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Don't Let a Wine Fear Keep You From Living Your Life.
If just thinking it causes you to start to feel the fear, it's time you did something about it. The good news is that we know that – for anyone who is determined – wine fear can always be overcome.
If you are ready to put this behind you once and for all, here's what we offer at CTRN:
- A noticeable improvement, often a major one, in less than 24 hours
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- We've helped people from 70+ countries vanquish their fear
How to Get Started
There are two programs we offer to help you overcome wine fear fast. If you're a self-motivated person, our Home Study program will work great for you – or get one-on-one help with the 'VIP' program:
Home-Study Program: Vanquish Fear & Anxiety
Order as Boxed CD's & Workbook or Download the Program Now
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How This System Works
The core of the problem is that your unconscious mind is repeating patterns of thinking that generate the fear… and now its time to change things up so those patterns don't run any more. Consciously, you know your wine fear doesn't make logical sense. If it did everyone would have it. But the fear remains because, with even just a thought of wines, your subconscious mind triggers fear and other negative emotions.
Until now, you just haven't had the techniques for re-programming those connections. We'll help you learn this simple system to make the fear history. Isn't it time you took control?
- Want to discuss your options? Contact Us Now Contact Us Now >
The Only Real Solution to Your Fear
Unlike other solutions, we don't promise you a cure for your fear. YOU are the one with the authority to modify your perceptions. As you go through this process, we will help you with educational information (and hand-holding) when you need it.
This process has proven procedures for overcoming rage, fear, depression, remorse and feelings of apprehension and helps you gain self-assurance, peace and happiness. Time to say enough is enough. Harmful thinking isn't helping – you need to make some serious changes now.
Where Your Wine Fear Comes From
Wine fear in many (but not all) cases is triggered by a nasty experience in the past. Your fear may also seem to come out of no where – with no memory you can think of. The key is digging down to the source and replacing negative associations with more positive emotions. Individuals utmost at risk are:
• People with a general tendency towards fear and anxiety
• People characterized as skittish, energetic, easily upset, nervous
• Someone who deals with adrenal insufficiency
Do you feel as if even one of these represents you? Click to read testimonials from those who have been through our programs.
Would you like to read about us in the media instead?
Diagnosing Your Phobia
To find out the gravity of the problem for you, use our 2 minute Online Assessment for Wine Fear Online Test although it is fairly clear cut: It is time to do something about the fear, if it is having a significantly negative effect on your life.
- Do you become sick at the simple thought of Wines?
- Does it automatically initiate sticky hands and a mouth that is made of cotton?
- Does your heart beat like a drum?
- Do your legs turn to rubber?
Those are just a few of the symptoms. Click here to see more symptoms of wine fear.
We can help you get rid of not just the symptoms, but the cause. It's what we're all about
Medications & Prescribed Drugs
We feel drugs and medication for Wine Fear aren't the best approach, but make sure you always follow a doctor's advice when taking or stopping any prescription. Pills might help you cope with your Wine Fear but only in the short term – they will not, in reality, help you eliminate it forever.
No drug has ever been developed specifically for Wine Fear, by the way – and with all the undetermined possible side effects, it is difficult to rationalize taking a prescription as the answer.
The good news is with our system you will vanquish your Wine Fear, without drugs..
Next Action
- Learn about The VIP One on One Program:
The VIP Program for Wine Fear
- Discover The Home Study Program:
Vanquish Fear & Anxiety for Wine Fear
Or learn more about Wine Fear:


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We at FolioVita GmbH would like to help to achieve the highest possible quality of life. Therefore we offer a broad portfolio of natural products produced with care and highest quality in Austria.
We provide a range of services with options to meet your individual distributor needs.
Are you interested?
Contact us: +43 6645 880 976
Copyright 2017 Folio Vita GmbH Folio Vita GmbH, Oberfeistritz 190, 8184 Anger


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This 9 day tour, starts and ends in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Visit Uzbekistan where for more than two millennia, along fascinating the Silk Road, Uzbekistan has been home to ancient cities and architecture. Starting in Tashkent, this tours visits Khiva, Bokhara, Smarkaland and a host of places along the way.
Welcome to Tashkent! You will be transferred to your hotel and the remainder of the day is yours free to explore at your own pace.
After breakfast we will start with a guided sightseeing tour in the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, the biggest city in Central Asia. We will start by exploring the Old City. Visit Khast-Imam Complex, where the world famous Quran, holy book that belonged to Caliph Uthman, has been preserved. The complex consists of Barak-Khan Madrasah, Tillya Sheykh Mosque, Saint Abu Bakr Kaffal Shashi Mausoleum and the Islamic Institute of Imam al-Bukhari. Continue to Chorsu Bazaar. Then take a ride on Tashkent Metro to the city center to walk through Amir Timur Square, Independence Square and visit Applied Arts Museum.
We transfer to the domestic airport for a morning flight to Urgench and upon arrival, transfer to the hotel in Khiva. We will start a sightseeing tour in Ichan Kala Fortress a UNESCO World Heritage site. There we will visit the Madrasahs of Arab Muhammad Khan, Hodjan Berdi-Biya, Shergazi Khan, Abdullah Khan and Allakuli Khan, the Kunya-Ark Citadel, Sayid Allauddin Mausoleum, Oq Masjid Mosque, Juma Mosque, Tash Hauli Palace, Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum and the Islam Khoja Minaret.
To day is a free day to explore and enjoy the ancient city of Khiva. Early evening we will transfer to Urgench airport for our flight to Bukhara. Upon arrival in Bukhara we will be transferred to our hotel.
In the morning we start with a walking sightseeing tour of the Historic Centre of Bukhara, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We will visit Lyabi Hauz Ensemble, Magok-i-Attari Mosque, the Bukhara Trading Domes, Kalyan Minaret, Kalyan Mosque, Miri-Arab, Chor Minor, Ulugbek, Abdullaziz Khan Madrasahs, Ark Fortress, Bolo Hauz Complex, Ismail Samani and Chashma-Ayub Mausoleums.
Today we start the second day by driving out of the city to Sitorai Mohi Xosa Palace, the summer residence of Bukhara's last emir, a unique site combining Oriental and Russian architecture. Then we head to the Mausoleum of Bakhouddin Naqshbandi and Chor-Bakr Necropolis.
In the afternoon depart for Samarkand via the high-speed Afrosiyob train. Upon arrival into Samarkand, we check in to the hotel. The remainder of the evening is free.
After breakfast we take a Samarkand sightseeing tour, visiting the spectacular Registan Square, Gur Emir Mausoleum - the mausoleum of Amir Timur, remains of Bibi Khanum Mosque, Siab Bazaar, Ulugbeg Observatory. Free time in the afternoon
We start the day with an easy morning and check-out from the hotel and continue your sightseeing of Samarkand. Visit Afrasiab Museum and the Tomb of St. Daniel. Then drive to Konigil Village to explore traditional way of making Samarkand paper from mulberry. After the tour we will head to the railway station and take the high-speed Afrosiyob train to Tashkent. We will be picked up and transferred to the hotel.
Our tour concludes and your time is free until you are transferred to the airport


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Last Updated on September 3, 2020
|The Winner
|Ryobi P208
|The Runner up
|Ryobi P271
Both of these Ryobi cordless drill/drivers are very equitable in terms of versatility, power and even cost. Very little separates them, and if you asked which one was better, well frankly it's a good question. There are a few differences. As usual, those differences don't suggest that one is far and away superior to the other, but only create options for individual tool owners to sort out which one is right for them.
Both of these cordless drivers offer options across two speeds and 24 clutch settings. This permits a wide range of versatility in torque and speed and allows the kind of control that allows a tool to shift easily and painlessly between driving screws to taking apart furniture in the space of seconds. Both also feature magnetic strips that allow an operator to stick the bits they'll need and even extras like screws on the tool without having to stop to hunt that stuff up.
These two tools are virtually identical in price. The slight listed difference between the two is such that on any given day things might flip and be the other way around. Normally, if this is the case, we look to the batteries, which often separate the two. In this case, both belong to Ryobi's vast One+ family of tools. Not only are the batteries the same price, they use the same batteries and the same charger. No edge on this, either.
The P208 is compact and lightweight and perfect for squeezing into hard-to-reach spots. It's not that the P271 also isn't. In fact, the two again are almost an identical match in terms of physical dimensions. What the P208 has that the P271 doesn't is an LED to help you see what it is that you're working on. Since this is really the only feature that one has that the other doesn't, that means a slight edge for the P208
The P208 is just so very slightly larger and heavier than the P271. Probably during an average day's use, you wouldn't even notice it. But after a long day's use, when pounds feel heavier after use, you might. It's just enough of a difference to give the P271 a very slight advantage in terms of tool design.
A workhorse for home hobbyists and people who just need a basic cordless driver/drill around the house for routine maintenance and simple jobs like hanging shelves, the P208 is perfect to put at the center of your Ryobi One+ world. It's ever so much heavier than the P208, which isn't likely to be noticed on an average day's use but might be a bit of an annoyance after a whole day.
