks quite picturesque through cinematographer Ben Smithard’s lens. Still, one suspects 111 minutes of the Lakeland district might be just about right, unless you have reservations at some of the elite restaurants Coogan and Brydon visit. Witty without getting too cute or annoyingly self-referential, The Trip is surprisingly entertaining, definitely recommended when it opens tomorrow (6/10) on two screens at the IFC Center.

Tribeca ’11: Romantics Anonymous

Chocolate is the food of romance and indulgence. Two social misfits still love it anyway. They might just love each other too, if they can psyche themselves up enough to take a chance. That will be a very big “if” in Jean-Pierre Améris’ Romantics Anonymous (trailer here), which screens during the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.

Angélique Delange is a gifted chocolatier, but she is paralyzed with shyness. Through sheer force of will, she manages to apply for a job at a down-market chocolate company, run by the gruff but ragingly insecure Jean-René Van Den Hugde. Sensing a fellow chocolate devotee, Van Den Hudge hires her on the spot. Unfortunately, it is for a sales position she is spectacularly unsuited for. Having accepted already, Delange tries to timidly carry on as best she can. Eventually though, Delange realizes she most use her true talents to save the floundering company.

Working under a veil of secrecy, Delange once made confections that delighted French gourmets. However, when her protective boss died, the secret of his chocolatier “hermit” died with him. Yet, resurrecting the old hermit cover proves relatively easy. Going on a date with the boss is devilishly difficult, for both of them.

Like chocolate, Anonymous is sweet film with a hint of bitterness to make it real. While everyone plays it for laughs, Améris and co-writer Philippe Blasband never minimize the challenges of the would-be couples’ extreme social awkwardness. They are not portrayed as freaks or loons, but as people who need a little more encouragement to come out of their shells (granted though, Van Den Hugde certainly has his eccentricities).

Benoît Poelvoorde (probably still best known for the creepy Man Bites Dog) is fantastic as Van Den Hugde, showing an aptitude for broad comedy while keeping the character totally grounded. Likewise, as Delange, Isabelle Carré engagingly projects both a brittle vulnerability and an arresting innocence.

Combining elements of food porn with the underdog romantic comedy, Anonymous is one of the most commercial international selections at Tribeca this year. Sensitively helmed by Améris, it is a completely satisfying film, giving the audience what we want (even if it is predictable on some level). A real charmer, Anonymous screens this Saturday (4/23), Monday (4/25), Tuesday (4/26), and the following Saturday (4/30) as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Soul Kitchen: Who Stole the Soul?

Talk about bait and switch. Instead of soul food, they serve nouveau fusion cuisine and alt-rock has replaced the classic soul music, yet Zinos still calls his restaurant Soul Kitchen. It does not seem to hurt business though in Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

German-Greek restaurateur Zinos is not much of a cook, but his regulars eat up his greasy down-home offerings anyway. Recuperating from a back injury, Zinos makes a fateful decision, hiring a legit gourmet chef as his temporary replacement. In addition to being a culinary artist, Shayn happens to be Roma and intimidates people with his knife wielding prowess (nope, no cultural stereotypes going on here). Shayn alienates the local clientele with his new menu, but the hipsters start coming in droves. When Zinos hires his waiter Lutz’s grunge group to be the house band, suddenly Soul Kitchen is the in-scene.

Of course, Zinos is still besieged with a plague of dramas, most of which stem from Neumann (insert Seinfeld joke here), his long lost childhood chum, now a successful real estate developer. In Kitchen’s contrived world, such a profession guarantees his villainy. True to course, as soon as they reconnect, Neumann is scheming to swindle Zinos out of his primo property. Unfortunately, the unkempt restaurant proprietor is seriously distracted with his efforts to save his relationship with the severely Teutonic Nadine. Not for an instant though, are they remotely believable as a couple. On top of everything else, Zinos has to worry about his compulsive gambling brother, currently enjoying a prison furlough. Hey, no worries, everyone’s family at Soul Kitchen.

From the evil businessmen to the grumpy old neighbor, Kitchen does not miss a single cliché. That might have been forgivable had the film had a sense of fun. However, it is a surprisingly dour and uninvolving film. And yes, the largely Euro-alternative soundtrack is a major disappointment, given what one would expect from the title (and the misleading trailer).

Adam Bousdoukos tries to hit a likably nebbish note as Zinos, but he is such a doormat for trouble, it is hard to maintain a rooting interest in him. As Nadine, Pheline Roggan looks uncomfortable in every scene, which frankly makes her performance Kitchen’s most believable. The most intriguing turn comes from Anna Bederke as Lucia, the slightly less Teutonic waitress. Most of the cast though seems stuck on uber-indie quirky.

To get an idea of the fantasy world Kitchen is coming from, Zinos can expect compassion from the tax inspector and treachery from anyone with a real job. With few laughs in the offing, it all gets rather tiring. Aside from a bit of Quincy Jones’ “Hicky-Burr” (which is all kinds of awesome, by the way) the dark, hard-edged soundtrack is also mostly off-key. Safely skippable, Kitchen opens tomorrow (8/20) in New York at the IFC Center.