Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20130715

Because its only made 6 million doesnt make it a failure or bad movie. So as critics we have to remember that were not analyzing the box office and that were analyzing whether a film is worthy and whether it has value. Bruni food and movies next. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Bruni welcome to the program. Im frank bruni sitting in for charlie wloz is off this week on assignment. About a decade ago, i began a fiveyear stint as the chief restaurant critic at the New York Times. At the time there was a discussion about the dominance of italian food in upscale dining. The trend was observed in new york and other major American Cities as well. There was also a question would this last . Well, if anything, italian is even more dominant and triumphant today. Three guests join me to talk about the root of its appeal and the direction its heading. Michael white is the chef owner of new yorks restaurants marea and costate. Hes a leading italian chef. Mario carbone is a chef owner of three of the hottest restaurants in manhattan, or the reesesy italian specialties, parm, and the brand new carbone. And kate krader is the restaurant editor of food wine magazine. Im pleased to have them all. Kate, i want to start with you. You have been a new york restaurant observer for as long as ive known you and an incredibly knowledgeable one at that. When did you look around in this city and say wow. Italian food has stolen the stage from french . Well, i think when italian food really started it just seemed like a tidal wave in the city is when a restaurant opened in tribeca, the chef is Andrew Cremilini and he made his name at cafe boloud which is a french leaning restaurant, in fact, Mario Carbone worked there. But he was known as a french chef and then he went down to tribeca and took over a sort of failed restaurant space and opened la canda verde and served food everybody wanted to eat and there were super important Italian Restaurants in new york city before then but i think that sort of changed the way that everybody all of a sudden wanted to do italian style Roast Chicken and pasta. Bruni michael, would you agree with that or set it at a different date, restaurant, chef . I think for the new wave of restaurants as kate is speaking of Italian Restaurants that are very, very, if you will italian shabby chic, somewhat of a trat rhea but more americanized, that wave started four or five years ago. The real wave of italian food that i started with in 2002 and previous to that as bobo in early 98, i think thats another turning point of italian food. How we thought about it in the levels. But all this if bobo wouldnt have been there and the restaurants proceeding that, locondo, it evolved into a with american sensibility, an Italian Restaurant with american sensibility. A big restaurant, fantastic products and italian ingredient thought process. Bruni why for so long is french seen as the cuisine you had to do if you were serious about cooking. You had to train in france. Was that a fair assumption for people to make or were we according french too much respect, mash owe . I dont think we were giving it too much respect. I think it was totally in line. Probably what happened was that they were awardwinning restaurants. They were the star winning restaurants. They were the restaurants that were en vogue. They were the restaurants being named on wall street where they rattle off the names like the big boy french restaurants of the 80s were the talkedabout places. That was what was in. That was the trend. Thats whats winning awards, those were the celebrities chefs of the moment. Rose . Bruni and italian didnt have the respect it had today. It was a cheforiented cuisine but i think italian was seen as a grandmother cuisine and french was a cheforiented cuisine. I think more than anything i think french because both mario and i and chefs of our peers, we were ought taught in the french brigade system where there is a you know theres isou chef, the preparation. But the whole way of going about to go to school, whether its the Culinary Institute of america, its based on the french way of cooking and leadership . The kitchen if you will. So that had something to do with the not rustic ingredients but using very expensive ingredients such as a few gri, duck and caviar. So we came to a point as we touched before that its kind of slowed down to a certain point that italian is this food that is the ethnic food of choice all around the world. Bruni when did you have your epiphany that italian could be as rigorous, as impressive as french . That it wasnt a secondrate, it wasnt just olive garden. Apologies to the olive garden. When in your life was what meal was it, what age was it when you said italian is worth my energy and effort . I grew up in the midwest and when went out for dinner it would either be cantonese cuisine or fantastic italian cuisine. Those were two ethnic choices that were there. Now theres so much more. It was that time when i went to work and i knew this but i went to work at a restaurant called spiagia. Bruni in chicago. In chicago. Very Ground Breaking restaurant that started cooking italian food. When i talk about italian this is a very large discussion about whether its italian, Italian American, so on, so fort it was the end of knew vessel cuisine in the late 80s, i started in 1991 so it was risotto and bell general endive and it was an amazing experience for me and i got the bug there and never