Just a smidge smaller than the P208, the Ryobi P271 is just that much more compact and maneuverable into place. As part of the Ryobi One+ system, it's part of a highly versatile system that shares power sources with a wide range of tools. If it had LED lights to illuminate the workspace, we'd be tempted to marry the thing.
When it comes down to the choice between the R208 and R271, it's a matter of little things. Really little things. Both offer the same range of customization in motor speed and torque. Both offer the same easy swap-out of bits. Both come from Ryobi's One+ family, so they even share batteries, and both are very close in price. The small things that separate them are an LED light for the P208 and a slightly smaller frame for the P271. The one that is right for you is a matter of personal preference.
Hi there! My name is Adam and I write for HealthyHandyman. I have a great passion for writing about everything related to tools, home improvement, and DIY. In my spare time, I'm either fishing, playing the guitar, or spending quality time with my beloved wife. You'll also often find me in my workshop working on some new project!


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One of the best parts of these types of film fests is the schmoozing that occurs. When the likes of Oliver Stone, Christopher Walken or Bruce Campbell saunter by, a director you've long revered agrees to an interview with you, or you clink champagne glasses with an actress or actor whose film you've just reviewed, then the perks of being a press pass holder and critic really kick in. Despite a couple of days of rain that plagued the affair, a sense of genuine happiness seemed to be on everyone's plate.
This good humour is especially important when multiple screenings have you running from one movie theatre to another, sometimes hiking three or four kilometres uphill to the main site, Melia Sitges, where the big film screenings, press junkets and meet-and-greets take place.
Note: With thousands and thousands of people descending on the village, it is often impossible to grab a cab going your direction. Bring adequate walking shoes, kids!
As the ten days wind down, awards are handed out. This year, the list was inspired and interesting for a number of reasons. Let's take a look at the names before getting to the winners' reviews and other notable films.
Official Selection for the 49th Annual Sitges Fantastic Cinema 2016
Best Film: SWISS ARMY MAN
Special Jury Award: THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE by André Øvredal
Best Director: Yeong Sang-Ho for TRAIN TO BUSAN
Best Actress: Sennia Nanua for MELANIE. THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS
Best Actor: Daniel Radcliffe for SWISS ARMY MAN
Best Screenplay: Jeremy Slater for PET
Best Special Effects: Jung Hwang-Su for TRAIN TO BUSAN
Best Cinematography: Hong Kyung-Pyo for THE WAILING
Grand Audience Award: THE HANDMAIDEN by Park Chan-wook
Swiss Army Man ####
Brought to us by the directing duo simply known as 'Daniels'—most famous for their music videos—there is very little to compare this film to. Simply put, stranded on a tiny deserted island, Hank (Paul Dano) has accepted his fate and decided that he will most likely never make it home again. One day, while attempting to hang himself, he catches a glimpse of a dead body, which has washed ashore. This becomes the raison d'être in his renewed chance to escape certain death. How, you may wonder?
Firstly, the amount of postmortem flatulence that propels this film at the start (quite literally) is at once hysterical and creepy. The dead body (Daniel Radcliffe) spews forth postmortem water in buckets and Dano goes about collecting and drinking it like it's the wellspring of life, followed by Radcliffe showing off a stiffy, which acts as a compass to guide Dano in his escape attempt. That being said, this film is a story about a new lease on life and how a corpse can seemingly come to life after being well taken care of.
In the realms of fantastic cinema, this one certainly takes the cake, along with the top prize at the 2016 Sitges International Fantastic Film Fest. The fact that Radcliffe won the Best Actor prize as well was astounding and a true testament to his skills, but deep down, I believe Dano should have shared that accolade with him. Fantastically creepy and absolutely special.
The Girl With All the Gifts ###-1/2
It's odd that pregnant mum movies and experimental zombie films were in such abundance at the fest this year. When I meandered back to the Melia Hotel's main screen for the opening premiere of Melanie: The Girl with All the Gifts (an odd name for an odd film, no doubt), I was not sure what to expect.
The scariest aspect of most zombie movies is the way they transform the familiar human visage into a grotesque, unthinking, carnivorous beast. The Girl With All the Gifts is director Colm McCarthy's adaptation of M.R. Carey's novel of the same name, and it's fierce in the way he helps create a lead actor and star whose role in the film is a zombie. When a zombie is both the lead AND a child, we immediately take notice. Newcomer Sennia Nanua gives us such a startling yet nuanced performance because she delivers a one-act school-type performance mixed with the scariest of acting chops. It's weird and it obviously worked, as she also went on to snag the Best Actress award at the film festival.
The premise goes that while the rest of the world has been transformed into flesh-eaters called "Hungries", the younger generation is imprisoned at a research facility and, within reason, continue to behave like normal children. Ruthless Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close, great as always, yet more manlike than ever) keeps all the kids locked up and tied to wheelchairs, even when they're brought into a classroom for daily lessons from the friendly Helen, played to an odd degree by the fetching Gemma Arterton. When the hell from outside breaks through the barriers, we're thrown into a survival tale that is at once gruesome/enticing and slow/a tad annoying. Still, when the film passes its denouement, we get the creepiest and sweetest taboo. Fantastic cinema at its oddest and creepiest.
The Handmaiden ####
In 2003, Park Chan-wook surprised the world with his epic take on the film Oldboy. He returns this year with an insanely mastered adaptation of Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith - the way he has moved the setting from England in its Victorian heyday to Korea and Japan is an ode to his bravado and brilliance. Add in copious amounts of intrigue, suspense and plenty of sex, and The Handmaiden becomes an Asian, gothic sex odyssey.
Sookee (the gorgeous Kim Tae-ri) lives with a gang of thieves who run a profitable business raising babies for Japanese adoption. Before long a conman known as The Count comes up with an ambitious plan that could free our heroine from her fraudulent sense of life. She jumps at the opportunity and becomes the new handmaiden to the Count's niece/soon-to-be wife (nasty!), only to have life start taking unexpected and bizarre turns.
Park's film is a wonder to behold. At once we are compelled and repelled by its twists and turns. And the eroticism of the affair and the lesbian-tinged complexities only serve to add to Park's masterful touch and keen sense of direction. The fact that he could do a complete 180 with such an English novel, turning it into an Asian tale of creepy enticement and eroticism, shows his command of the big screen.
The Wailing ####
At the start, The Wailing plays like a Korean CSI episode. This alone was enough to pique the curiosity of a forensics nut like me. However, it is director Na Hong-jin's 'more is more' sense of stylised camerawork that serves to cement my growing suspicion that Korean cinema (and Asian cinema, in general) has begun to outshine the big, western studios.
The film kicks off with an investigation into a brutal family murder, followed by more bizarre death scenes, and we, the audience, start to like the chief officer in charge, Jong-Goo, played in perfect dad mode by actor Do Wan Kwak. Despite the film's sometimes tedious two-and-a-half-hour runtime, we feel compelled to find out what is going on with the spate of crimes afflicting our protagonist's village, and even his family.
Hong-jin's atmospheric take—the film is often shot in dark hues or rainy scenes—emphasises the dark subject matter, and yet he still finds time to make us smile and include some supernatural/otherworldly goodies to boot! Na saves the best for last, revealing the antagonist in all its devilish glory and giving us a glimpse into the dark matter of this film, which will undoubtedly go on to be a cult classic.
NOTE: There is a gruesome dog killing in the film - I could not watch that scene, resorting to the old cover-the-eyes-and-ears-with-my-fingers-and-hands routine. I can watch a monster gut a human like a fish, but watching domestic animals get killed does me in.
Stakelander ###
Apparently Stake Land, a revenge zombie flick, debuted a few years back here in Sitges and while it received some attention, it also seems that its producers and even SyFy films managed to have its sequel made without anyone being the wiser. It's crew was on hand to introduce the film and as it started, it made quick and effective use of flashbacks and past scenes to catch us, the laymen and women, up on the plot. Once again we watch as lead actor Martin flees his destroyed home of New Eden, only to find himself alone in the American wastelands known as The Badlands. Searching for his former mentor known as Mister, we see Martin fight zombies in order to exact his revenge. While this is most certainly a film best seen on the telly, I must say, it was quite well done. SyFy could have a money-making series with this one if they market it well!
Hidden in the Woods ##-1/2
Gotta create those half-hashtags, I tell ye. Watching this film was odd because it was shot entirely in Texas, where I was born, and the director did his darnedest to portray the wild, vivid characters that a state bigger than Spain holds within its confines. His nods to Mexican backgrounds were also nice, but I couldn't help feeling that I was watching a Nineties, B movie I rented from Vulcan Video to get stoned to in uni, and this one just happened to draw a crowd. This is especially true after watching the aforementioned films, which would go on to win all the prizes.
This film is the tale of fathers who abuse their daughters, something that I find most heinous, making the film a depressing one to sit through. Fleshing out the edges with decent overacting, the gruesome nature of the subtext was still hard to swallow and made me feel unclean and rather uninspired afterwards. Meh!
Now then, there were well over 200 films screening these last 11 days and the final entry of our Sitges Film Fest reviews and coverage will present a nice smattering of all the films that are opening in the next few months via the big screen, VOD or Netflix. Speak soon!


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Welcome to Hope!
