Chef – 2014 Prime
Carl Casper is an acclaimed chef with a family life that seems as decaying as his artistic freedom. Those frustrations boil over into a raucous viral-videoed public confrontation against a restaurant critic who panned his cooking of food that his boss ordered him to make against his instincts. Now with his career ruined, Carl’s ex-wife offers an unorthodox solution in Miami: refit an old food truck to offer quality cooking on his own terms.
Now with his young son, Percy, and old colleague, Martin, helping, Carl takes a working trip across America with that truck to rediscover his gastronomic passion. With Percy’s tech savvy and Martin’s enthusiasm, Carl finds that he is creating a traveling sensation on the way home. In doing so, Carl discovers he is serving up more than simply food, but also a deeper connection with his life and his family that is truly delicious in its own way.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xlHJAEaf-s
Today’s Special – 2009 Prime
A 2009 independent comedy directed by David Kaplan that follows Samir (Aasif Mandvi), a sous chef at an upscale New York restaurant who quits after being passed over for a promotion. His dream of studying French cuisine in Paris is shattered when his father suffers a heart attack, forcing Samir to take over the failing family Indian restaurant, Tandoori Palace, in Queens.
Initially clueless about Indian cooking and facing a nearly bankrupt business, Samir is transformed by Akbar (Naseeruddin Shah), a larger-than-life taxi driver and gourmet chef who teaches him to cook from the heart rather than following recipes. With Akbar’s guidance and the help of his co-worker Carrie (Jess Weixler), Samir revitalizes the restaurant’s menu and atmosphere, eventually winning his father’s approval and rediscovering his passion for life and heritage.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC9iRsoHS04
A documentary directed by Denny Tedesco that highlights the unsung Los Angeles studio musicians who played on hundreds of 1960s and ’70s hits for artists like the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, and Sonny & Cher. It celebrates the “first call” players—including guitarist Tommy Tedesco and bassist Carol Kaye—who created the defining West Coast sound.
This trailer provides a glimpse into the lives of the session musicians who shaped the sound of the 1960s.
The Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is a 2021 documentary directed by Questlove that unearths and celebrates the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Featuring never-before-seen footage, it chronicles a pivotal six-week,300,000-person event celebrating Black history, fashion, and music, providing a vital, joyful, and long-neglected piece of American history.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slFiJpAxZyQ
Muscle Shoals (2013) A documentary celebrating FAME Studios and the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama, highlighting how this small town became a powerhouse for 1960s/70s soul and rock music. It focuses on producer Rick Hall and the house band, “The Swampers,” who created a unique “soulful groove” for legends like Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and The Rolling Stones.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU09t0smAWI
20 Feet From Stardom A 2013 Oscar-winning documentary directed by Morgan Neville that shines a spotlight on the untold stories of backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21st century. The film explores the creative passion, sacrifices, and professional lives of these artists, who often perform in the shadows of major stars like The Rolling Stones and Tina Turner.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWyUJcA8Zfo
Muhammed Ali: A Film by Ken Burns, (2021) On PBS.org and Prime Co-directed with Sarah Burns and David McMahon, is a four-part, eight-hour PBS documentary chronicling the life of the three-time heavyweight boxing champion. It explores his boxing prowess, conversion to Islam, refusal to fight in Vietnam, and his evolution into a global, peaceful icon.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht8rwVFqDgc
THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY 2016 Prime
Dev Patel stars in this story of the life and academic career of the pioneer Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who leaves his home country and his young bride to travel to Trinity College in England in 1931 and despite his brilliance and the help of an eccentric mentor, must fight to prove himself and his theories to the establishment. Co-stars Jeremy Irons.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXGm9Vlfx4w
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE Not sure where to watch it right now. It was recently on apple TV
Same actor as above movie…
is the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost.