left it. Kate, you were mentioning these ingredients and we talk about the respect for and purity of ingredients. Do you think there are ways we eat right now that are so consistent with ma what makes italian food special that thats the explanation for why its so enduringly popular and now sort of the default upscale cuisine of choice . Well, i think that its such a were so addicted to comfort food now and chefs are having so much fun with it. I think one reason its so exciting to eat italian food now and has been for a couple years is that chefs have discovered things like pasta extruders and theres a chef in st. Louis at a restaurant called pistoria who is making his own alphabet pasta. Its so great that you have an opportunity to do Something Like that and like wise i think chefs are having fun with pizzas and theyre geeking out on what kind of flour they use or they have, like, these pizza ovens that are you know, like theyre cars. They sort of deck them out like that. And so i think that. Bruni theres almost a whole fetishism to it. Exactly. Fetishism is a good word. But i also think that that chefs like these two great chefs are pushing the boundaries and doing cool things with them. Like i remember i think you were playing around with ramen and doing peppe ramen and i think michaels done extraordinary thing first at marea and now at costate and its fun to see the boundaries being pushed. For a while it was so purist oriented. Bruni one of the reasons i wanted to have you two gentlemen on i knew that was why. Bruni i have to say, its disappointing to be sitting at a table near each of you and not be eating food that youve cooked for me so youve let me down a little bit. Youve opened many restaurants recently, both of you. You opened these restaurants chat italian have been popular for a while. Lets talk about torrisi italian specialties which you opened in the last days of 2009. How high was the bar to do Something Different and how did you come up with an Italian Restaurant that was going to do Something Different from this bevy of Italian Restaurants already having swept through manhattan . Well, my oorjnal business partner, or the reesesy, we set the bar, i think, for ourselves. We had amazing mentors, daniel, mario, wily, we had the best mentors you could possibly have and then all we knew was we had this need inside of us to do something on our own and we pretty much set out to do that before figuring out what that was. And we learned and taught ourselves what that was along the way and the first set of menus we sat and wrote were pretty much directly related to our old bosses and wed look at them and it would be our first default and then wed realize, wait a minute, we werent born in italy. This isnt our food. We started writing this regional italian food that i know so well through mario and so on and so forth and we had this epiphany that hey, were from new york. Were Italian Americans and for so long that was looked down on during this tidal wave of just the italian title wave. Right, are we going to do piedmont, poulia . It opened my eyes to it when i was working with those regions and restaurants. But we came to this kind of Italian American epiphany that thats who we were and to do something, whatever it was that was really true to us. Bruni you wanted to do food that could be called italian but not be called in italy. Food of downtown manhattan. So we said were going to stop bringing in ingredients outside america. Were going to make it with american ingredients and we believe thats the truest sense of italian cooking or any sort of regional cuisine. Use what you have around you and the techniques that youve learned from that country and make something new. Bruni but you also did something that always captured my imagination. You decided the whole concept of terwar was wrong. It didnt need to mean a patch of soil but the neighborhood. Youd grown up in nakdz that had chinese next to italian, jamaican beefpattis in a pizzeria. Talk about a ditch that was the fruit of imagining that sort of conjoining of two ethnic traditions that, in manhattan, do occupy the same terrer. We were envious of these chefs that had gardens in the backyard and they could sniff the greens and they had free range animals and you look at renee and things he has around him that hes forced himself to use. Well, were on prince and mull bury. Will lets force ourselves to use the neighborhoods. Okay, well, cant go pick anything but i have chinese sausage down the block and i can go down into the Lower East Side and get mat sew that got made this morning and teach yourself mow to make new food. And it was exciting. And i remember we did a dish was that was curry cavateli this was jamaican beef patti ragu. I rather liked that dish. laughter i grew up in queens where the lunch ladies were jamaican so we were eating beef patties for lunch as kids, thats what they were serving us in Public Schools so i remember falling in love with the beef patti and it was always served if you go and buy one like golden crust is a great one, you get has been narrow sauce. So you have cur reed cavatelli, then the curry goat aspect, the other side of it. There was three parts of this dish, curried get to, beef patti it was my childhood. There was like three Different Things that happened. Bruni i can say as someone whos eating it, i feel like someone eating something italian. At the end of the day thats what you get. Hopefully you get as a customer is this dish of just heartwarming food, its a new flavor profile