Anthony Bourdain once said RATATOUILLE is the best food movie of all time.
āThe best restaurant movie ever made, the best chef movie. The tiny details are astonishing:
ā¢The faded burns on the cooksā wrists.
ā¢The āpersonal historiesā of the cooks.
ā¢The attention paid to the food.
ā¢And the Anton Ego ratatouille epiphany hit me like a punch in the chestāliterally breathtaking.
I saw it in a theater entirely full with adultsāand the reaction to that moment was what movie making was onceāa long time agoāall about:
Audible surprise, delight, awe and even a measure of enlightenment.
I am hugely and disproportionately proud that my miniscule contribution (if any) early early in the projectās development led to a āthank youā in the credits. Amazing how much they got āright.āā
In Scarface, when Tony is first offered the job to pick up cocaine, when he hears heāll be dealing with Colombians, a look of contempt flashes across his face. Later, when Manny presses him on it, Tony says, āI donāt like Colombians,ā but never explains why. Here, Oliver Stone is tapping into a very real prejudice many Cuban criminals held towards Colombians in Miami at that time.
Before the late 1970s, the cocaine pipeline into South Florida was largely controlled by Cuban criminal networks. But that all changed with the rise of Pablo Escobar and the Colombian MedellĆn Cartel. Colombian traffickers began pushing out the Cubans, which led to allāout warfare in the streets of Miami and an unprecedented rise in homicides.
The Colombians operated with a level of barbarism far beyond anything the Cubans were used to. They had a reputation for doubleācrossing outsiders, especially Cubans. They were willing to kill civilians, wipe out entire families of rivals. There were even reports in the press of victims being dismembered with chainsaws ā which was incorporated into the film.
That moment when Tony hears heāll be doing the pickup with āColombiansā, that look of distrust and contempt is one of recognition. Heās aware of their reputation, and itās why heās so vigilante and suspicious when he goes into the deal.
This is free advice from an expensive psychologist. If youāre an anxious person, do everything for fun. Go to a job interview for fun. Submit documents for fun. Start a blog for fun. Anxiety feeds on importance. Donāt make everything a matter of life and death.
Cute video of the day: An American photographer filmed a wolf begging for food from a grizzly. The gray wolf saw the meat and in an instant turned into a playful puppy begging for a piece.
the pigeon doesnāt understand your disdain for it; it coos for you anyway. the tree does not know you own an axe for it; its leaves sway in the sun anyway. the starving cat eats the poison you put out. it doesnāt know how not to trust. the earth forgives you, in spite of yourself