We know how hard it is to try out a new thing, much less a new church. What do I wear? What do they believe? Do I know anyone already? How do I get to know others in my stage of life? There are a lot of unknowns, however, we can answer a few of those here on this page to help you feel comfortable with the church before you even walk in the door (which we hope is soon)!
Where to Go
Look for this banner in our lobby and the person standing next to it will be ready to help you find your way around with ease!
They will help you find bathrooms, Hope Kids check-in areas, and even coffee or tea! Just walk up and say "I'm new!" We'll take care of the rest.
What to expect
We want you to know up front what it's like here so you can feel comfortable right away!
Allow us to quickly answer the most commonly asked questions.
How our services work
We have a live band and campus pastor at all three campuses ready to serve you and your family each weekend.
Our Lead Pastor, John McKinzie, teaches live from the Frisco East campus most weeks and we stream live video to our Frisco West, McKinney, and Prosper campuses.
Make sure you look for guest parking spaces right near the front doors when you visit!
What our people are like
Our people are some of the friendliest on the planet! We have a lot of thirty-somethings with kids, but we also have singles, empty-nesters, and senior adults.
No matter what stage you're in, there's someone here like you and they can't wait to meet you!
How people usually dress
How someone dresses isn't a big deal at Hope (as long as you're wearing something)! We have some in flip-flops and shorts in the summer and some are more business casual or in jeans. We're pretty relaxed.
What we have for kids
Hope Kids is our infant – 5th grade ministry that meets during every service. Hope Students is for 6th – 12th graders, and meets on Wednesday nights at every campus.
All of our volunteers have been properly vetted and trained to provide a safe and clean environment so your kids will leave knowing just how much they matter to God!
Campus Locations
Frisco East
9950 Rolater Rd. Frisco, TX 75035
Service Times
Saturday: 5:00 PM
Sunday: 11:15 AM
Frisco West
309 W. Main St. Frisco, TX 75036
Service Times
Sunday: 11:15 AM
1702 W. University Dr. McKinney, TX 75069
Service Times
Sunday: 11:15 AM
301 Eagle Dr, Prosper, TX 75078
Service Times
Sunday: 11:15 AM


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The Flower in Hell
Film info
Director: Shin Sang-ok
Cast: Choi Eun-hee, Kim Hak, Jo Hae-won, Gang Seon-hui
Cert 15, 86mins, 1958
Shin Sang-ok had a prolific career, with more than 100 producer and 70 director credits to his name, earning him the nickname 'The Prince of South Korean Cinema'. His 1958 classic The Flower In Hell thrilled audiences with its bold aesthetics, its mixing of genres, and its incorporation of documentary footage. Throughout the film, Shin draws attention to the relationships that working class Koreans had with US soldiers, refusing to shy away from the dark side of 1950s Korean society.
Watershed Bristol, 18 Nov 2019 6:00 pm
Film info
Director: Hong Sangsoo
Cast: Kim Minhee, Jung Jinyoung, Ki Joobong, Seo Younghwa
Cert 15, 66mins, 2017
Episodic, meandering and offering the mere ghost of a narrative, the film, too, is neither this nor that - but the apparent simplicity of Hong's monochromatic long takes conceals a theatricalised artifice whose players may merely be A-reum's fictions, or even lost souls.
Watershed Bristol, 20 Nov 2019 6:00 pm


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As part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's comprehensive economic policy package known as Abenomics, Japan has set a target for annual foreign direct investment (FDI) of ¥35 trillion by 2020. To reach this goal, the country must make itself not only a more desirable market but also an easier place for non-Japanese to conduct business.
Attracting startups is a key part of the plan, and in April 2015 steps were taken to make setting up a business easier.
Previously, those living abroad who wanted to come to Japan and start a company faced a Catch-22. To obtain a visa, one first had to register a company here. But to register a company, one needed to obtain a business manager visa and take up residence.
To solve this conundrum, a startup visa program was made available to those wishing to set up shop in the Tokyo and Fukuoka National Strategic Special Zones. This visa gave entrepreneurs six months to establish their business and could be renewed if one of two conditions were met: ¥5 million was invested in the company or two full-time employees were hired.
While a step forward, six months passes quickly and, according to Nikkei Asian Review only 30 such visas were issued in 2016 and 2017 combined. To better compete with other nations, a more flexible approach was needed.
As part of new economic package passed by the Diet on December 8, the startup visa period will be extended to one year and made available nationwide under a pilot program led by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) applauds the efforts of the government of Japan (GOJ) to make the country a more attractive place for those from abroad to start new businesses. The steps being taken to extend the term of the startup visa will significantly increase the ability of global entrepreneurs to grow their businesses in the Japanese market. This, in turn, will lead to an environment that supports increased economic growth.
"We know that innovative small and medium-sized enterprises—including startups—have the potential to infuse energy and innovative solutions into the economy," said ACCJ Venture Company Task Force (VCTF) co-chair Barry Hirschfeld. "We are pleased to see positive moves being made by the GOJ to make Japan more vibrant and internationally competitive."
VCTF vice-chair Jim Weisser added: "By implementing measures to amend the startup visa, foreign entrepreneurs with the skills and experience to lead innovative businesses that address key business needs—as well as critical social needs—will be more willing to consider Japan."
Efforts by METI to support local governments in attracting global startups are also welcome.
To help facilitate the process of establishing startups in Japan, METI will work together with localities wishing to attract FDI to identify professionals such as lawyers, accountants, and real estate agents who can provide services in English and other languages. By using these METI-certified professionals, entrepreneurs can gain access to private funds and government-affiliated lenders—something that will make a big difference for those trying to navigate a system that has long been difficult to crack from the outside.


text: You are here: Home > Course > Starters / Snacks > School Time Snacks > Roasted Makhana, Roasted Lotus Seeds Roasted Makhana, Roasted Lotus Seedsby Tarla Dalal 26 Mar 2018 add to my cookbook add to shopping list You are not signed in. Please sign in to access your cookbooksExisting members click here to sign inNew visitors click here to sign up Please sign in to create shopping lists! 5/5 stars 100% LIKED IT 1 REVIEW ALL GOOD Added to 15 cookbooks This recipe has been viewed 24168 times Roasted Makhana will any day give popcorn a run for its money. Roasted lotus seeds are crunchy, puffy and tasty, in a unique sort of way. This recipe shows you how to make plain roasted makhana. You can perk it up with your choice of seasonings – herby, spicy, sweet, garlicky or just plain buttery! A bowlful of roasted makhana, flavoured as you like it, will faithfully keep you company when you watch a movie or chat with friends. You can also try other snacks like the Roasted Poha and Oats Chivda or Roasted Khichiya Papad . Add your private note Roasted Makhana, Roasted Lotus Seeds recipe - How to make Roasted Makhana, Roasted Lotus Seeds Tags School Time SnacksJar SnacksIndian Healthy Veg SnackLow Veg Glycemic Index Healthy Quick Snack IdeasHealthy School SnackHealthy Jar Snacks Preparation Time: 2 mins   Cooking Time: 5 mins   Total Time: 7 mins     Makes 3 cups Show me for cups Ingredients 3 cups lotus seeds (makhana)3 tbsp olive oil salt and freshly ground black pepper (kalimirch) to taste Method MethodHeat the oil in broad nonstick pan and add the lotus seeds, salt and pepper powder, mix well and cook on medium flame for 5 minutes, while stirring continuously.Transfer to a plate and let it cool completely.Serve immediately or store in air tight container. Other Related Recipes Nutrient values (Abbrv) per cupEnergy151 calProtein0.7 gCarbohydrates3.1 gFiber0 gFat15.1 gCholesterol0 mgSodium0.2 mgClick here to view calories for Roasted Makhana, Roasted Lotus Seeds RECIPE SOURCE : Tarla Dalal's Latest Recipes


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Archive for the 'Documentary film' Category
Il Cinema Ritrovato: More and more
Il Cinema Ritrovato Book Fair (photograph Margherita Caprilli).
Kristin here:
I mentioned in my entry on the African thread at this year's Il Cinema Ritrovato that I filled in blank spaces in my program with a miscellany of intriguing films. Here are some of those films I saw, and others that David saw.
O Pão (1959)
Manoel de Oliveira's first film, the gorgeous black-and-white documentary short, Douro, Faina Fluvial, was released in 1931. His last, Um Século de Energia, another documentary short, came out in 2015, the year of his death aged 106 (as did Visita ou Memórias e Confissões, a deliberately posthumous legacy film shot in 1982). That's an 84-year career. I doubt any other filmmaker can claim as much.
Initially that career proceeded in fits and starts. He made more documentary shorts in the 1930s and then a black-and-white feature, Aniki-Boko (1942), during the war under an authoritarian regime. After the war he could not find funding and decided to study color filmmaking in Germany. During the 1950s he applied his resulting expertise to two documentaries: O Pintor e a Cidad ("The Painter and the City," 1956) and O Pão (Bread). A beautiful print of the latter was shown in this year's Ritrovati e Restaurati thread. It was to be his last film before he turned to feature filmmaking, though he never entirely gave up documentaries, particularly near the end of his life.