Running parallel with this dark yet irresistible adventure, told in flashback vignettes, is the almost inexplicable sight of Jamal winning every challenge on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,” a strong showing that leads to a vicious police interrogation. As Jamal explains how he knows the answer to every question on the show as the result of harsh events in his knockabout life, the chaos of his existence gains shape, perspective and soulfulness. The film’s violence is offset by a mesmerizing exotica shot and edited with a great whoosh of vitality. Boyle successfully sells the story’s most unlikely elements with nods to literary and cinematic conventions that touch an audience’s heart more than its head.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIzbwV7on6Q
HIDDEN FIGURES (2016) Prime
The acclaimed biographical drama about three brilliant African-American women—Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson—who overcame rampant sexism and segregation to help NASA win the Space Race. It highlights their critical roles in launching astronaut John Glenn into orbit.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wfrDhgUMGI
THE NAVIGATOR: A Medieval Odyssey – 1988 on Prime
In Cumbria, England, in the year 1348, a village prepares for the dreadful onslaught of the Black Plague. Their only hope comes from an unlikely source — Griffin (Hamish McFarlane), a boy who envisions salvation by journeying on a quest into another world. With his brother (Bruce Lyons) and four companions, Griffin leads them into a time portal to the 20th century. Suddenly, they find themselves in New Zealand in 1988, facing challenges even more frightening than the world they know.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGMVw-ptbTY
ANGEL-A Luc Besson 2005 on Prime
André, a small-time ex-convict, owes money to a crime boss who promises to kill him if he doesn’t repay him by midnight. After failing to find protection from the American embassy and the French police, a despairing André scrambles onto a bridge over the Seine, intending to leap to his death. He is surprised to see a tall, beautiful girl clinging to a rail on the same bridge, apparently preparing to end her life as well. (French with subtitles, black and white)
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1lnVbRY60
DEPATURES – Japanese **** Excellent
Soon after buying an expensive cello, Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) learns that his orchestra is disbanding. Daigo and his wife move back to his hometown in northern Japan, where he answers an ad for what he thinks is a travel agency but is, in actuality, a mortuary. As he learns and carries out the rituals used in preparing the dead for their final rest, Daigo finds his true calling in life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V97h623Zqqk
THE EAGLE HUNTRESS on Prime 2016
A documentary following Aisholpan, a Mongolian girl striving to become the first female eagle hunter in her family’s 12-generation history. Supported by her father, she defies local traditions by training a golden eagle and competing in the male-dominated annual Golden Eagle Festival.
Extended Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4421JYCcMI
BABETTE’S FEAST on Prime 1988
In a remote 19th-century Danish village, two sisters lead a rigid life centered around their father, the local minister, and their church. Both had opportunities to leave the village: one could have married a young army officer and the other, a French opera singer. Their father objected in each case, and they spent their lives caring for him. Many years later – their father is now deceased – they take in French refugee, Babette Hersant, who agrees to work as their servant. After winning the lottery, Babette wants to repay the sisters for their kindness and offers to cook a French meal for them and their friends on the 100th anniversary of their father’s birth. It proves to be an eye-opening experience for everyone.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDpnvLEcGt0
THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL on Youtube 2003
A docudrama following a Mongolian nomadic family in the Gobi Desert trying to save a rare white calf rejected by its mother. After failed attempts at feeding, they send two boys to find a musician to perform a ritual, aiming to reunite the mother and calf through music and tears.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-MRUWbZTIc
One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das follows Jeffrey Kagel’s journey to India and back, his struggles with depression and drug abuse, and his eventual emergence as Krishna Das-the world-renowned spiritual teacher, chant master and Grammy-nominated recording artist. Featuring interviews with Be Here Now author Ram Dass, Grammy-winning producer Rick Rubin (Beastie Boys, Metallica), New York Times bestselling author Sharon Salzberg, and two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee Daniel Goleman, as well as a score by Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis and Devadas, One Track Heart is the inspiring story of how one man’s journey continues to transform countless lives.