but itss no stall jim at the same time. It pulls at you in several Different Directions and thats when something successful at stories zi. Bruni not so longer after that you opened marea which is an italian Seafood Restaurant which, like torrisi, is a remarkable place to eat. As you put that together, how did you say to yourself, okay, italys all over the place, i need do something distinctive. Whats the thought process behind marea . What mario does and his team is very much italian thought process. You know fact that youre using ingredients. At marea we we do many, many dishes that are very italian but could you couldnt find in the italy because we talk about the flavors that we do, whether it wiese the cruda, well saute eschar role with garl lick and chilis like you have in the rome but then well blend it with extra Virgin Olive Oil and well call it oyster crema and serve wilt artichoke, shaved artichokes so if you put this in your mouth you have a sensation of eating this kind of you know, the flavors of escarole and burned garlic and anchovies as well. Things you think of as italian but you could travel italy all over and you would never see Something Like that. But at marea we would never go outside of the bounds of what is available in italy, if you will. Bruni youre mostly focusing on the north of the country this. Well, we do things from sicily. Theres so much coastline. Bruni marea means tide. Tide in italian. So all the way down to sicily and the fact of using cous cous and all these separate ingredients, people that think italian food of being one type of food and thats really what we grew up with. I grew up with Italian American as well but if you go into the austrohungarian empire and we Start Talking about it in that sense of wienerschnitzel, mil, these are italian but they are also austrian, also german and its the same thing. At marea we use fantastic italian ingredients, we use local ingredients. But we really stay true to the thought process of italian to a certain point. For example, we use cheese with seafood which is considered a faux pas to some extent but at marea we push the boundaries of what italian can be but we would never use coriander or cilantro. It has to exist in that area. Bruni do you think italy is an inexhaustible lardner terms of the country . I think people are very interested it. When i got to meet michael it was when we did a story in food wine about a region that id never heard about before we covered an earthquake there once. So you know it. But it was i feel like its you find these different regions you dont know about and they provide you with all these, like, great sounding dishes and cool ingredients and so, yeah, i feel like just when you think off sense of southern italy you get to deep go deep on some part of sicily. One of the things important with mario and myself is we didnt grow up in italy and therefore we dont take the italian food for granted. We think about in the different ways. Bruni nor are you slaves to a certain tradition. Exactly. I am more of a slave to a region in the north of italy where we do do tortellini, all these things are not so conducive for hot summers. Bruni lets turn to your newest restaurant, carbone. I feel almost bad were talking about it because viewers will think i want to go and its one of the hardest tables to score in mat hat tan. You are actually doing the food you grew up with. The Italian American food that italians almost had to move past to get respect youre say nothing, we dont have to move past it, we just revisit it with greater standards and more ingenuity, right . Youre making a caesar salad for 17, 17. Yeah. And its the restaurant that i wanted to build that is carbone is the fancy restaurant i grew up going to, right . Theres a handful of them that still exist and theyre fabulous and i love to go to them. Bruni but not as good as yours. I wanted to make a newer one because i wanted to make sure this thing stood the test of however much longer because im not sure how long these are going to be open when the generations get passed on again and again so my partners and myself wanted to open a new one and we got that great old space in a restaurant that used to be there for a hundred years and the bones of the building are amazing and we started in a great place and i had roccos. Like a red and white you almost expect to see sinatro r. A. In the corner booth when you walk in. We walked in and we were like this is it. Were going do this place. And i had a vivid memory of those joints that i went to for confirmation, communion and you get the big menu and youre in the fancy and that means serving certain dishes. But how do you make the dishes special enough to be worthy of regard and be worthy of you start with the dishes that you say have to be on this menu. Were like okay, chicken scarp has to be on this menu and we have to figure out how to make it great. You care about each one of the ingredients and care about how each one of them is prepared and treated. Thats what we do at carbone is that i dont stray. Its not torrisi. Its completely inverted. I dont stray from the box. We play inside the box. Heres the box, its Italian American fine dining. If mrs. Wilson in the dining room orders a chicken scarp yellow and theres an odd ingredient in it this is something people have eaten all the time. Curry cavetelli has never been eaten before. Bruni so mrs. Wilson has to recognize it and understand why shes paying 30 for it. That seems like a tough needle to thread. It was not easy. I