This hour-long film slowly follows the entire progress of bread, from wheat-fields to milling to baking to consumption. The images, whether in field or factory, are lovely, showing that Oliveira had indeed learned a great deal about color.
There is no voice-over narration, even during a lengthy scene in a large mill where technicians perform mysterious tests on samples of flour. The slow progression creates a soothing, almost mesmeric tone. Only toward the end does some social criticism emerge. A hungry urchin stealthily retrieves a roll dropped by a shopper, only to have it snatched away by a little street thug. Clearly bread, despite the lyricism of its production, is not for everyone.
Ghazieh-e Shekl-e Avval, Ghazieh-e Shekl-e Duvvum (1979)
Another must-see was Abbas Kiarostami's early film, First Case, Second Case, also presented in the rediscovered-and-restored thread. Like Oliveira, Kiarostami began in documentary work. This remarkable film was started before the 1979 Iranian Revolution and finished after it–and then banned.
The film's beginning rather resembles other Kiarostami openings, with a simple scene in a classroom. A teacher drawing the anatomy of an ear on a blackboard is interrupted by a knocking noise caused by one of his students. No one confesses or reveals who caused the noise, and the teacher suspends seven of the boys, who spend the next days in the hall outside the classroom.
This scene is revealed to be a 16mm film being shown to a succession of teachers, government officials, religious leaders, and the fathers of some of the boys. In the latter cases, some variant of the framing above is shown, with an arrow pointing to the son of the father being interviewed. Unseen, Kiarostami asks them the same question: did the boys do right in refusing to reveal who disrupted the class? Some of these interviewees became key figure in the Islamic Revolution. (Jason Sanders' program notes for a screening of the film provide some information about this historical context.)
This "documentary" has of course been carefully staged. A page from Kiarostami's script reveals how he designed the passing days of the boys' suspension, with different ones standing or sitting each time. The illustration is from Ritrovato programmer Ehsan Khoshbakht's blog entry on the film, where he credits First Case, Second Case with introducing the interview technique into the director's work.
This first case shows the boys maintaining their refusal to identify the culprit. In a new scene, the second case, an alternative outcome shows one of the boys naming the guilty classmate to his teacher. Again, Kiarostami interviews many of the same people as to whether they believe the boy's decision can be morally justified.
If not as charming as some of Kiarostami's later work, First Case, Second Case contains a familiar combination of complexity and simplicity, as well as a fascination with people telling their own versions of events.
The film has been picked up by Janus in the USA, which should mean that it becomes available from Criterion on Blu-ray and/or its streaming service, The Criterion Channel.
Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
In recent years, Il Cinema Ritrovato has featured the films of a major Hollywood director as one of its main threads. This year it was Henry King. I managed to miss nearly all of his films. In part I feared that, since the auteur du jour is always one of the the more popular items in the program, the screenings would be crowded. Word of mouth suggested that they were.
Still, I had an afternoon free, and I wanted to guarantee myself a good seat for Varda par Agnès, showing later in the day. I went to an earlier screening in the same theater, and I was glad I did. Twelve O'Clock High is an impressive and entertaining film, if not an outright masterpiece.
Fitting into David's set of innovations typical of the 1940s, the action is enclosed by a framing situation. A man we eventually discover was an American officer posted in England during World War II bicycles out into the countryside and visits the derelict remains of the military airport where he served. (Above, played by Dean Jagger in a role that won him a best-supporting-actor Oscar).
For a long time the story concentrates on General Frank Savage (Gregory Peck), who takes over command of an underperforming bomber unit in the same air station we saw at the beginning. He proves an absolute stickler for discipline, initially alienating the pilots he commands. Eventually he wins their respect, of course, and he learns to unbend a bit.
Eventually a series of air battles occur, with some very impressive and genuine combat footage, including aerial views of bombs exploding on their German targets. The film was presented in a nearly pristine 35mm print, which certainly contributed to my pleasure at having ended up at that screening somewhat by chance.
Faubourg Montmartre (1931)
I definitely planned from the start to see this film. I very much admire director Raymond Bernard's 1932 World War I drama Wooden Crosses, his next feature after Faubourg Montmartre. Indeed, I had done a video on it for The Criterion Channel ("Observations on Film Art" #16 "The Darkness of War in Wooden Crosses")
While a slighter film than Wooden Crosses, Faubourg Montmartre is quite stylish and technically impressive, considering that it was Bernard's first sound film. In it he abandons his concentration during the silent era on historical epics (his best-known being The Miracle of the Wolves, from 1924).
Here he tackles a melodrama in a contemporary setting, centering around Ginette, a somewhat naive young working-class woman, played by popular star Gaby Morlay. She and her older sister Céline live and work in the titular district of Paris, the disreputable area of cheap entertainment and brothels. Céline works as a prostitute but tries to protect Ginette from such a life. Becoming more dependent on drugs, however, she nearly dupes Ginette into following her into prostitution.
Despite its grim setting, the film has many light moments, mostly provided by the amiable Morlay. It also contains some impressive musical numbers, one a variety number by Florelle and a café song about prostitution by Odette Barencey.
The film was yet another in the festival's Ritrovati and Restaurati thread.
Georges Franju
There was an unaccustomed focus on documentaries this year, which presumably was the occasion for devoting a small thread to Franju. Of the thirteen shorts which he made or at least is tentatively credited with (most of them commissioned documentaries), eleven were shown. Judex, his fiction feature paying homage to the serial of the same name by Louis Feuillade, was also on the program.
I tried to see all the Franju shorts, since only Le Sang des bêtes (above) and Hôtel des Invalides are well-known in the US. The prints shown ranged widely in quality, some being in 35mm and some 16mm. En passant par la Lorraine was almost unwatchable, though most of the rest were in varying degrees acceptable.
The most interesting revelations were perhaps Mon chien (1955), a melancholy narrative based on the common habit of people abandoning their pets in the countryside. The amazingly callous parents of the little heroine dump her beloved German shepherd in the woods on their way to a vacation spot. The film follows the faithful animal's trek home, only to find a locked house and a dog-catcher waiting. An empty cage signals that the animal was euthanized, with the voiceover of the girl calling forlornly for her pet. The other was Les poussières (1954), a lyrical survey of many kinds of dust generated in the world, ending in a strong anti-pollution message.
It was a pleasure to see this body of work brought together, but the screenings also demonstrate the pressing need to restore many of these films.
A Gabin tribute
DB here (with films I saw in boldface):
Jean Gabin has become emblematic of French cinema from the 1930s and after, so the several films devoted to him were welcome. Programmer Edward Waintrop included the classic Pépé le Moko (1936) but correctly assumed he didn't have to show this crowd La Grande Illusion (1937), La Bête Humaine (1938), and Le Jour se Lève (1939). Edward's catalog entry wisely emphasized how much Gabin owed to Julien Duvivier, an underrated director who helped the young actor find starring roles.
From the heroic thirties, we got the less-seen but still fabled Cœur de Lilas (1931), in which a detective disguises himself as a workman and plunges into the underworld to investigate a murder. The chief suspect, Lilas, is protected by the surly Gabin.
In her book on popular song in French cinema, our colleague Kelley Conway has written a superb analysis of Cœur de Lilas, and you can find a clip of Gabin's big musical number here. Director Anatole Litvak handles his performance in a long tracking shot that keeps our attention fastened on Gabin's half-scornful, half-boastful mug as he spits out lines about his girlfriend's bedroom calisthenics ("The rubber kid. . . She dislocates you").
Gabin plays the third point of a love triangle in Cœur de Lilas, but he's somewhat more central to the lesser-known Du Haut en Bas (1933), a sort of network narrative that reminds us that The Crime of M. Lange (1936) isn't the only film tracing the tangled passions in a courtyard community. More easygoing here but still a force to be reckoned with, Gabin plays a footballer with his eye on an aspiring teacher forced to work as a maid. Other plotlines, including Michel Simon's raffish wooing of his landlady, intermingle in this thoroughly agreeable movie by the great G. W. Pabst.
A generous sampling of Gabin's later career included La Marie du Port (1949), Le Plaisir (1951), Maigret tend un piège (1957), and the brutal Simenon adaptation Le Chat (1970), the first film I saw on my first visit to Paris. En Cas de Malheur (1957), an efficient plunge into sex and crime by Autant-Lara, features Gabin as a prestigious but dodgy lawyer drawn to the pouting self-regard of Brigitte Bardot. In youth and age, as a sort of French Spencer Tracy, Gabin could exude both relaxed joie de vivre and stolid menace. An icon, as we say.
Americana, urban and rural
State Fair (1933).
Speaking of Spencer Tracy, it was a pleasure to see this Milwaukee native in a long-neglected racketeer drama. Quick Millions (released May 1931) arrived in the middle of the first big gangster cycle and was overshadowed by two Warners hits, Little Caesar (January 1931) and The Public Enemy (May 1931). As part of Dave Kehr's welcome second Fox cycle, Quick Millions had its own pungent force.
It traces the familiar trajectory of a working stiff, trucker "Bugs" Raymond, who claws his way to the top of the mob. Thanks to blackmail and crooked labor maneuvers ("The brain is a muscle," he tells his moll), he winds up triggering a spate of gangland killings that eventually swallows him up.