Trailer https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/16996515
UNDONE – Animated Series on Prime (highly recommended)
Undone is a half-hour Animated Series on Prime, (2 seasons 16 episodes) genre-bending, animated dramedy that explores the elastic nature of reality through its central character, Alma, a twenty-eight-year-old living in San Antonio, Texas. After getting into a car accident and nearly dying, Alma finds she has a new relationship to time. She develops this new ability in order to find out the truth about her father’s death. The whole series resolves in the lsat few minutes of the final episode and we see what she’s been going through.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uWCNHQgfnc
HEART AND SOULS (1993) on Prime
A fantasy-comedy about four people who die in a 1959 bus crash and as ghosts become attached to a baby born at that same moment who acted as imaginary friends to Thomas during his childhood. The ghosts (Harrison, Penny, Julia, and Milo) return as adults to use Thomas’s body to resolve their unfinished business before moving to the afterlife.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qEYlO-QMZs
P.S. I LOVE YOU (on YouTube)
Two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank stars with Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow, Harry Connick, Jr. and Academy Award winner Kathy Bates in director Richard LaGravanese’s story of how the one man a young woman has ever truly loved guides her through a touching, exciting and often hilarious rediscovery of life, friendship and how to love again.When Holly (Swank–Million Dollar Baby, Boys Don’t Cry), a 22-year-old widow, must put her life back together after losing her husband, Gerry (Butler–300), she discovers that he has left her a list of tasks revealed in 10 messages, delivered anonymously, that gradually ease her out of grief and lead her to a new life–without him.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rqqidmUmSk
THE RAZOR’S EDGE 1984 (on Prime)
Reviews on this are all over the place mostly because it was Bill Murray’s first serious movie. The scuttlebutt was that in order to do Ghostbusters 2, Murray told Columbia Pictures they had to produce the Razor’s Edge. Based on a book by W. Somerset Maugham about an upper class man Larry Darrell who decides to volunteer as an ambulance driver in World War I. What he sees in the war changes him and instead of getting married and working for a prestigious stock firm, he puts that life aside and decides to go to Paris to find out what else there is to life. He ends up going to India and then Tibet where he studies in an isolated monastery and comes close to enlightenment. His life transformed, goes back to Paris to re-enter the world.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqNLrd0-QKs
The Intouchables (2011) is a French comedy-drama based on a true story about an unlikely friendship between Philippe, a wealthy quadriplegic, and Driss, his inexperienced caretaker from the projects. By treating Philippe without pity, Driss helps him find joy and vitality again, while Philippe helps Driss improve his life. Some very funny moments in this film.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q43vIEOt68
Defending Your Life (1991) Prime Video an American romantic comedy-fantasy film about a man who finds himself on trial in the afterlife, where proceedings examine his lifelong fears, to determine whether he will be (yet again) reincarnated on Earth, or move on the next phase of existence. Written, directed, and starring Albert Brooks, the film also stars Meryl Streep, Rip Torn, Lee Grant, and Buck Henry. Despite comedic overtones, the film also contains elements of drama and allegory. This is an older film, a little slower than the usual quick cut films of today.
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZEbLVD72hY
The Court Jester Prime Video (1995) In this 1955 musical-comedy The Court Jester, Danny Kaye plays Hubert Hawkins, a carnival performer who poses as a court jester to infiltrate a tyrant’s castle. Along with revolutionary maiden Jean (Glynis Johns), Hawkins works to restore the rightful infant heir to the throne, navigating, accidental knightings, hypnotism, and romantic entanglements with Princess Gwendolyn (Angela Lansbury). Great fun. Danny Kay is amazing. has amazing timing, a great song and dance man. Highly recommended
Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt37TRvU_Mw
BOOK – MUSIC TO RAISE THE DEAD Excellent!!! The first post is free to read. After that you have to purchase Ted Gioia’s substack until you finish the book.
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/music-to-raise-the-dead-the-secret