Year: 2013
This provocative film opens with a father and son hunting in the woods, the Lord’s Prayer recited in voiceover. The viewer sees the father, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) as a deeply religious man, a carpenter who believes in family values and the safety of his community. When his little girl and her friend go missing on Thanksgiving Day, the world he has believed in is destroyed. “Prisoners” is a powerful tale of human nature gone awry. What are parents capable of in their darkest moment, when their worst nightmare happens?
Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is put in...
Mezcla–Mixing It Up South American Style
We had the pleasure of discovering this Nuevo Latino fusion restaurant on a recent trip to Montreal. A mixture of Latino cultures, mainly Peruvian but even a dash of Chinese, made for an unforgettable experience: a delight both visual and palatable. Located off St. Catherine Street in what is called Gay Village or simply Le Village, this unassuming restaurant is a wonderful culinary experiment in originality.A small bistro with no more than 20 small tables and a lively bar in the middle, Mezcla caters to a late evening clientele. We arrived late but the dishes on the blackboard–...
Inuit Art: Fusion of the Arctic and the Pacific
Inuit art has always had a profound impact on my aesthetics, almost as much as Japanese art. The humor, minimalism, and abstraction in form combine in an original way. On a recent visit to the Musée des Beaux Arts in Montreal, I had the memorable experience of viewing perhaps the best collection of Inuit art in the world.
What is not well known is that the Canadian printmaker, James Houston, who had trained in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock printing, brought his technical skills to Cape Dorset in 1957 to encourage local Inuit stone carvers to learn etching, engraving, lithography and silkscreen...
Michael’s on the Hill–A Green Restaurant in the Green Mountain State
We were delighted to dine at Michael’s on the Hill last week while we were on the East Coast. Located in Waterbury (on the Stowe, Vermont border), this small restaurant in a charming turn-of-the-19th century farmhouse captivated us from the moment we sat down. Their vegetable garden provides some of the produce for the menu, emphasizing the farmer-chef connection, aka farm-to-table.
The ambience is eclectic: New England antiques with bold black and white woodcuts (3’x 4′ prints) on several walls in a dining room with dark wood beams and molding. The menu changes seasonally as...
“Mud”– Channeling “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
With its meandering pace, Mud embodies a Southern culture known for doing things slowly, drifting along the bayou languorously like “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” John Nichols, the director and an Arkansas native, grounds his film in authenticity through superb casting (including local teenagers), location, and a script centered on a believable coming-of-age story.
From gravel to mud to the swampy river, this feature film reminded me not only of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” but also of the Mark Twain novels, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. And that is probably why...
“In the Moment”–Japanese Art from the Larry Ellison Collection
The current exhibit (June 28-September 22) at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco introduces sixty-four exceptional art treasures, mostly screens and paintings by acclaimed artists from the Momoyama through the Taisho periods (roughly sixteenth through early twentieth centuries). All of the artwork is from Ellison’s Japanese architecturally designed estate in Woodside.
With a retired museum curator as his advisor, Ellison’s collection is extraordinary in vision. The artwork includes Buddhist religious art, humorous illustrations of folk tales, and floral and animal...