Quick Millions was noticed as one of the earliest films to find a smart tempo for talkies, one that relies less on long speeches than snappy scenes delivering one point apiece. The passage of time is signaled by changing license plates, and the ending is a shrug, shoving Bugs' death offscreen and giving him none of the tragic flourishes of Little Rico or Tom Powers. For almost every scene, the little-known director Roland Brown finds an unexpected twist in visuals or performance . Who else would film a sidling George Raft jazz dance from a high angle and then supply inserts of his legs, from behind no less?
Fox found more success with a folksy Grand Hotel variant based on the popular novel State Fair (1932). Henry King's 1933 film was planned as an "all-star" vehicle, and it did boast Will Rogers, Janet Gaynor, and Lew Ayres. An Iowa family heads to the fair, aiming for blue ribbons in pickle preserving and hog-fattening. The son has a surprisingly carnal affair with a trapeze artist, while the daughter meets a roguish reporter who makes her rethink her engagement to a hick back home. State Fair's script gives the plot a happier ending than the book did, but that's not necessarily a problem; we want these kind souls to enjoy a bit of glory.
Henry King became famous for rustic realism with Tol'able David (1921), a model for Soviet filmmakers, and Ehsan Khoshbakht's King retrospective reminded us that he worked this vein a long time. From 1915 Twin Kiddies (a Marie Osborne vehicle) to Wait 'Till the Sun Shines, Nellie (1952), this loyal Fox craftsman showed himself, like Clarence Brown at MGM, an adaptable director with an unpretentious gift for celebrating small-town life.
Still more, more…
Under Capricorn (1949).
I could go on about other films, such as Zigomar: Peau d'Anguille ("Zigomar, the Eelskin," 1912), Victorin Jasset's forerunner of Feuillade's delirious master-criminal sagas. (In one episode, an elephant's trunk fastidiously picks the lock on a circus wagon and drags away a strongbox.) Our next entry will spend a little time looking at a neat Genina film from 1919. In the meantime, I'll sign off by mentioning two other high points.
The pretty Academy IB-Tech print of Under Capricorn (1949) made me like the film quite a bit better than previous viewings. As ever, one high point was La Bergman's virtuoso soliloquy admitting her guilt. Any other director of the time would have reenacted the crime in a flashback, but, in the shadow of Rope (1948), Hitchcock makes her squeeze out her confession in a ravishing single-take monologue running almost eight minutes.
Its power comes partly from the fact that the framing withholds the facial response of the man who loves her. He's slowly understanding the depth of her devotion to her husband during penal servitude. "How did you live all those years?" he murmurs. How'd you think? Her glance flicks over him, in both guilt and defiance (above).
Finally, no film gave me more pure pleasure than the restoration of Boetticher's Ride Lonesome (1959). Sony archivist Grover Crisp explained that the original prints had all been made from the camera negative (!) and so he had no internegatives or fine-grain masters to work from. Nevertheless, this digital version, made in 4K with wetgate scanning, looked superb.
I tend to judge Boetticher westerns by the strength of the villains, meaning that Seven Men from Now (Lee Marvin) and The Tall T (Richard Boone) sit at the top of my heap, but it's hard to resist the laconic dialogue Burt Kennedy supplied everybody in Ride Lonesome. And the antagonists facing Randolph Scott here–Lee Van Cleef (brief but unforgettable), Pernell Roberts (the good-bad rascal), and sweet-natured dimwit James Coburn (on his way to rangy knife-wielding in The Magnificent Seven)–add up pretty powerfully. Against them stands Scott as vengeance-driven Brigade, an unyielding chunk of sweating mahogany.
Thanks as usual to the Cinema Ritrovato Directors: Cecilia Cenciarelli, Gian Luca Farinelli, Ehsan Khoshbakht, Mariann Lewinsky, and their colleagues. Special thanks to Guy Borlée, the Festival Coordinator. Thanks also to Dave Kehr, Grover Crisp, Mike Pogorzelski, and Geoffrey O'Brien for talk about many of the classics on display.
The entire Ritrovato '19 catalogue, with full credits and essays, is online here. There are also videos of many events, including master classes with Francis Ford Coppola and Jane Campion.
Quick Millions was remembered several years after its release for "the rapid rhythm of its continuity." See Janet Graves, "Joining Sight and Sound," The New York Times (29 November 1936), X4.
John Bailey's introduction to Under Capricorn included a revealing short explaining the Technicolor dye-transfer process. For further information there's the remarkable George Eastman House Technicolor research site and of course James Layton and David Pierce's superb book The Dawn of Technicolor.
Kristin discusses Kiarostami's landscape techniques in a Criterion Channel Observations entry. In American Dharma, discussed by David here, Errol Morris reveals that Twelve O'Clock High was an inspiration for Steve Bannon's political career.
The Ritrovato program notes credit Fréhal as the working-class singer in Faubourg Monmartre, but Kelley Conway's Chanteuse in the City: The Realist Singer in French Film (linked above) identifies her as Odette Barencey, a lesser-known chanteuse of the period who resembled Fréhal.
Opening shot of Ride Lonesome (1959).
Wisconsin Film Festival: Not docudramas, but docus as dramas
Making Montgomery Clift (2018).
DB here:
Our days and nights at our annual film festival would have been hopelessly frustrating if we hadn't already seen several of the fine items on offer. At other festivals we caught Asako I and II, Ash Is Purest White, Dogman, The Eyes of Orson Welles, The Girl in the Window, Girls Always Happy, The Image Book, Long Day's Journey into Night, Lucky to Be a Woman, The Other Side of the Wind, Peterloo, Rosita, Shadow, Styx, Transit, and Woman at War. As you can see, our programmers assembled a spectacular array of movies. Most of these we'd happily watch again, but there were so many new offerings we had to resist.
With this elbow room I could pay attention to three documentaries I'd been looking forward to. They had all the appeal of a fictional film, with keen plots and tricky narration and fascinating characters. It didn't hurt that two were about world-class celebrities and the third appealed to my deepest conspiracy-theory instincts.
Heart of Glasnost
Werner Herzog's Meeting Gorbachev was a surprisingly conventional effort for this legendarily odd filmmaker. As my colleague Vance Kepley remarked, Herzog typically makes documentaries of two types. He probes eccentric personalities (the "ski-flyer" Steiner, or a man trying to hang out with grizzly bears) or he treks into remote, dangerous landscapes (Antarctica, a swift-moving volcano, the fires of Kuwait).
But this portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev is neither. Herzog's interview with the elderly but still vigorous Soviet leader is interrupted by biographical inserts tracing his career, his struggles, and his policies. Newsreel footage and other talking heads provide context in a mostly straightforward account of the man's life and work. Only a story about tree slugs briefly diverts Herzog's attention.
The film revives our appreciation of a politician many people have tried to bury. Gorbachev emerges as a thoughtful, upbeat man who tried to make the Soviet Union more democratic and open to the popular will, to create Communism with a human face. But he triggered events that cascaded too quickly. He broke up the USSR but also cleared a path for economic collapse and a corrupt kleptocracy. His suggestion for his tombstone inscription: We tried.
Herzog's montages dramatize the breakdown of national borders, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the coup that destabilized reforms while Gorbachev was away from Moscow. The main principle of swimming with sharks in a bureaucracy is: Don't tell anybody what you're going to do until you do it. The 1991 unseating of Gorbachev by Yeltsin reminds me of a second: Don't take vacations.
Meeting Gorbachev is actually a double portrait, because Herzog puts a good many personal feelings into it. He remembers the emotion he felt as Germany reunited. Gorbachev's call for "a common European home" rouses him to recall his youthful Wanderjahr when he walked across the continent.
Although I don't think the name Trump is mentioned, his shadow falls over the whole film. Portraying a sane, reasonable leader today seems virtually a bid for controversy. Gorbachev reminds us of the reductions in nuclear weaponry that he negotiated with Reagan and Thatcher. "People say that Reagan won the Cold War. Actually, it was a joint victory. We all won." The idea of pursuing policies that benefit the whole world seems oddly old-fashioned right now.
When Herzog gives us a glimpse of a robotic Putin peering down into the casket of Gorbachev's beloved wife, we're forced to register what Russia has become, and how the US is now complicit with it. Maybe this film has more of the director in it than I initially thought. As Herzog dared to declare in an earlier film, Nosferatu lives.
Unmaking an icon
Whenever I see Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift kiss in A Place in the Sun, I think: Here are the two most beautiful people in the Western world. I'm not alone. Clift was one of Hollywood's most celebrated stars after the war, partly because he didn't easily fit the molds of either the old guard or the new.
The dapper guys with mustaches (William Powell, Fredric March, Melvyn Douglas) and the bashful beanpole boys (Cooper, Fonda, Stewart) were being challenged by what I've called in an earlier entry the brawny contingent. I'm thinking chiefly of Robert Ryan, Kirk Douglas, and Burt Lancaster, beefcakes with big hands and thrusting, sometimes confused energies. The hero might be a heel (Douglas) or a beautiful loser (Lancaster) or a bit of both (Ryan).