realize how difficult it was when it opened and i was like oh this is really hard. Im giving people food that theyve eaten hundreds of times before. I was surprised when i went there i think its rigatoni vodka. I think of any pasta allah vodka which i dont recall ever finding in italy, do you . We both live there and i think of that have as a pasta dish although americans who know nothing make and i thought it was a guilty pleasure. Then i go to carbone, its a fantastic dish. What are you doing to rigatoni vodka to elevate it to that level . We do very little and a lot at the same time. We care enough about it, thats an extruded pasta. Youre also playing with spices. Thats a spicy, spicy it is a spicy dish and at carbone as opposed to torrisi we do import ingredients because its important so we use a calabrean chili paste that im infatuated with. Its a fresh tomato compote, chunky tomato sauce. A french technique of cooking onions called sued have where its just sliced white onions cooked low all day in butter and that goes in with tomato and the chili and i think of you to two guys i think of these sorts of efforts to bring Italian Restaurants to places they havent been. You opened i fiori, now you have an italian steak house. What is an italian steak house . We treat the cuts of meet as if you were in romagnia. We season them with rosemary salt, a mixture of kosher salt, lemon peel, black pepper. Some that impart this is flavor were using. Also extremely aged meat from the midwest of america, so were using cuts. The restaurant is called costada and the namesake cut is a rib eye. So thats the main steak and were treating it in italian way. Were also make manager, many hand made pastas as well. So its very much a marriage of marea and costate is to meat. The. Bruni is the sky the limit . When you look around the country, do you see things happening with Italian Restaurants and food that suggest this can go on and on and people can keep finding new iteration . Its amazing. If i think back to going to torrisi and the first time i went there the first thing you get is this warm mozzarella, just made mozzarella with this incredible garlic bread and im not sure how you make it. I think it involves some really cool techniques and whatever ingredients you got in little italy. But that makes me think anything you turn your attention to. Bruni what are things youve seen around the country. I know you travel a lot when it comes to Italian Restaurants in other cities. I think one of the most i think another fantastic Italian Restaurant in this conversation ifosca food and wine in boulder. And the chef there came up he worked at the French Laundry but became obsessed with this region called freuli, which is in the north part. So it lets you dig into austrian and its not slovenia. Precisely. Bruni you mentioned frenchtrained chefs. Weve seen a lot of them that. People who have cooked in one genre but almost like theyre not complete until they try italian. I think you were telling me that april bouncio who is so associated with english gastric pub food is going to open an italian foot restaurant. You guys come to it so honestly but someone like april who i think can do anything, its funny to think of her turning to tackle italian food she owns sfoted pig and now shes going to do italian. And river cafe in london which is a fine, fine Italian Restaurant. Thats true. But we paerd paul cahan, one of the great chefs in chicago, he has black bird, hes opening up an Italian Restaurant in chicago later this year. Even just randomedly there are these two guys in a restaurant, that part of m. P. Called tribeye and theyre going crazy avantgarde food and they opened up a pizza place called the pig ate my pizza. I think thats what its called and people asked them why and this this guy said i hope he was joking. He said were fat and love pizza. So i hope people so people have different reasons. Bruni i was going to mention you said paul is italian. Thats why i have him as one of the cooks in my kitchen. So now i know why. Now we know why stealing secrets. Bruni we have all these chefs going italian and meanwhile we have italy which is im told one of the most popular tourist aattractions in new york an italian food supermarket. We have no eatafrance. The we can get all those products. French products, whether youre going to a fairway or whole foods. Those are available. I think the great part about eataly is its there. The finest of all those products are there under one roof. It does go back to what youre talking about before just how all encompassingly popular italian foot because i dont think an eatafrance or eataspain would sustain peoples attention far long. Bruni but i have a theory, im wondering what you think of this, that italian food, when were talking about the diners, that italian food doesnt intimidate them the way french food sometimes did. Do you think thats true . I think very much. And why . You spoke before about comfort food. The fact that its comfort food. You know whats on your plate when you looking at it. Thats why theres so much italian food. Whether its the shabby sheik cooking. But its very italian in thought process in the sense that you see the pork chop or the ribbons of cucumber or whatevers marinated on the plate. When youre looking at french food its more complex and people are a little bit apprehensive. And you can have a platter of polenta, a platter of just the reality of eating together. And nostalgia. I think when you look back at things like that chain pizzeria