The documentary Ella Brennan: Commanding the Table tells the story of the New Orleans powerhouse restaurateur – and it’s one compelling story.
Ella Brennan is a woman who, before she was thirty, started running restaurants in the pre-feminist 1950s. Ella Brennan started as the little sister and became the matriarch of the famous New Orleans restaurant family. She launched Brennan’s and Commander’s Palace, the latter still the greatest of New Orleans Creole restaurants. On her journey, she had to overcome Mad Men-era sexism, a slew of business cycles and hurricanes – and even family betrayal.
We see a woman with old-fashioned obsession with detail and very high standards. We also see culinary and marketing creativity that can only be described as genius. Ella Brennan is responsible for Bananas Foster, the Jazz Brunch and a host of food trends. Along the way, she mentored the celebrity chefs Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse and Jamie Shannon. Here’s a New York Times profile of Ella Brennan that mentions this film.
I saw Ella Brennan last fall at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Ella Brennan: Commanding the Table can be streamed from Netflix Instant.
In the Brazilian character-driven drama Aquarius, Sonia Braga plays Clara, the last owner of a beachfront condo who hasn’t sold out to a developer who owns the rest of the condos. The conflict is between Clara, who refuses to sell and those her want her to. But Aquarius is really about Clara, and it takes its time setting up her character; it’s 26 minutes before we even see the developers. We must understand her to understand her motivation – and her will.
Aquarius moves through scenes with a lifeguard at the beach, with girlfriends at club, at family parties, not to move the plot, but to invest in revealing aspects of Clara’s character. Having conquered cancer, lost her husband, raised children and built an artistic career, Clara has some mileage on her – enough to know what she wants and needs. Having earned the authority to live her life as she pleases, Clara is a wilful free spirit. And, as everyone finds out, she is absolutely fearless.
It’s a career-capping performance for Sonia Braga, still luminous 40 years after Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands. Mid movie, there’s a scene when Clara’s adult children try to have an awkward conversation about the financial benefits of selling the apartment. She doesn’t make it easy for them, and their long-submerged feelings about their father and their mother surface. With piercing observations and cold-eyed disappointment, Clara is as masterful over her children as when they were infants. It’s hard to imagine a better movie scene this year. Braga is brilliant.
The young Brazilian television actor Humberto Carrão is exceptional as Clara’s ever smiling foil Diego, whose youth and punctilious civility mask a capacity to engage in any tactic, even very dirty tricks.
I viewed Aquarius at the Mill Valley Film Festival.
Aquarius is critical of the political status quo, and the Brazilian government’s refusal to submit it for the Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar has created a controversy detailed in this New York Times article.
One MUST SEE at the Mill Valley Film Festival is Toni Erdmann, from writer-director Maren Ade. You might not expect an almost three-hour German comedy to break through, but I’ve seen it, and I think that it’s a lock to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Ade gives us a woman’s perspective of a father-daughter relationship, creating a totally original and unforgettable father who takes prankstering into performance art. This is a movie with the funniest nude brunch you’ll ever witness that still will leave you choked up at the end.
Toni Erdmann opens January 20 in the Bay Area, but you can see it at the MVFF today, October 8, and on October 13; both screenings are at the Rafael in San Rafael.
This year’s MVFF runs from October 6-16, mostly at the Sequoia in Mill Valley and the Rafael in San Rafael, but also at three other Marin venues. Check out the program and tickets for the MVFF. I’ll be adding more festival coverage, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
Toweris a remarkably original retelling of the 1966 mass shooting at UT Austin. Tower is a tick-tock of the 96 minutes when 49 people were randomly chosen to be shot by a gunman in the landmark tower 240 feet above the campus. That gunman is barely mentioned (and may not even be named) in the movie. What makes Tower distinctive and powerful it’s the survivors who tell their stories, reenacted by actors who are animated by a rotoscope-like technique (think Richard Linklater’s Waking Life). Telling this story through animation, dotted with some historical stills and footage, is captivating. October 7 and 9.
Death by Design is an important environmental exposé on the toxic impact of personal electronics. Most of us have heard that some very dangerous materials and some horrific working conditions are used in the manufacturing of our favorite devices. Death by Design is the first film to successfully tie it all together, with historical perspective, global sweep and a possible way out. October 7 and 11.
Ella Brennan: Commanding the Table tells the story of the New Orleans powerhouse restaurateur – and it’s compelling. This is a woman who started running restaurants in the 1950s before she was thirty, the mentor of celebrity chefs Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse and Jamie Shannon and responsible for Bananas Foster, the Jazz Brunch and a host of food trends. October 15 only.
