food Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Indie Roundup looks back at the past seven (or, sometimes, eight) days of news in the indie film community, along with a peak ahead to what's coming soon.

Opening. The highest-profile "indie" is Woody Allen's Whatever Works, wiith Tatia Rosenthal's stop-motion animation feature $9.99, Francois Velle's NYC drama The Narrows, Andy Abrahams Wilson's Lyme disease doc Under Our Skin, and Tommy Wirkola's Nazi zombie flick Dead Snow vying for attention on a limited number of screens. On the festival circuit, CineVegas drew to a close on Monday (Eric D. Snider covered it for us), the same night that Silverdocs opened in Silver Spring, Maryland. The Los Angeles Film Festival starts tonight and the New York Asian Film Festival kicks off tomorrow.

Box Office. Last weekend saw several strong openings, with Robert Kenner's doc Food, Inc. leading the way ($20,171 per-screen), followed by Duncan Jones' sci-fi drama Moon ($17,006 per screen), and Francis Coppola's family drama Tetro ($15,252). The doc Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love ($10,866) and Le combat dans l'ile ($10,217) also debuted nicely, while the expansion of Sam Mendes' Away We Go brought in good business ($12,463). Daryl Wein's very informative AIDS activist doc Sex Positive drew $3,408 at one theater.

Online Viewing. How about a doc about a doc? Keir Moreano's documentary As the Call So the Echo follows an American doctor who unexpectedly finds himself in Vetnam after he decides to donate unused medical equipment. The film is available for free streaming at Babelgum, courtesy of the good folks at Cinetic.

After the jump: How will AFI Dallas the Dallas International Film Festival fare without AFI?

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Food, Inc. (click image below to enlarge), filmmaker Robert Kenner's unflattering look inside our nation's food industry. With more and more food being ripped from the shelves due to the apparent threat of disease (with pistachio nuts being the latest banned food), Food, Inc. takes the viewer inside the mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer, while featuring interviews with Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma), as well as Polyface Farms' Joe Salatin and Stonyfield Farms' Gary Hirschberg.

As the film's synopsis states: "Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli--the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults" For more information on Food, Inc., which hits theaters on June 12, check out the film's official website and click the image below to view the full poster.

Every time SXSW and Texas come up in conversation, I keep hearing about the a-mazing merging of movies and food at the Alamo Drafthouse, and the chatter never ceases to inspire huge green waves of jealousy. The idea that moviegoers could revel in Hollywood while chowing down on quality menu items -- it's been my dream for years, and sounds like a perfect taste of heaven.

For me, it started as a matter of convenience. I grew up in a town where the only close theater was in an almost-abandoned mall, which then moved to an actually-abandoned K-Mart. Since it wasn't really the backdrop for excellent movie viewing, I'd drive for 40 minutes every week to pick up new CDs and see a movie at a better theater. I'd usually get to the theater quite early, so I would smuggle in Wendy's and have dinner while watching the on-screen trivia -- a much more appealing option than sitting in a food court, eating, then getting to the theater late.

These days, I live in Toronto and don't have to worry about huge movie travel. Nevertheless, the urge remains, and now it might actually come close to becoming legit! The Canadian Press reports that T-dot's Varsity Cinema has gotten a new liquor license to serve alcohol in their smaller VIP theaters, and other areas may soon follow. First step booze, next step: big juicy burgers and fries?

One of the best things about covering a film festival in New York is that there are about a billion different dining options available to you, even if you just have a half-hour between screenings. And, while I'm pretty good at exploring the dining scene in my home state of New Jersey (and yes, Jersey has a dining scene), I rarely get a chance to get more than a one-shot opportunity to sample what the Big Apple has to offer. So I made sure I used my time wisely.

I think I did a good job: last Friday, after my set of screenings, I met a friend and his sister and went to Resto, a Belgian place whose waiters wear t-shirts that say "I'm bringing the fatback." Oh, they love their fat there; my entree was a beef cheek carbonnade that was softer and tastier than any normal stew beef you can think of. Oh, and they had frites (fries) and beer there. Lots of frites and beer.

I'm thankful for a lot of things this year, my son being first and foremost, but I wouldn't get too far down the list without coming to movies and food, and then food in movies. Showing characters eating or relating to food in some way can be a quick and easy way to capture a magical moment. You can reveal something about a character, you can take a break from an otherwise hectic narrative, or you can simply bask in the sheer, physical beauty of food, the same way another movie might show characters dancing. The following is my second annual "thankful" list of food scenes in current movies playing on 400 screens or less.

I'm thankful for the use of the term "savory snacks" in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited (285 screens). When Jack (Jason Schwartzman) returns from having made love with the Indian stewardess (Amara Karan) in the train's bathroom, his brothers ask: "where's our savory snacks"? I'm thankful for the adorable Sarah Silverman and the way she sighed her way through the line "I want someone to eat cheese with" in I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (3 screens). And I'm thankful for Scarlett Johansson eating potato chips in bed in The Nanny Diaries (26 screens) -- her only way of dealing with the end of a horrible, horrible day.