being italian, chef boy ar dee being italian. Are we really talking about chef boyardee . laughter we should talk about progresso, thats part of the culture of going through all 50 states. Thats a real thing. Olive garden. Theres a template of affection there. S no nostalgic comfort. Going to an Italian American restaurant youll see a lemon peel on the side of espresso. You would never see that in italy. They were toasting the grains of coffee in a saute pan and it became a little acrid so they would squeeze lemon oil and it would cut that. So theres really cool nuances that you about the Italian American kitchen which he knows better than all of us which i think is really cool. Bruni let me ask you a final question. One each. Michael. For a viewer whos never been to one of their restaurants, that is going to pick one of those restaurants and will come in and have one dish that youre just hugely proud of and you think shows what you can do and what youre about, whats that dish and describe it for us . Im sure they probably think which one im going say. Theres a handful of dishes that are this is really tough. I would have to say i would have to say oh, man, thats hard. I would say lobster or ifusilli with bone marrow. That was a cheat i got them boat out. Bruni those are both at marea . Yes. And thats the other thing the italian people we do around the city and wherever were going is we each restaurant is has an identity to itself and we dont do those dishes elsewhere. These are the restaurants in al a marea were. Bruni mario, im still going to hold you the rule. One . Bruni one you havent talked about that captures your philosophy and what you want to do and can do. I think a super super simple one that says a lot is scampi a la scampi. Its like a palindrome or something. Exactly. Theyre live from scotland that come in and theyre broiled in the american way, garlic, parsley, butter. Thats all it is is just six split open scampi with a lemon wrapped in cheese cloth and the white wynegar lick butter sauce and its the Italian American. You brought us some, awesome. Lets try it right now. It says so much about what we do as a company. Bruni michael white, thank you. Mario carbone, kate krader, thank you for being with us. Im frank bruni, ive been sitting in for charlie rose today. Im a. O. Scott of the New York Times sitting in for charlie rose who is off on assignment. Tonight well look at Summer Movies and the state of the movie industry and audience. Joining me dana stevens of slait magazine, Alison Bailes and david denby of the new yorker. Im pleased to have them at this table and welcome. Thank you. Pleased to be here. Im pleased to be sitting in this seat at this table. Do you feel powerful . Well, i feel like i need ask you a lot of questions so lets get right to it. Weve all seen a lot of movies this summer. Its always to me a kind of weird time of year because there are a lot of good movies that tend to be smaller movies and there are enormous every weekend commercial bee moths that come into the multiplexs. And i sometimes feel and hear from my own readers that and people on twiter that we critics are not entirely relevant to this business or experience of the blockbuster movies. Are we do we have anything to contribute, to say when we have t lone ranger or pacific rim or world war z . Well, we sort. We sort out and try to establish whats the exciting news in digital. I liked world war z a lot. I think some had it was jolting and scary and strange. And i saw it with a bunch of 50yearolds and 60yearolds and it occurred to me maybe kids used to zombie movies wouldnt be as moved as much as i was. But, yes, so we can say this one works, this one doesnt and these are the reasons why. In other words, what we always did. Daniel, what do you think has worked and hasnt . One whats one that did work . I agree on world war z to an extent. I think big bludgeoning blockbusters because there has to be one every weekend that were a bit painted into a corner. But world war z was enjoyable. I unlike most critics and audiences really enjoyed white house down which i think achieved some sort of comp glory almost a pauler have hoeven playfulness that i liked. But i dont think theres been a is it called rise of the planet of the apes a few summers ago that comes along and surprises you with character and i think thats world war z because i dont think you can say world war z is a zombie movie typically. They dont feature very much the way they do in the t. V. Show the walking dead. To me it was like a contagion, that kind of film. Or outbreak. Very scary for families and how you protect your family. But its sort of a cashet film whereas this there is digital invention that you astounding things with the zombies crawling up over and the wide shots of the zombies are just this massive hoard of until you get to the that research facility. What i liked about world war z which i didnt love as much i think, as you guys did and wish i had liked a little better but what i did like was the way that it flipped the usual structure of these movies which get bigger and bigger and bigger and have to end with the most gigantic and often kind of the dullest you know, the city is getting destroyed, the robots are fighting or spock and khan are slugging it out on this flying platform or whatever it is. This one went the other way. It had the massive destruction at the beginning and the last 30 or so minutes were a very intense sealed in horror movie. The sequence they reshot when the original ending didnt