Ella Brennan leads the MVFF’s Focus: Culinary Cinema program, along with documentaries on chefs Massimo Botturo (Theater of Life) and Jeremiah Tower (Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent) and a road trip narrative, Paris Can Wait, starring Alec Baldwin and Diane Lane.
Of course, the big family hit of the Holiday season may turn out to be, of all things a documentary about a Mongolian girl – The Eagle Huntress; reportedly it’s both a crowd pleaser and spectacular eye candy.
This year’s MVFF runs from October 6-16, mostly at the Sequoia in Mill Valley and the Rafael in San Rafael, but also at three other Marin venues. Check out the program and tickets for the MVFF. I’ll be adding more festival coverage, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
The Mill Valley Film Festival is the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the prestige films that are scheduled for release during Award Season.. My choices for the most promising entries among the Big Movies:
Arrival stars Amy Adams as a linguist dispatched to communicate with alien lifeforms Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Incendies – my top movie of 2011, Prisoners, Sicario).
La La Landis a big studio musical a la Singing in the Rain with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Lovingtells the story of the Virginia couple whose 1967 US Supreme Court case overturned state laws banning inter-racial marriage. Stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. Directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud, all three of which made my Best of the Year lists).
Buzz is trending for Lion, with Dev Patel starring as an Australian adoptee returning to India to search for his biological parents.
And the big family hit of the Holiday season may turn out to be, of all things a documentary about a Mongolian girl – The Eagle Huntress; reportedly it’s both a crowd pleaser and spectacular eye candy.
One MUST SEE at the fest is Toni Erdmann, from writer-director Maren Ade. You might not expect an almost three-hour German comedy to break through, but I’ve seen it, and I think that it’s a lock to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Ade gives us a woman’s perspective of a father-daughter relationship, creating a totally original and unforgettable father character that takes prankstering into performance art. This is a movie with the funniest nude brunch you’ll ever witness that still will leave you choked up at the end.Toni Erdmann leads a roster rich with future art house hits from some of the world’s leading filmmakers:
The Handmaiden from Chan-wook Park of Oldboy.
Julieta, Pedro Almodovar’s latest),
Aquarius, starring Sonia Braga, still luminous 40 years after Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands.
The Salesman from Asghar Farhadi of A Separation.
Certain Women from Kelly Reichardt of Wendy and Lucy, starring Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern.
Paterson from Jim Jarmusch with Adam Driver; Jarmusch’s Iggy Pop doc Gimme Shelter also screens at MVFF.
Frantz from François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Potiche).
Elle from Paul Verhoeven with Isabelle Huppert in, what else?, a psychological thriller with disturbing sex.
Jeff Nichols, Kelly Reichardt and Asghar Farhadi will be presenting their films in person.
The 2016 MVFF also features a solid lineup of documentaries, including Tower, a highly original look at a mass shooting, and Death by Design, an important environmental exposé on the toxic impact of our favorite electronic devices.
This year’s MVFF runs from October 6-16, mostly at the Sequoia in Mill Valley and the Rafael in San Rafael, but also at three other Marin venues. Check out the program and tickets. I’ll be adding more festival coverage, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
This year’s Mill Valley Film Festival features Death by Design, an important environmental exposé on the toxic impact of personal electronics. Most of us have heard that some very dangerous materials and some horrific working conditions are used in the manufacturing of our favorite devices. Death by Design is the first film to successfully tie it all together, with historical perspective, global sweep and a possible way out.
Death by Design begins with the dark side of Silicon Valley’s history, related by the sonorous voice of environmental pioneer Ted Smith, founder of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Smith takes us through the discovery that the supposedly clean semiconductor manufacturing industry had been polluting the drinking water in some Silicon Valley neighborhoods. Groundbreaking occupational lawyer Amanda Hawes shows us the heartbreak caused when humans ingested those toxics.
Pioneering environmental heroes, Smith and Hawes saw this coming before anyone else. Although Smith bemoans the centuries-long impact of toxic pollution and Hawes shows us the very personal cost of occupational exposure, the two played a pivotal role in Silicon Valley history – they saved the geographic Silicon Valley from becoming much more widely and permanently despoiled. Thanks to their efforts, Silicon Valley, ironically, is more attractive than ever for the workers and investors fueling the current tech boom.
However, economic globalization has allowed the electronics industry to simply export the environmental impact from California to developing nations, and Death by Design tours us through a tech chamber of horrors in China.
We learn that 20% of China’s arable land and 60% of its groundwater are already contaminated (not ALL the fault of high-tech). We visit the “recycling” of e-waste in Guiyu – an unimaginable industrial catastrophe. We throw stuff away, and Death by Design asks us to consider the question, “Where is away?”.