In this context, Clift looks like cannon fodder. Put him alongside Lancaster in From Here to Eternity, and you'll find it hard to believe he's the prizefighter; in that movie, only Sinatra looks skinnier. Delicate, with an innocent stare and an angular body, a wide-eyed Clift takes over his debut film, Red River (1948), from the lumbering John Wayne. Hawks claimed he told Clift that if he quietly watched the action from behind his tin coffee cup, he could steal every scene.
Clift carved out a space all his own. Late in his career, the tremor in his voice and a wary tilt of the head gave him antiheroic quality, as in Wild River (1960). Not for him the over-underplaying of Brando or the unpredictable gestures and dialogue cadences of James Dean. He has his own method, not The Method.
One of the many merits of Making Montgomery Clift, a fascinating documentary by Robert Clift and Hillary Demmon, is that it triggers such thinking about the actor's craft. Emerging from a hillock of papers, home movies, video tapes, and audio tapes, the film documents two dramas–that of Clift's life, and that of the process through which complex human beings get flattened into media clichés. As a bonus, we reap many insights into how actors shape their performances, sometimes against the grain of the script they're handed.
On the life, we learn that Clift was often a buoyant, bisexual fellow, not the brooding and moody figure of legend. He was also a demanding artist who turned down juicy parts. When he signed up for a role, he insisted on vetting the script and sometimes rewriting it. In split-screen Clift and Demmon present the page on the left, scribbled up with Monty's notes and excisions, and then run the scene alongside. The excerpts they give us from The Search and Judgment at Nuremberg show how a committed actor can strip an overwritten scene down to an emotional core.
If nothing else, Making Montgomery Clift shows us how performances shape movies: the actor as auteur. But it's exactly this analysis of craft that's missing from most film biographies. Those doorstop volumes revel in scandal and exposés because publishers think that a straightforward account of hard-won artistry–the sort of thing we routinely get in biographies of composers or painters–doesn't suit movies. The result is glamor, excitement, sad stories, and banal interpretations rolled into one fat book.
This is the other drama so patiently traced by Clift and Demmon. They show how two 1970s biographies set a mold for the Tragic Homosexual story that has dogged the Clift legend ever since. Just as the filmmakers pay attention to the movies, they provide close readings of passages in the books, and the evidence of sensationalism, inaccuracy, and offhand speculation is pretty damning. One description of Clift's injured face after his 1957 car crash savors brutal detail. And it's not just the ambulance-chasers; passages from John Huston's autobiography also radiate bad faith.
Clift understood that cookie-cutter journalism would oversimplify him. Thanks to the endless tapes he and his brother Brooks made of their phone conversations, we hear his quick condemnation of "pocket-edition psychology." There's a continuum between the tabloid headline, the talk-show time-filler, the celebrity memoir, and the bulging star bio. All try to iron out the wrinkles. During the Q & A, Robert Clift talked about traditional biographies as exercises in taxidermy: "It feels so real because it's dead." Hillary Demmon remarked that they wanted to "open up Monty to more readings."
Making Montgomery Clift proves that academic talk about the "social construction" of this or that isn't hot air. The film ranks with Errol Morris's Tabloid as combining a fascinating life story (full of, yes, drama) with a serious argument about how celebrity culture reduces that story to captions and soundbites. Let's hope the film makes its way to wider audiences, in theatres and on disc and streaming services. It belongs in the library of every college and university, so that students can get acquainted with an extraordinary performer, appreciate the art of star acting, and witness how the media shrink people to less than life size.
In the crosshairs of history
Like other baby boomers, I'm a connoisseur of conspiracy theories. But we have an excuse. Today's kids grow up with school lockdowns and street shootings; we had assassinations. Patrice Lumumba (1961), Medgar Evers (1963), John Kennedy (1963), Lee Harvey Oswald (1963), the Freedom Summer murder victims (1964), Malcolm X (1965), Martin Luther King (1968), and Robert Kennedy (1968): this cavalcade of killings made political life seem a theatre of Jacobean intrigue.
Not the least of these was the 1961 death of the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammerskjöld. Hammerskjöld had pressed for peace in the Middle East and was a patient advocate for decolonization in Africa. En route to the breakaway Congolese province of Katanga, his plane crashed. For years many people, including former President Harry Truman, believed that the plane was shot down in order to murder Hammerskjöld.
So of course I had to see Mads Brügger's Cold Case Hammerskjöld. It did not disappoint.
At first it seems cutesy, with the filmmaker dictating his findings to two African women typists, who occasionally turn to question him. He's both pedantic and flamboyant (wearing white clothes to match the habitual outfit of a villain he will expose). In contrast there's the veteran Hammerskjöld researcher Göran Björkdahl (on the right above beside Brugger). Björkdahl is a steady presence as the men question witnesses to the crash and then, crazily, set out to dig up the site. When they're forbidden to do so, you might think that we've got another film about not making a film.
Instead, in the spirit of Morris's Thin Blue Line, the story we're investigating drifts into another story, and then another, as documents and witnesses and people who refuse to talk to the filmmakers lead to some appalling charges. Let's simply say, to preserve the film's shock value, that the Hammerskjöld case reveals SAIMR, a white supremacist militia for hire. The most horrifying claim about SAIMR and its leader is broached by a well-spoken mercenary purportedly haunted by guilt. His claim has been contested by researchers (as reported in the New York Times). Even if his charge doesn't hold water, though, the existence of SAIMR seems well-documented.
We conspiracy theorists are often told that history proceeds by accident, not by intention. Yet some intentions succeed splendidly (viz. the killings itemized above), and some succeed by luck. Perhaps the darkest intentions chronicled in Cold Case Hammerskjöld were too crazy to be implemented. But that doesn't lift responsibility from the feverish minds who dreamed them up, or from the institutions–perhaps mining companies, perhaps MI6 and the CIA–that gave them a hand. In an era when white supremacy has come on strong, Brügger's film will remain the provocation it was intended to be.
One more entry will talk about still more films at this festival which so generously spoils us.
Thanks to film festival coordinators Jim Healy, Ben Reiser, Mike King, Zach Zahos, and their dedicated staff for this year's wonderful event.
Cold Case Hammerskjöld.
Oscar's siren song: The return: A guest post by Jeff Smith
A Star Is Born.
As you probably know, Jeff Smith has been our collaborator on Film Art: An Introduction and our Criterion Channel series "Observations on Film Art." For the last few years (here and here and here), Jeff has offered his thoughts on the Academy's music nominees. This time around, he concentrates on the songs.
Here's a brief preview of the Best Original Song category in this year's Academy Awards. I also include a prediction for this year's winner. Of course, I'd be the first to admit I don't even win my own Oscar pool. So you'll want to take that into account before making any wagers.
A good old-fashioned tune
Mary Poppins.
The Academy has a long history of nominating songs from live action and animated musicals. This year is no exception.
"The Place Where Lost Things Go" from Mary Poppins Returns fits that bill, giving Disney a third straight nomination in this category. ("Remember Me" from Coco and "How Far You'll Go" from Moana are the others.) Like the Sherman Brothers, who wrote songs for the original Mary Poppins, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman derived inspiration from British Music Hall.
In fact, although actor Lin-Manuel Miranda insisted that he didn't want his character to sound like Hamilton, Shaiman and Wittman wrote a patter section of "A Cover is Not a Book" for him, enabling Miranda to show off his unique skill set. With its tricky wordplay and fast pace, the classic patter song is a forerunner of the rhymes spat by rap and hip-hop artists. As Shaiman noted, "So we got very lucky there because we didn't want to feel like we were pandering to the audience, to supply Lin with rap that would seem anachronistic."
"The Place Where Lost Things Go" sits on the opposite side of the musical spectrum as a soft, mid-tempo ballad scored for strings and winds. Fans of the original Mary Poppins will note that it bears more than a faint resemblance to "Stay Awake." Both songs are sung to the Banks children at bedtime in an effort to inveigle them to sleep. Whereas "Stay Awake" shows the über-Nanny using reverse psychology, "The Place Where the Lost Things Go" is a paean to memory, loss, and grief. The children's mother has recently died and they further risk losing their beloved house. Mary Poppins reassures the children that they will be reunited one day with all their loved ones and that, in the meantime, their mother will forever have a place in their hearts.
The number is beautifully sung by Emily Blunt and it captures the sense of melancholy that gives Mary Poppins Returns its emotional heft. Still, it seems like a long-shot to take home the award. I admire Marc Shaiman's work. He has written some absolutely iconic scores in the past, like The American President. And I'd love to see him recognized this Sunday, even if it is just for his phenomenal work on South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. But I fear that an Oscar statuette with his name engraved upon it is also in the place where the lost things go.
When corn meets pone
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
The second nominee is David Rawlings and Gillian Welch's "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings." It appears in the comically violent opening story of the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. It is sung as a duet by the titular character and the Kid, a mysterious gunslinger dressed in black. Buster has just been shot dead in a duel. In the song, the Kid imparts some lessons learned from his short, rugged life as a cowboy with Buster chiming in to provide harmony. Kid's grimly acknowledges that he will suffer the same fate as Buster. It is just a matter of time.