work. It must have been. I think it might have been. It cost a lot of money. And it ended not to spoil it for anyone with brad pitt just walking quietly down a hallway sneaking past the zombies. And he does face that one zombie, theres something very touching and sympathetic about the guy and brad pitt isnt scared of him while he has a kind of shield. Well, we are giving too much away. But he faces them it n four weeks everyone will have forgotten about it. That was the result of the troubled production history. Its a decrescendo at the end which makes it fresh but that was because they had they took out a whole act that would have been crescendoing up to tin evidentable brad pitt versus the zombies battle atop of a skyscraper. And holds to these can i just throw out some numbers here for our because i think our viewers should know what in the world were talking about because, you know, im a broken record or a stuck digital loop, whatever the right phrase is. I think this Business Model is insane and destructive. But just the three big flops that everyone in hollywood is worried about. The lone ranger cost 250 million. White house down 150. You had 100 million on top of production costs at least for marketing. So i come up with an outlay of 800 million. So far the total gross, thee ratry cal gross worldwide is 340 on all of those and, of course, theaters take 45 of the 340. We are talking about a 600 million shortfall here so far. On those on those three. And pacific rim, with you know the noncritical movie press reads all of these advance tracking polls and they are setting that up for failure. That was good. Now if i was going to come out and cheer lead for a big loud action movie in 3d i thought that one had a kind of pulpy vitality. It managed to be silly and serious in the right balance and i think gee yarrow del toro has a great visual imagination and enthusiasm for the genre in this kind of genre. Which man of steel had none of. Two and a half hours of taking itself so seriously, it was dead boring whereas i think that pacific rim i also enjoyed it perhaps more than im proud of admitting but when the when you first see those robots and the monsters fighting it was amazing however, by the fourth fight at the end of the film i had grown a little fatigued by the same images. Theres a lot of the robots and dinosaurs. That movie has been set up for failure already. It hasnt opened yet and it cost 18 million. But these tracking polls suggest theres very little awareness. Well, its not a franchise. Were not even talking about little movies. But not in this context. You see what im getting at. Its a closed circle and there are more pirates of the caribbean movies even though Jerry Bruckheimer has lost his touch and more terminator movies and it rolls on and on. Let me ask you. This is something that i think as critics we may have to grapple with or think about a little what do you all think about the fact that so much awareness of and news about the commercial fates of these movies get woven into the discussion of them. Its too bad, i think. Its strange. My kids and their friends can quote probably the same numbers that you did. Everyone knows after the first weekend i mean, i didnt have any great love for lone ranger but i felt bad it was getting pounded on and i think people are mistaking the numbers for the yardstick of quality which is a problem because if the film only makes however million Million Dollars you said before midnight made, it made 6 million, im sure we all loved it, because its only made 6 million doesnt mean its a failure or a bad movie. So as cit critics we have to remember were not analyzing the box office and were analyzing whether a film has value. And theres a scapegoating process where the lone ranger or john carter becomes the lightning rod of the criticism of the industry. Well, at this time there may be four of these catastrophes financially. Which no other business would put up with, by the way. Just to play a little bit of devils advocate, you say that the Business Model is broken and dysfunctional. On the other hand it does seems this built into the cycle that its kind of boom and boost that every summer there are some movies that hit big and, you know, everyone all of the people who made them and green lit them pat themselvess on the back for being geniuses and reading the public and finding the audience and then there are a few that are kind of the scapegoats that everyone can well, if youve got four or five its more than a single scapegoat. Its looking like a trend. When Steven Spielberg and george lucas say on a panel as they did two weeks ago theres no room for us in this industry for the little art films they like to do. laughs something is screwy. Now the irony is that they created this blockbuster thing 35 years ago. Some of these films do great in europe. I dont know what it is about the europeans. They love the films. The d. V. D. Sales some of them may be failures domestically but they go on to make money. We ceci quells. Studios wont do sequels unless they thinkedly theres money in it. Grown ups 2 opens today. laughter clearly not a bad memory. But clearly the first one made 162 million domestically. So clearly theres a market for this film and theyre going to make a sequel and im sure theyve set it up for the third. Speaking of comedies, the heat that you mentioned before. I saw a rather extraordinary statistic somewhere on the internet recently where someone had put together a list of all of the commercial release this is