Today’s Menu
Friday night’s movie fix, courtesy of Netflix by mail, The Menu (2022), is at once engrossing and puzzling, if not ridiculous. If there is a point other than a drop-dead-serious lampoon of the restaurant business and the pretension of foodies and critics, I missed it. It’s the story of a group of approximately ten people invited to an island restaurant and served a meal of many courses featuring exotic dishes, served by cooks and staff who act as if they are military. Soon the bizarre ensues. I will not be a spoiler and say more. Ralph Fiennes stars as the chef. Other very familar faces in the movie are Anya Taylor-Joy, John Leguizamo and Judith Light. The rest of the cast is just as solid. Many have impressive resumes. 323,000+ users at IMDb have rated The Menu, forging to a consensus of 7.2 on a scale of ten. It was directed by Mark Mylod, highly successful in TV, winner of two Emmys for Succession and two Bafta’s for Brit light entertainment shows. He has also been at the helm of episodes of Entourage and Game of Thrones. The screenplay was written by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy. A graduate of Boston University, Reiss was the head writer for four incarnations of the satiric The Onion, more than a hundred episodes, and for Late Night with Seth Meyers, more than 300 episodes. Tracy, whose bio is MIA, has won six Emmys, shared with others, two for Succession and four for Tonight with John Oliver. The Menu fared well at the box office, returning nearly $80 million against a budget estimated at $35 million. Add streaming and DVD sales and rentals, and it’s a big success. There’s violence, but not nearly as much as in most modern fare. There is also profanity but it isn’t overdone. I won’t say I liked the film, but I did not pause it a single time during it’s 1:47 running time. It has freshness, so rare these days. Here are Fiennes and Taylor-Joy in character, photo from Google Images:
Headline from nypost.com: “‘Completely ridiculous’: Oscars voters rip into new diversity rules for Best Picture.” And the sub-headline: “Among the films that might not have met the new Oscars inclusivity requirements for Best Picture nominees: The Godfather, Gladiator and All Quiet on the Western Front.” Let’s quote Forrest’s mom: “Stupid is as stupid does.” (Screenplay Eric Roth, adapted from the novel by Winston Groom.)
Who raised the ceiling? NYP headline: “US national debt exceeds $32 trillion for first time.”
Marijuana continues to deliver fun headlines. From NYP: “United Airlines workers ‘made $10K a week stealing pot from luggage’: feds.”
Not much action today at the floating book shop at my least favorite location. Still no heat from Mother Nature, though, pleasantly cool given the brisk breeze. My thanks to the gentleman who bought a book in Italian, and to the young woman who jumped on Twilight by Stephanie Meyer; and to Bill Brown, author of Words and Guitar: A History of Lou Reed’s Music as well as other fine books, who purchased Britain’s Black Debt: Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and Native Genocide by Hilary McD. Beckles.
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