But not all of the environmental costs have been have been moved away from us. In Death by Design, we also meet scientists who fly through the sky, sampling the chemical composition of clouds and collecting aerosols; they can detect pollution in North America and trace it back to Asia.
Death by Design’s Chinese segments – in factories, homes and bodies of water – is especially impressive. What must be shrewdly obtained footage helps us understand the plight of workers employed by the suppliers to international tech companies, including the major Apple supplier Foxconn, whose workers can suffer through 12-hour days and 7-day weeks. Death by Design pins the labor cost at 1 percent of an iPhone’s price; the movie leaves the math for the viewers: if you triple a 1% labor cost, a $400 phone would sell for $408.
As fitting for a techie movie, Death by Design also brings us some geeks to show us that Apple designs the iPhone for an 18-month life; you can’t extend the life by replacing the battery or other parts because Apple locks the case with proprietary screws so we can’t open it up.
If there’s a particular Bad Guy in this story, it’s Apple. I became ever more conscious that I was watching Death by Design on an iPad with Apple ear buds.
One hopeful glimmer is the introduction to the Chinese environmental entrepreneur Ma Jun, who has compiled a database of environmental impacts as a tool to press for change from within China. Another is an Irish startup that has developed fair trade computers that are updatable and reusable; their cases are built from an unexpected raw material.
Director Sue Williams maintains the topical urgency without creating a screed. She also covers a lot of ground in a crisp 73 minutes. And, most impressively, Williams delivers the Chinese footage necessary to complete the story. Death by Design is one of the most important environmental documentaries – and one of the most watchable. It plays the Mill Valley Film Festival on October 7 and 11.
The Mill Valley Film Festival always showcases many of the most promising prestige films that are scheduled for release during Award Season. It’s the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies.
This year’s fest opens on October 6 with BOTH Arrival and La La Land and closes on October 16 with Loving – three of the biggest prestige movies and early favorites for Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards.
Arrival stars Amy Adams as a linguist dispatched to communicate with alien lifeforms Directed by Denis Villaneuve (Incendies – my top movie of 2011, Prisoners, Sicario).
La La Land is a big studio musical a la Singing in the Rain with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Loving tells the story of the Virginia couple whose 1967 US Supreme Court case overturned state laws banning inter-racial marriage. Stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. Directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud, all three of which made my Best of the Year lists).
Besides Arrival,La La Land and Loving, buzz is trending for another MVFF offering – Lion – with Dev Patel starring as an Australian adoptee returning to India to search for his biological parents.
And the big family hit of the Holiday season may turn out to be, of all things a documentary about a Mongolian girl – The Eagle Huntress; reportedly it’s both a crowd pleaser and spectacular eye candy.
ARRIVAL
One MUST SEE at the fest is Toni Erdmann, from writer-director Maren Ade. You might not expect an almost three-hour German comedy to break through, but I’ve seen it, and I think that it’s a lock to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. Ade gives us a woman’s perspective of a father-daughter relationship, creating a totally original and unforgettable father character that takes prankstering into performance art. This is a movie with the funniest nude brunch you’ll ever witness, and it will still leave you choked up at the end. Toni Erdmann leads a roster rich with future art house hits from some of the world’s leading filmmakers:
The Handmaiden from Chan-wook Park of Oldboy.
Julieta, Pedro Almodovar’s latest.
Aquarius, starring Sonia Braga, still luminous 40 years after Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands.
The Salesman from Asghar Farhadi of A Separation.
Certain Women from Kelly Reichardt of Wendy and Lucy, starring Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern.
Paterson from Jim Jarmusch with Adam Driver; Jarmusch’s Iggy Pop doc Gimme Shelter also screens at MVFF.
Frantz from François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Potiche).
Elle from Paul Verhoeven with Isabelle Huppert in, what else?, a psychological thriller with disturbing sex.
Celebrity appearances, for those of you who like that sort of thing, will include Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams, Ewan McGregor, Emma Stone, Gael García Bernal, Edward James Olmos, Joel Edgerton, Annette Bening and Aaron Eckhardt. For those of you seeking a chance to hear great filmmakers discuss their work in the flesh, you’ll get your chance with Jeff Nichols, Kelly Reichardt and Asghar Farhadi.
This year’s MVFF runs from October 6-16, mostly at the Sequoia in Mill Valley and the Rafael in San Rafael, but also at three other Marin venues. Check out the program and tickets for the MVFF. I’ll be adding more festival coverage, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