summer from the big studios. W a female lead character and the list was one movie long and it was the heat. This is dramas, come dis across the board. This is big commercial movies. But thats it. Two years after bridesmaids was supposed to prove to everyone who somehow seemed to doubt it that women could be funny and that funny women could carry a comedy and make it a hit we have another one. But only one. And its got Melissa Mccarthy. And thats the only context in which such a thing could exist. Im just happy that i loved it so much. Im happy it worked because i went into it thinking this smacks of miss congeniality, i was very hesitant about it. Loved it. I loved the fact that there were two female leads who with the exception of one scene their bodies were not focused on at all in the film. And its not something i usually think about a lot but we didnt have her dressed up in a bikini like a charlies ann sdwrol go undercover at a strip club or something. I liked that. In the one scene its Melissa Mccarthy making fun of sandra bullocks body. And even when they show a bit its not exploy tatdive. I really wish i shared your love for the heat. I wanted to like it because im glad theres one film with female leads. I didnt think it was funny enough. It had that comedy problem that so many summer comedies do. A few good sketch ideas loosely tied together but not ambitious enough. It was 20 minutes too long which is a complain i had about the internship about so many of these comedies but i had to say i thought everything that came out of Melissa Mccarthys mouth was hysterical and so close to the bone. It was so like oh, god, i dont know if i should laugh at that. But i did laugh. It is worked for me. Shes an earth ghashg the making and its always exciting and funny. Shes a danger almost. I dont know, i cant think of anyone quite like that among women comedians going way back. Who cease so unpredictable. And uses her weight brilliantly. Our colleague rex reid noticed she was heavy and announced it to the world. I cant think of anyone who used violating all of the couture yay ideals and made some of it. Shes something to be supported. I feel like hollywood hasnt figured out to what to do with. I think kristen week is an enormous talent. Wooeg. I think in the heat they dont want too much jokes at the expense of Melissa Mccarthy because i felt like in identity thief there were a lot of jokes like, oh, a fat woman having sex. Thats funny. And she was the sexually selfconfident and otherwise selfconfident one. It was bullock it was a great sort of subtle reversal that was happening. And bullock was the one who repelled men. I liked that. I found it refreshing. There already always mercifully in the summertime and this year it feels more than usual. Ive liked a lot of smaller movies. There have been independent movies and a cup documentaries that i dont know if anyone sells going to see them but i find myself walking out of the screening rooms quite a lot thinking that was pretty good. That was really interesting. I feel the same way as you. There are a lot. The smaller studios, theyre realizing theres a need for counterprogramming. So were seeing one every week if not every two weeks. Frulvail station is a great one. I loved before midnight. Theres more coming up. Way, way back i thought was a grownup film. Not grownups. So i think theyre there if you look for them and are lucky enough to live near cinemas that show them. The problem is youre talking about are we irrelevant to big movies . What im worried about is we cant draw people to little movies as much as we should like. Before midnight i think is a major film if the same film had come out 40 years ago there would have been more excitement. This is a sequel, right . This is the film with julie delpy and ethan hawke and weve seen them now in their 20s, 30s and 40s and theyre not married but they act as a married couple and its about modern marriage and they have a 30minute argument after walking through all of the southern peloponnese, the signature walk through of all these they have an argument that is defining as upper middleclass as anything ive seen in movies which is that no one wants to give up anything. No one in modern marriage is going to sacrifice anything to the other person. In other words its about power. Its all written out as much as any woody allen film. Theres no improvisation but it feels electrifying to me. And right on target and also a little scary, its intensity. I know a lot of men whove said oh, my god. Yeah, for a 40yearold woman with Young Children in the relationship. I mean it was like watching my life in some ways maybe people dont want to see that when they go to a movie. Well, how do we get people to see it. Well, it ravish it had critics but didnt do it well . Sorry to be the numbers man. 6. 