La cucina

I saw this movie on Showtime, although it is now available on DVD & Blu-ray. What a great little indie film.

I watched with a friend and we both thought, they just pulled pages out of my life! You feel like a fly on the wall in someone else's life, and yet it is like they are talking about yours. I loved it! The food is beautiful and the wine looks great. The conversation is thought provoking, the acting is fantastic, and you will be absolutely starving by the end!

Leisha Hailey from the "L word" is so adorable as a pregnant neurotic newlywed. Rachel Hunter looks beautiful au naturele as a gourmet lesbian amateur chef. Christina Hendricks & Joaquim de Almeida all I can say is their is a whole lot of sensual heat in that kitchen!

This movie is a great way to impress a girl and really gives guys something to think about!

Not a screenplay at all, but a filmed play - and so not cinematic at all. Words, words, words - and not much else. But, having seen two Christina Hendricks movies in two weeks, the burning question for me is: when is she going to comb her hair before going on camera? Is it a mid-life crisis? A rebellion against that lacquered look in "Mad Men"? And I think it should be noted: she's not the greatest actress. A movie made for almost nothing that is kind of nothing.

This has a fine cast and an interesting, thought-provoking script - but just doesn't work on film - there's really no visual engagement - boring sets, boring costuming - and, well, rather tedious non-stop talking.

Aside from acknowledging the that the dialogue is cerebral - weighty topics - the characters are ALL basically unhappy in denial about their own toxic narcissism - altho the Rachel Hunter character does enunciate some down-to-earth common sense, i.e. A character who seems to have some sense that there is a whole world out of there outside of the L. A. bubble of underemployed adults interminably fixated on their own problems like eternal Peter Pan pre-pubescent tweenagers.

Ah well, is what it is - but it ain't much. :-)

I saw La Cucina at the Hollywood Film Festival and it's a great little movie that doesn't try to be something it's not. This film is a slice of life about the conversations and contradictions that make us who we are, and real-life conversations don't fit into perfect packages or tidy summaries like a high school philosophy paper.

We all have contradictory thoughts/opinions/answers depending on how questions are framed. And I'm sure we've all had long conversations in the kitchen that help us figure out what we think and believe, without actually solving anything (no matter how much we think we've solved the world's problems after a few bottles of wine.)

More importantly, many of us are great at giving advice to other people, but lousy at applying that advice to ourselves.

More than simply an "odd moment" or scene transition, I thought the resident musician was a nice contrast to the complicated relationships unfolding in the neighboring apartments. He was like a non-verbal Greek Chorus, and a subtle reminder that maybe we should all stop talking so much about what we WISH WE WERE DOING and actually START DOING the things we love to do.

This was simple fare, portraying three relationships, whereby through their conversations the protagonists were able to address important relationship issues. It's not high philosophy, but it's a great date movie to get couples talking about such matters. Will earn the guy kudos too, unless he turns out to be like Chris.