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Month: April 2013

“Top of the Lake”–A Top Notch Thriller

While some cable and television distributors fund their own productions (note the excellence of  “House of Cards”, the final season of “Damages”, and the forthcoming “Arrested Development”), Sundance is in the enviable position of previewing thousands of entries for their annual Sundance Festival. “Top of the Lake“is an exciting option from the Sundance Channel, created by Gerard Lee and Jane Campion (who produced and directed the Academy Award winner “The Piano”). The first episode opens with the disappearance of a 12-year old pregnant...

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“Central Park Five”–Today’s Scottsboro Boys?

In 1989 the “Central Park Jogger” trial had the country’s attention and a media frenzy fed the heightened fear of New Yorkers who saw their beloved Central Park and the city as a whole becoming a dangerous environment simmering with crime and mayhem. “The Central Park Five”, a new documentary from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, retells the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of brutally raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park on April 22, 1989. The film chronicles The Central Park Jogger case from the perspective...

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“Leonie”–The Lioness and the Sculptor

“Don’t bore me by being ordinary” –These are words Leonie Gilmour (exquisitely acted by Emily Mortimer) admonishes her college friend, Catherine (Christina Hendricks) at Bryn Mawr. After graduation, she departs on an astonishingly unconventional life at the turn of the 20th century. Based on the true story of an American intellectual, “Leonie” introduces the story of Leonie Gilmour, mother of the renowned American sculptor Isamu Noguchi.  Filmed in lush period detail in the US and Japan, “Leonie” is a biopic of a woman who straddles two morally...

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Bottega Louie–A Mega Bottega

Bottega Louie opened in 2009 in downtown Los Angeles and is in good company with some of the finest restaurants in the area.   The 10,000-square-foot paean to the good life is more than a marble and brass palatial restaurant/gourmet market/patisserie with 20-foot ceilings. No detail has been overlooked. More than three years under construction, Bottega Louie also has a European style bakery and about 200 employees. The bakery creates 800 pastries a day and is a destination throughout the city for its pastel-colored macaroons.  In addition there is a counter devoted to 20 kinds of breads and...

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Osteria Mozza–A Tongue Thriller

Burrata de Puglia Last week we had a wonderful gastronomic adventure at Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles on Melrose Avenue (West Hollywood).   We selected this restaurant on a friend’s recommendation (see Mia’s food blog, “Dubu Diaries”) and we definitely were not disappointed.  We would place this restaurant in the top 20 we have been to around the world! We started with three antipasti, after receiving a complementary amuse bouche (what is the equivalent in Italian?):  delicious little spirals of mozzarella packed with basil leaves, sundried tomato and olives drizzled with...

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