Unhealed Wound – Page 88 – Passion for Art, Movies, and Culture

Wakuriya–A Little Bit of Kyoto Heaven

Written by diana on May 15, 2013. Posted in Restaurants. 3 Comments on Wakuriya–A Little Bit of Kyoto Heaven

Sake flight Last week we experienced kaiseki (Japanese haute cuisine) at a tiny tucked-away restaurant in a strip mall in San Mateo–Wakuriya. What a surprise find! Kaiseki cuisine is as much an art form as a type of gourmet dinner. Not unexpectedly, kaiseki has its origin in Zen monastic cuisine and aesthetic taste. Leaves and fresh flowers, often edible, suggest animals and seasonal variations in the moon and night sky. Passing through a long draped noren curtain, we opened the artisan wooden door, and stepped into a long narrow restaurant dimly lit and minimalist in decor. The ambience...

“Orphan Black”–Adopting a New Model

Written by diana on May 8, 2013. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on “Orphan Black”–Adopting a New Model

This new BBC America television series premiered on March 30, 2013. In the opening scene the camera zooms in on Sarah (played by Tatiana Maslany, a Canadian newcomer to television), a grifter desperate to escape her drug dealer boyfriend. Seizing an opportunity to escape her past, Sarah watches as her doppelganger jumps in front of a subway to her death. Stealing the identity of the suicide victim (“Beth”) who looks exactly like her, Sarah assumes that the dead woman’s identity will be an improvement over her own, but she is proved wrong. Proud of her independence, even with...

“Top of the Lake”–A Top Notch Thriller

Written by diana on April 29, 2013. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on “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...

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

Written by diana on April 22, 2013. Posted in movie reviews. 2 Comments on “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...

“Leonie”–The Lioness and the Sculptor

Written by diana on April 16, 2013. Posted in movie reviews. 3 Comments on “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...

Bottega Louie–A Mega Bottega

Written by diana on April 8, 2013. Posted in Local travel, Restaurants, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on 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...