City of Gold (2015)

I discovered City of Gold while watching the first episode of Cooking with Jeff, a YouTube cooking show hosted by Jeff Goldblum, as the guest was Jonathan Gold, the first Pulitzer-winning food critic who passed away a month ago. Being quite a foodie myself, I had to check it out. 

Laura Gabber's documentary follows Jonathan Gold around the city of Los Angeles, specifically in its ethnic enclaves where his culinary/food journey started many years ago.

And that's the focus of a part of the documentary, the city of Los Angeles, its diversity and its beauty. Because of movies and TV series, we, and by that I mean who has never been to L.A. or has been but only as a tourist for a short period of time, are used to see Los Angeles as a vapid, sterile, white and rich place.

Gold, having explored L.A. since the mid-1980s, shows us a completely different city, a melting pot of cultures made of ethnic restaurants and food trucks and pretty unique and sometimes horrible things to eat. These are not the fancy, starred restaurants critics usually visit and review, these are the places you visit if you want to learn something about other people's cultures and worlds. These are the places Gold used to visit and review and love because they allowed him to connect with people of different ethnicities.

The other part of City of Gold obviously focuses on Jonathan Gold himself, and he makes for a pretty interesting subject as he wasn't only a food critic for the L.A. Times, but a man of the streets who kind of changed the food critic world. Other than visiting small and ethnic restaurants and food trucks rather than fancy French places as I mentioned above, he gave up the illusion of anonymity which the documentary uses to explore the role of anonymity for modern critic; and shows us the importance and value of real critics in a day where everyone pretends to be an expert thanks to the internet. Unlike amateurs (and I fall in this category), real critics bring experience and knowledge to a topic and therefore they deliver more than just words.

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We also learn about Gold's upbringing in a family of activists and intellectuals; that he used to play the cello and he was pretty good at it; that he started his career writing about classical music then punk and hip-hop; we learn about his devotion to his wife and kids; and his struggles with and meeting deadlines.

Because of all the topics addressed and the way they are put together, City of Gold feels disjointed and fragmented but in spite of that, it still is a beautiful love letter to the city of Los Angeles and an ode to food that it's worth checking out even if you are not a foodie.

Food, Inc. (2008)

I've seen several documentaries about food and the food industry over the past year, one being the very biased Netflix documentary What the Health that basically tells you to go vegan unless you want to get all the illnesses you can think of, which is why I was a bit sceptical about Food, Inc. but I still decided to check it out.

Starting off by giving facts about how the majority of products we can find in a grocery store is modified, the film examines corporate farming in the United States and how these few big food corporations drastically changed the production of food as their sole goal is to produce large quantities of food at low costs which obviously means huge profits.

And that brings to another of the aspects of the food industry examined by Food, Inc., the disastrous effects that intensive farming has not only on aminals as they are very poorly treated and forced to eat foods they would not normally eat --cows are not supposed to eat corn but grass, but of course feeding them with modified and cheap corn that makes them grow faster is better than having them eat grass and grow much slower aka normally-- but also on the health and environmental risks it has, especially in slaughtering houses and livestock farming . While doing this, the documentary also shows that workers are being treated just as poorly as the animals.

Food, Inc. also shows how the American farmer is in trouble because of these corporations. Since these small farmers raise the animals with dignity and respect, their "products" are more expensive than corporates' foods and therefore people are less willing to buy them.

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There's, however, something about Food, Inc. that really didn't work for me. Other than the fact that it often feels unfocused as it randomly jumps from a topic to another, at some point, it shows how hard it is to eat healthy on a budget. We see a Hispanic family buying a meal from Burger King and it's presented as if they didn't have another choice and forced to eat junk food because you can have an unhealthy burger for a dollar that will fill your stomach or a single healthy item at a market that won't fill your stomach. I know that vegetables aren't cheap --most of my groceries are vegetables so I know that-- but I also know that beans and grains are cheap and those definitely fill you. Also, the father of the family has diabetes and they complain about the fact that he has to take two pills and each cost over a hundred dollar so they once again are forced to pick whether they want to eat healthily or buy medicines they need to live. But isn't this mentality leading their kids to become diabetic as well?

With that being said, Food, Inc. still needs to be watched as it is a great eye-opener as it shows the cruel ways animals are treated, all the chemicals involved and how unnatural most foods nowadays are --although I'm pretty sure everybody already knows this in 2018--, and definitely makes you more conscious about the food you eat.  

The Chef (2012)

Original Title

Comme un chef

Genre

Comedy

Director

Daniel Cohen

Country

France

Cast

Jean Reno, Michaël Youn, Raphaëlle Agogué, Julien Boisselier, Santiago Segura, Salomé Stévenin, Serge Lariviere, Issa Doumbia, Bun Hay Mean, Pierre Vernier, Rebecca Miquel

Storyline

Self-taught aspiring chef Jacky (Michaël Youn) has the talent, but not the luck. Star chef Alexandre Lagarde (Jean Reno) is in danger of losing his reputation, along with his beloved restaurant. Fate brings the two together and helps them along a journey through the intoxicating world of French haute-cuisine. 

Opinion

Not to be confused with Jon Favreau's "Chef", The Chef is a light, simple, entirely predictable, yet very delightful foodie French comedy, seasoned with a touch of romance.

Written by director Daniel Cohen and Olivier Dazat, the film may not be a masterpiece, or original, but the story is well-assembled - though the subplot doesn't working fine -, it aims to tease the molecular cuisine trend - the sequence where Alexander and Jacky dress up as a Japanese nobleman and his geisha to sample his rival's menu is just hilarious -, the love definitely not at first sight between the odd couple - Reno and Youn - serves some good laughs, and their love of food is a good mix for a funny film.

The film is also enhanced by the great performances of Jean Reno and Michaël Youn, whose elastic face remembers a clown's, and by a satisfying supporting cast.