Rawlings and Welch are long-time collaborators, having worked together on the former's debut album. Rawlings has also produced albums by Welch and by Willie Watson, who plays the Kid. Adding to the sense of family reunion is the fact that Welch provided the voice of one of the Sirens in O Brother Where Art Thou? Among those enchanted by the Sirens? You guessed it – Tim Blake Nelson, who plays Buster.
In an interview in Variety, Welch describes the absurdity of the original pitch the Coens made to her and Rawlings:
It was a pretty straightforward thing: "Well, we need a song for when two singing cowboys gun it out, and then they have to do a duet with one of 'em dead. You think you can do that?" "Yeah, I think we can do that," she laughs.
In crafting the song, Rawlings and Welch pull off a rather neat trick. They've created something evocative of the "singing cowboy" films that inspired the first segment of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Yet is also connects with a larger tradition of mournful ballads that are part of folk and country music history. A lilting Texas waltz, the number is sparsely orchestrated, relying largely on guitar, harmonica, and vocals. The lyrics also make reference to a "bindling sheet." As Welch noted, the word "bindling" was something she and Rawlings made up as a gesture toward the Coens' fondness for anachronistic language. Yet it also works as a clever allusion to the "white linen" that is wrapped around a dying cowboy's body in "Streets of Laredo."
As was the case with Mary Poppins Returns, this song perfectly blends music and narrative, beautifully capturing the darkly humorous sensibility characterizing the Coens' career. The lyrics are solemn, but Tim Blake Nelson's yodeling lightens the tone to keep it from seeming maudlin. If I had a vote to cast, this is where I'd put it. Yet my gut tells me that the Academy's beacon will shine on one of the other nominees.
A song for one of the Supremes
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The third nominee, "I'll Fight," was written by Diane Warren, a longtime Academy favorite. The song represents Warren's tenth nomination, but she has never taken home top honors. This year, in an ironic twist, she may lose out to former co-writer Lady Gaga. (The two were nominated for "Til It Happens to You" in The Hunting Ground.) Warren admits that "I'll Fight" is another of her "call to arms" songs as she has turned more of her energies toward films that support social causes.
One can easily make a solid prima facie case for "I'll Fight" as the song to beat. It features a strong, soaring vocal performance by Jennifer Hudson, a previous Oscar winner for Dreamgirls.
Warren's melody and lyric capture the inspirational vibe that is found in several previous winners, most recently "Glory" from Selma. And, of course, Warren herself seems long overdue.
Even so, "I'll Fight" has a number of things working against it. It is featured in a documentary, and documentaries usually don't get the exposure of more mainstream releases. It appears over The RBG's closing credits, which mostly restricts the song to a summative function. And, unlike "All the Stars" and "Shallow," the song failed to chart, an indication that it didn't get much exposure in the music marketplace. I feel confident that Warren's opportunity to make an acceptance speech will come someday. But on Oscar night, she'll once again be the "bridesmaid" rather than the "bride."
The battle of the titans
Black Panther.
For me, the race comes down to the remaining two nominees: "All the Stars" from Black Panther and "Shallow" from A Star is Born. Both tracks have gotten extraordinary exposure outside the films in which they appeared. The former was a chart hit in 25 countries, garnering steady radio airplay and thousands of streams and downloads in the process. The latter arguably did even better, charting in 40 countries, selling nearly 600,000 downloads and accruing almost 150 million streams. Both songs are fueled by star power: hip-hop sensation Kendrick Lamar for "All the Stars" and pop diva Lady Gaga for "Shallow."
Lamar has just the right profile to woo Academy voters, even those in the music branch for whom "big beatz" and "flow" seem like foreign concepts. He has won thirteen Grammy Awards as well as the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, becoming the first artist to do so from outside the domains of classical and jazz music. Billboard even compared Lamar to Shakespeare.
Although some music critics argue that "All the Stars" is not entirely typical of Lamar's and SZA's respective styles, it does fit beautifully with the overall vibe of Ryan Coogler's pathbreaking film. The song begins with loping rhythms, electronic textures, and auto-tuned vocals. When Lamar drops the beat in the chorus, "All the Stars" gains intensity thanks to the layering of additional synthesizers and SZA's melismatic topline.
The overall effect is one that neatly draws together Black Panther's principal settings, being equal parts Wakanda and Oakland. The tension in the lyrics between the sung choruses and Lamar's linguistic turns also restages the film's central conflict: Prince T'Challah's policy of peaceful co-existence vs. Killmonger's thirst for violent world revolution. Appearing over the end credits, the number also works brilliantly with the shifting lines, shapes, and textures of the sequence's graceful animation.
Lady Gaga, of course, supplies "Shallow" with its vocal fireworks. But she shares her nomination with three other collaborators, all of whom cut pretty large figures in the world of popular music.
Chief among them is superproducer Mark Ronson, who twirled the knobs on Gaga's fifth album, Joanne in 2016. Ronson is perhaps best known for his smash hit, "Uptown Funk." Yet, Ronson had already won three Grammy's for his production of Amy Winehouse's Back to Black long before he gave us his Bruno Mars earworm. Besides his production work for Gaga, Winehouse, and Mars, Ronson has collaborated with a "who's who" of current stars and pop music legends: Adele, Lily Allen, Miley Cyrus, Kaiser Chiefs, Chance the Rapper, Janelle Monae, Duran Duran, Nile Rodgers, and Paul McCartney.
One of Ronson's other songwriting partners, Anthony Rossomondo, shares the nomination for "Shallow." Rossomondo is a guitarist and trumpet player who was a founding member of Dirty Pretty Things and toured with the Libertines as Pete Doherty's replacement. Fans of British television might also remember Rossomondo as Pete Neon in The Mighty Boosh, the surrealist comedy series about a pair of failed musicians working in an alien shaman's magic shop.
Rounding out the quartet of songwriters is Andrew Wyatt, still another songwriting partner of both Ronson and Gaga, who also penned tunes for Mars, Lil' Wayne, Beck, Florence + the Machine, and former Oasis bad boy, Liam Gallagher. Wyatt also has previous experience writing for film. He composed four songs for the Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore romantic comedy, Music and Lyrics, including the wonderful pastiche of eighties New Wave, "PoP! Goes My Heart."
With so much musical talent on board, it is hard to see how "Shallow" could miss. Yet the song's many virtues are enhanced by its perfect placement in the story. It was a lot to expect that one song could deliver something that a) pays off the romantic sparks of Ally and Jackson's initial flirtation; b) signifies Ally's leap of faith as she returns to the stage to complete Jackson's arrangement of her song; and c) convince the audience that Ally could legitimately be the proverbial overnight sensation of the film's title. "Shallow" delivers on all that and more.
The song begins with Jackson singing, "Tell me something, girl." The first verse is sparely arranged for just voice and acoustic guitar. Jackson essentially baits Ally into claiming a spotlight he believes is rightfully hers. When Ally comes on stage, she begins the second verse in the lower part of her vocal register, adding a husky sensuality that captures the slow-burn of the couple's simmering passions. Piano, violin, and pedal steel guitar slightly thicken the arrangement while maintaining the relatively soft dynamic level. An octave leap leads into the chorus, which Ally belts out with newfound confidence.
The lyrics serve as a metaphor for the character's personal journey, her willingness to take the emotional and professional risks that Jackson had encouraged. This is Ally's moment of self-realization. Yet it also foreshadows the relationship's failure by previewing a future in which her stardom will overtake his.
This is followed by Jackson and Ally finally harmonizing together on the phrase, "In the shallow, the sha-ha-low." Their voices blend, suggesting the consummation of their romantic connection onstage, if not yet in bed. Ally follows with a kind of vocal cadenza. No longer bound by lyrics, she sets free the "yargh" in her voice that rock critic Greil Marcus famously ascribed to Van Morrison's Irish soul.
The addition of drums and bass enhance the big crescendo that leads into the final chorus. Jackson joins Ally at her microphone and the two finish the song with a final duet. The song is in G major, but ends on an E minor chord, another subtle hint of the sadness that ultimately consumes couple's relationship.
As an Oscar nominee, "Shallow" has a lot to offer. It is a duet between a major movie star and a major star of the recording industry. It not only pays off a previous dangling cause, but also foreshadows later plot developments. Best of all, it takes the audience on an emotional journey that symbolizes the characters' story arcs in microcosm. If the snatch of "Shallow" heard in the A Star is Born trailer proved surprisingly meme-worthy, the full performance of it in the film was indelible. Moreover, in a cheeky bit of self-mythologization, it invites viewers to consider "Joanne," the flesh-and-blood being that sits just behind the Gaga mask.
Prediction: "Shallow"
I likely tipped my hand earlier, but I fully expect Lady Gaga and company to add Oscar to the Grammy and Golden Globe they've already won. If that happens, I'll be content with the result, even if the memory of Tim Blake Nelson and Willie Watson's duet tickles me every time I think of it. I've enjoyed Mark Ronson and Lady Gaga's music for more than a decade. And if nothing else, an Oscar for Andrew Wyatt will balance the scales of justice. Back in 2008, I felt Wyatt was robbed when he failed to secure a nomination for a song Billboard called "the greatest fake 80s song of all time." Well, if I see Wyatt clutching an Oscar come Sunday, you'll hear a little PoP! go in my heart.