5 million so far domestic. But we can do our best to get people in but youre comparing the lone ranger that spends 150 million on marketing and pro potion and publicity and a film like before midnight that probably how much money do they have to promote that film . Not much. So its not just our fault. Its money thats driving i think that the people who will appreciate that movie will fine it sooner or later. As the previous two did. They come around every nine years and you sort of have this one, you know, when i first heard that it was coming out i thought sflr wasnt there just and when before sunset came around i thought before sunrise and theres something about the long arc of this story and of these films thatty think people will keep watching. I think they are part of my generation of some of our generations experience of ourselves and of movies and romance. For example, you have ethan hawke whos a well known name and julie delpy, you cant compare that to a film like frulvail station which has expenses but its a true life story, doesnt have a big name cast thats the story i feel like will get lost. Its the first film by ryan coogler from the bay area based on the case of oscar grant who was shot early in the morning on new years day in 2009 by a Bay Area Rapid Transit Police officer and its a very i think its so chilling and upsetting to watch while the George Zimmerman trial is going on and it begins with the cell phone video that was taken of the actual crime. But then it goes, i thought, in a really interesting direction with a wonderful performance in it by michael b. Jordan who fans of the wire and friday night lights be no well that kind of pushes aside the politics of the story for a while and focuses on this young mans life and the choices that hes made and does not make him at all a saint or doesnt demonize him, they are. You feel by the end of the movie that you know this person, which makes it all the more wrenching and what youve known throughout is going to happen actually happens. I think fruitvail station is very powerful. Another one i would like to speak up for is the bling ring which got publicity when it open and has fallen away from view and when i talked to people about it theyre put off by the subject. This is a movie about the kids in the San Fernando Valley who went into the house of mock celebrities and stole their money. Those are real celebrities theres no such thing as mock celebrities well, who are the celebrities . The kids or the people that theyre stealing from . And it does get into something ghastly and awful about this kind of insane loop of celebrities becoming celebrities by stealing from other celebrities. Anyway i think what people wanted from it was a more judgmental or moralistic or what i wanted from it was possibly a from a more satirical point of view and its neutral but very, very smart and its beautifully made. I dont know if people noticed the level of craft that Sofia Coppola has achieved at this point. The cutting is perfect. I thought it was the most boring film. And its 88 minutes or something and i thought felt as long as man of steel to me. It was so repetitive. They just kept showing these girls and one young man going into these homes and i just thought it was the same scene over and over again without any real advance. Do you want to know what makes people tick . The film doesnt explain what makes them tick. It doesnt even try and get beneath what makes them tick. I felt she ended up celebrating what she was supposedly criticizing. I think its overphrased but i think that in general about Sofia Coppola. I agreey from about her craftsmanship and the film is shot by a late cinematographer and it looks incredible, sounds beautiful. Im not sure what shes trying to say other than stealing from Lindsay Lohan is not as worthwhile it gets you a reality t. V. Show. Its not just about those bunch of dopes, its about whats happening. Whats striking to me is theres this feeling of emptiness and drift on these kids lives but on the other hand theres luxury and beauty and pleasure that sort of surrounds and seduces them. But the film let it become like like a Louis Vuitton handbag. You watch the film and you say i want that lifestyle. Well, you have emma watson showing you what the end result of all of this is is someone who has no self whatsoever. Its all just presentation. Its a ghastly new kind of teenager which let us hope none of our children turn into. Emma wattson does give a memorable performance but i thought the social satire when we joinm what ma watson and her mother played by lessly mann and the family with the upside down values system that became too theme math attic. Each of you, a recommendation of one a movie that people may not be aware of thats opened or coming up if youve seen it with so that we can be helpful and of some use to folks who dont necessarily want to just follow the herd to them. Well we didnt talk about a movie thats opened already and i think will be remiss if we didnt mention that one. As far as things coming out, i mean ive only seen small films like aint them bodies saints which i thought was beautiful by casey affleck. Lovelace is a cool 70s slice of pornography. Linda lovelaces story with amanda say fred. Face of love seyfried. Blue jasmine, woody allens movie. Its a riff on streetcar and i think a very successful one. I know there are going to be a lot of literal minded speak who will spend their liar life matching up the film and the play. One film that im excited to come out is something thats already opened if i want to go small have any of you seen fill void the israeli film. How about mudd . Mudds been around. I would add museum hours a little odd movie shot inside a museum in vienna, a very unusual and i thought lovely film. So while theres more to talk about, thank you all. Youve made it very easy and pleasant to sit in this chair with the blue pieces of paper and thank you for watching. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org the following kqed production was produced in high definition. Calories, calories, calories wow, it rocked my world it just kind of reminded me of boot camp. I dont know what you had, but this is great. It almost felt like Country Club Food to me