The Academy Awards are set to dominate the weekend’s cinematic conversation, and I guess that was inevitable: it’s the biggest movie event of the year, and this one’s especially contentious. So find yourself a decent party and settle in for what’s sure to be a long, disappointing night.
You can follow my live reactions on Twitter, and then catch me Monday morning on CBC’s Q, where I’ll rehash the ceremonies with Rad Simonpillai and Johanna Schneller on the official Q Oscar Panel. (Here’s our previous appearance, the morning the nominations were announced.)
But that’s just Sunday night. And there’s plenty of other cinematic action going on this week.
Before it throws its own Oscar gala, for instance, the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema holds its second Doc Soup Sundays event, featuring the Toronto premiere of The Winding Stream, Beth Harrington’s look at the musical dynasties that is the Carter Family, and how its course changed when June Carter – a second-generation performer – married that Johnny Cash guy.
It’s the story of a family hanging together over nearly a century, and the story of a specific strain of popular music that runs through America like no other – represented in the film by Roseanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Sheryl Crow, John Prine and others.
The show starts at 11 am tickets are $16 or $12 for Bloor members. Director Beth Harrington will be present for a Q&A, and musician Skippy Drake will perform selections from the Carter and Cash songbooks. Check it out.
And this being the end of one month and the beginning of another, there’s a new Doc Soup premiere coming up this Wednesday (March 2) and Thursday (March 3). This month’s selection is King Georges, a profile of chef Georges Perrier, owner of Philadelphia’s venerated French restaurant Le Bec-Fin.
After four decades, Perrier has declared he’s ready to retire, going so far as to install chef Nicholas Elmi as his successor. But announcing one’s exit is not the same as actually leaving, and that’s where director Erika Frankel finds the real drama of her documentary.
Screenings at 6:30 pm and 9:15 pm Wednesday, with an encore at 6:45 pm Thursday. As with the Sunday program, tickets are $16, $12 for Bloor members. You can get ’em here.
There’s one other event I should tell you about Wednesday, and it’s sort of related to foodie cinema. TIFF is launching its latest Food On Film subscription series with a 7 pm screening of Peter Greenway’s 1990 masterpiece The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, to be introduced by Mitchell Davis, executive vice-president of the James Beard Foundation.
Full disclosure: I’ve known Mitch since junior high, and I would totally be in attendance if I didn’t have to be in England for a thing. And it’s killing me, because this has the makings of an excellent evening out.
Not only is the choice of a grotesque, NC-17 Thatcher-era satire especially perverse – seriously, TIFF’s generally genteel subscription audience won’t know what hit them – but Mitch and his guest, author and culinary anthropologist Naomi Duguid, are bound to have some really interesting things to say about Greenaway’s depiction of restaurant culture and his contrast of sumptuous meals with the soul-sickness of England’s ruling class.
You can always catch King Georges at the Thursday night show. It’ll take a while for your appetite to come back, anyhow.
