In honor of the 75th anniversary of the New York Film Critics Circle, this year’s New Directors/New Films festival will devote a week of matinees to previous NYFCC Best Director winners, selected and presented by current members of the critics group. The can’t-miss of the lineup looks to be the infamously contrarian Armond White’s presentation of Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, which takes place on April 1. The other critics are David Fear, Marshall Fine, Lisa Schwarzbaum and Peter Travers; the other films are Half Nelson, Big Night,Frozen River and In the Company of Men.
The appeal of the food movie is perhaps best summed up by YouTube user Zenophobius: “Watching people feasting is like watching them ****ing - you can’t help but watch them indulging their primal pleasures. So yes, I guess I love porn and I love a good foodie movie.” Who doesn’t? So, in honor of America’s annual salute to gluttony Thanksgiving, here are our picks for five of the most delicious (yes, we said it) food films of all time.
Stanley Tucci co-wrote and co-directed this 1996 film that features one of the most sumptuous meals ever prepared on camera. If your salivary glands aren’t going into overdrive by the time they start taking the cover off of the timpano, then you have no soul. And no stomach. This is by far Stanley Tucci’s finest film, and if you want any performance from him that comes close to touching it, you’ll have to rent the audiobook version of The Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. Tucci does a terrific job of reading that. Oh, and who could forget his wonderful acting in The Impostors?
If there’s one thing I relate to on the big screen, it’s the depiction of fraternal relationships. I’m the middle of three brothers (excluding the half-brother I only knew as a toddler and the former stepbrother I only knew briefly as an adult), and at different points in my life I’ve either hated them or considered them my best friends. So, yeah, I can’t wait to see Step Brothers, starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as new siblings who go from being enemies to BFFs when forced to live together.
Choosing a handful of favorite movies about brotherhood is really tough. After all, tales of brothers go all the way back to almost the beginning, with the story of Cain and Abel. And a number of favorites can’t exactly be discussed, because the revelation of brothers, especially twin brothers, is often the surprise twist in films. So, before you start naming a thousand other films about brothers that I’ve forgotten (such as The Brothers McMullen andLegends of the Fall), keep in mind that I’ve actually left out a whole pile of brother films, and this is more of a personal favorites list.
Coupe de Ville – If there’s one movie that seemed to define my brothers and I growing up, it’s this underrated road movie about three estranged siblings (played by Patrick Dempsey, Arye Gross and Daniel Stern) delivering the titular automobile to their father (Alan Arkin). As kids, my brothers and I couldn’t have been any more different, just like the guys in the movie. For at least half a decade, until he seemed to disappear after he left the sitcom Ellen, Gross was like my cinematic alter ego, just because I felt a kinship with his middle-brother character in Coupe de Ville so much. …Read more
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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In honor of the 75th anniversary of the New York Film Critics Circle, this year’s New Directors/New Films festival will devote a week of matinees to previous NYFCC Best Director winners, selected and presented by current members of the critics group. The can’t-miss of the lineup looks to be the infamously contrarian Armond White’s presentation of Whit Stillman’s 