For an alternate take on this year's music nominees, a real pop star from the eighties, Thomas Dolby, offers his perspective here. A report on a panel discussion at the Los Angeles Film School featuring several of the nominees can be found here.
Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman talk about their work on Mary Poppins Returns here and here.
Gillian Welch discusses working with the Coen Brothers on The Ballad of Buster Scruggs here and here.
Diane Warren offers her perspective on writing "empowerment anthems" here and here. A deep dive into Warren's career can be found on a Hollywood Reporter podcast featuring the 10-time Oscar nominee.
Finally, much ink has been spilled about the process of writing "Shallow" for A Star is Born. You can read more here and here and here and here.
Jeff Smith has provided us many guest blogs related to film music, most recently his discussion of the score for True Stories.
Music and Lyrics (2007).
Vancouver 2018: Two takes on two directors
The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018).
DB here:
If you want to make a biographical documentary, you face problems of structure. Do you go chronological—start with birth, go through youth, maturity, and death? Or do you start in medias res, at the peak of fame or the depths of failure, and flash back to origins and development? Or do you do something else altogether? These are essentially the same problems of narrative that face the fiction filmmaker, but of course the documentarist also confronts gaps in the record, incompatible information, and the prospect that the story has been told before and may benefit from a fresh perspective.
Two documentaries at Vancouver tackled these problems in instructively different ways.
How to become famous: Work very, very hard
True to its title, Jane Magnusson's Bergman: A Year in the Life picks Ingmar Bergman's breakthrough in 1957 as its through-line. It was indeed quite a year: The Seventh Seal opened in January, Wild Strawberries in December, and Brink of Life was filmed in between (to open in early 1958). Very soon, Bergman won acclaim as one of cinema's greatest artists. In the same annus mirabilis Bergman directed a TV drama and four theatre productions, including a monumentally successful five-hour version of Peer Gynt. All this he accomplished while suffering intense stomach pain; for part of the year he was in the hospital.
To survey only the events of January through December would leave us in the dark about the director's full accomplishment, so the calendar format becomes a sort of clothesline on which incidents from all across his life are pinned. Since Bergman's published memoirs are notoriously unreliable, Magnusson says that the films are more faithful records of his life and obsessions. But she also opens up many documents that fill in or correct his account, and the result becomes a fairly chronological survey.
For example, early in the documentary we learn of Bergman's real relation to his father, his youthful admiration for Hitler during his stay in Germany ("I shouted like the others. I raised my hand like them"), and his first lover Karin Land, a spy for Finnish intelligence. As the film proceeds through 1957, it surveys his prior career and points ahead as well. Through associational links, motifs in The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, along with a survey of his childhood and his sexual partners, in effect provide flashforwards to Persona, Fanny and Alexander, and other later works.
The wellsprings of Bergman's astonishing 1957 output are only hinted at. He was obviously a workaholic, as several commenters point out. One observer reminds us that Fassbinder had years that were as brutally productive, but he owed his stamina to drugs; for Bergman, the fuel was Swedish yogurt, Marie Biscuits, and sex.
Still, I wonder whether advancing through the Swedish film business, a rather industrially strict one, may have accustomed him to a killing pace. He started as a screenwriter at age 26, and he took up film directing two years later (not an uncommon age to begin). From 1948 on, he often signed two films a year as director and a third as a writer. You could make a case that his first breakthrough was really 1953, with the remarkable duo Summer with Monika and Sawdust and Tinsel. From the start, he was directing plays as well; in that same 1953 he mounted five. 1957 seems a landmark because the two films of that year became official international classics, winning festival prizes and wide distribution, but the man's volcanic drive seems to have been there for a decade before.
In any case, the year-in-the-life format provides a handy point of entry into an astonishing, lengthy career. Magnusson has excavated many valuable documents and collected striking testimony, not least from coworkers whom the great man energetically humiliated. I learned a lot, not least that you can free up your documentary from the constraints of sheer chronology.
The Great Man draws
The same lesson issues more strikingly from Mark Cousins' essayistic The Eyes of Orson Welles. Welles was of course another workaholic, moving across media freely. His energy was no less titanic than Bergman's. For years we've known Welles the stage director, Welles the radio impresario, Welles the actor, and Welles the moviemaker. Now Cousins shows us Welles the graphic artist, and it's a captivating, revelatory angle.
Welles started drawing as a child, and he later declared that painting was more important to him than filmmaking. Cousins examines hundreds of pictures archived at the University of Michigan and held by Welles' daughter Beatrice. His film argues, with shrewd penetration, that a pictorial sensibility was central to Welles' creative project. "You thought with lines and shapes. Your films are a sketchbook."
How to structure this exploration? The film appears to offer trim boxes within boxes. Framing it all is a letter written and spoken by Cousins to the departed Welles. That apostrophe is in turn broken into numbered parts, some of which are in turn chopped into short topical segments. But these are engagingly digressive and untidy. For instance, part 3, devoted to Welles's loves, skips from love of places, to love of vision itself (and Dolores Del Rio in Bird of Paradise), to love of chivalry, to omnivorous love (male friends), and finally to guilt over the death of love. A bit of Borges, a dash of Chris Marker: the swarming categories rub together in a cubistic way that Welles himself would probably have enjoyed.
In this porous, expanding design, Cousins takes us through familiar biographical terrain. The idea of Welles the graphic artist functions like 1957 in Magnusson's film, a convenient wedge to open up episodes from family life and professional career. But Cousins brings out the pictorial side of well-covered material, such as the stage designs for the Harlem Macbeth. And he gains a lot from the frankly personal perspective. By writing a letter, he can ask rhetorical questions, mull over associations, imagine how Welles would view the modern world, and freely speculate on hidden autobiographical elements. "You wanted to be Falstaff, but you were Prince Hal."
I came to Cousins' film expecting a treatise on Welles' cinematic style, and we get doses of that, but in unexpected ways. It turns out that most of his drawings don't look a lot like his shots. Cousins floats the idea that Welles' stay in Chicago, city of skyscrapers, may have tutored him in the low angles we see in his movies, but this seemed to me a stretch. Sketches of faces do, however, remind us of his fascination with actors, and of course his plans for sets, both on stage and on film, are very revealing.
Cousins is very convincing on iconography. In both drawings and films there's a recurring image of facelessness, which I had never noticed. There's also the motif of domination and failed kingship, rulers who "can't escape their own power," and these ideas lead Cousins to a brilliant discussion of Macbeth and Chimes at Midnight. And looking at the art resensitized Cousins to Welles' cinematic strategies, whether or not they can be directly traced to a source. He points out the odd symmetrical camera movements that follow a cigarette passed along a lounging Rita Hayworth in Lady from Shanghai. This is a critic's film, and the observations would be worthwhile even without the biographical pegs they hang on.
The obvious comparison is with the drawings of Eisenstein, perhaps more skillful than Welles's, but equally suggestive of the filmmakers' obsessions. Like Eisenstein as well, Welles shows a rueful humor in his sketches. Cousins acknowledges this streak in yet another section, a hypothetical posthumous reply from Welles to Cousins' letter. Welles chastises his biographer for playing down the lighter side of his films and pictures. This is nicely illustrated by charming drawings for Christmas cards Welles sent his children. But Cousins shows the fun running down. Over the years Santa's face droops and wobbles, the eyes grow hollow and the mouth goes slack. Santa as another ageing Welles tyrant? A teasing juxtaposition like this offers another reason to let The Eyes of Orson Welles train ours.
Thanks as ever to the tireless staff of the Vancouver International Film Festival, above all Alan Franey, PoChu AuYeung, Shelly Kraicer, Maggie Lee, and Jenny Lee Craig for their help in our visit.
Snapshots of festival activities are on our Instagram page.
For more on Bergman and Welles, see our categories devoted to the directors, on the right. A list of Bergman's productions in film and other media is here.
Bergman: A Year in the Life (2018).


text:
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
Monday, 26 November 2012
"Back to Basics"
Broom in blossom. It is an imported weed here
Pacific Blue shrub
Exterior of Sam's shack
Woodland creek, cool when the heat is up
Local architecture
but solar-powered showers work in summer. A composting toilet, a two burner stove to do all cooking on, which was done in a corner of his cramped shack, under the light of candles. My accommodation was an old caravan sited on top of a hill with stunning views.
Creeks zig zag about. Willows have been planted to try to retain water and create local eco climates. When walking twigs and stones crackle because everything is so dry.
He has drying racks for herbs that are sold at the local markets, also he makes cider vinegar. When the sun sets the temperature plummets.
Interior of the shack
Sam is an expert on herbs and edible flowers. Most of my work was to help restore his herb garden and orchard, as it had overgrown owing to the fact he had just spent six months in Thailand looking for a potential female mate.
Daylesford Hotel
View from my caravan
He uses a system of growing called bio-dynamic (google it). I was most impressed with the range of herbs that can be used and how tasty they are. There can be as many as 20 herbs and wild foods in one of his salads.
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