Monthly Archives: March 2020

NYT Critic’s Pick — The Catchup Edition

Crip Camp

NYT Critic’s Pick R Documentary Directed by James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham
This feel-good documentary recounts the ties of a Catskills summer camp to American disability rights activism in the 1970s.
By BEN KENIGSBERG

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13 Drama Directed by Eliza Hittman
In this stirring drama, the director Eliza Hittman tells an intimate story that is also a potent argument about self-determination.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

Human Nature

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Adam Bolt
Adam Bolt’s new documentary focuses on Crispr technology, which can edit genes, thus giving people the ability to change human, animal and plant life.
By KEN JAWOROWSKI

Bacurau

NYT Critic’s Pick Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Western Directed by Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho
In this sensational genre whatsit, a town finds itself fighting for its very existence. (Good thing Sônia Braga lives there.)
By MANOHLA DARGIS

The Wild Goose Lake

NYT Critic’s Pick Crime, Drama Directed by Yi’nan Diao
This film is dark and moody like the old classics, but the director Diao Yinan has created a very contemporary crime drama.
By GLENN KENNY

Sorry We Missed You

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama Directed by Ken Loach
In this Ken Loach film, a British family that’s barely getting by faces the peril that is the gig economy.
By WESLEY MORRIS

First Cow

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13 Drama Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Set in the mid-19th-century Oregon Territory, Kelly Reichardt’s latest film is a fable, a western, a buddy picture and a masterpiece.
By A.O. SCOTT

The Invisible Man

NYT Critic’s Pick R Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller Directed by Leigh Whannell
Elisabeth Moss stars in a scary update on the H.G. Wells classic that trades science-fiction shivers for #MeToo horror.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising

NYT Critic’s Pick PG-13Animation, Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi Directed by Kenji Nagasaki
This animated film distinguishes itself in the era of superhero supersaturation with bright, bold and surprisingly emotional filmmaking.
By TEO BUGBEE

Vitalina Varela

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama Directed by Pedro Costa
In the new drama from Pedro Costa, daylight, and hope, are hard to find.
By GLENN KENNY

Premature

NYT Critic’s Pick Unrated Drama, Romance Directed by Rashaad Ernesto Green
A romance threatens to derail a gifted teenager’s college plans in this sassy-sexy drama.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

The State Against Mandela and the Others

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Nicolas Champeaux, Gilles Porte
Nelson Mandela’s trial nearly 60 years ago was not filmed, but the words spoken still echo loudly.
By GLENN KENNY

You go to my head

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, Thriller Directed by Dimitri de Clercq
A mysterious architect persuades an amnesiac that she’s his wife in this elusive romance set in the Sahara.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Buffaloed

NYT Critic’s Pick Comedy, Drama Directed by Tanya Wexler
Zoey Deutch’s pell-mell performance gives this debt-collection comedy the energy it needs.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

The Cordillera of Dreams

NYT Critic’s Pick Documentary Directed by Patricio Guzmán
An exiled filmmaker returns to Chile, contemplating fascism and eternity.
By GLENN KENNY

Cane River

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama, Romance Directed by Horace Jenkins
Horace B. Jenkins’s tale of forbidden romance in Louisiana, completed in 1982, opens at last.
By A.O. SCOTT

Taylor Swift: Miss Americana

NYT Critic’s Pick TV-MA Documentary Directed by Lana Wilson
In the Netflix documentary, we see a star that is self-critical, grown up and ready, perhaps, to deliver a message beyond the music.
By WESLEY MORRIS

The Assistant

NYT Critic’s Pick R Drama Directed by Kitty Green
Julia Garner is magnificent as a conflicted staffer to a serial sexual predator in this powerfully muted drama.
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Incitement

NYT Critic’s Pick Thriller Directed by Yaron Zilberman
Yaron Zilberman’s film presents a discomfortingly close-range depiction of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin in the period leading up to the killing.
By BEN KENIGSBERG

The Traitor

NYT Critic’s Pick R Biography, Crime, Drama Directed by Marco Bellocchio
Marco Bellocchio’s film tells the story of Tommaso Buscetta, a Sicilian Mafioso who became Italy’s most notorious informer in the 1980s.
By A.O. SCOTT

Beanpole

NYT Critic’s Pick Drama, War Directed by Kantemir Balagov
Set in the aftermath of World War II, this dazzling movie centers on two friends who are each casualties of a historical trauma.
By MANOHLA DARGIS

It’s the future, stupid!

Well! I came back from over a month in Asia on March 6th from Bangkok via Tokyo. When I first arrived in Bangkok, I was a little amazed at the signage and the temperature taking of everyone getting off a plane at the international terminal. I was a bit taken aback by being screened by temperature at all of the ‘posh’ shopping centers I went to in search of a spare battery for my Sony camera. There was hand sanitizer everywhere. There were security guards applying hand sanitizer to escalator handrails.

What was it like when I got off the plane in Minneapolis? Nada. Zip. Zilch. Although, the airline ticket agent in Bangkok did check through my passport to make sure there were no China visas, and in Tokyo Delta or the airport had a clown-car team asking ‘security’ questions. Getting off the plane at MSP was like a blast from the past. “These people do not know what’s coming!” I thought, “I haz seen the future, and this ain’t it.”

Well, sadly, for once, I was not just another ignorant, know-it-all tourist, I was right.

Food! Glorious Food! The Marchy Edition

When Stocking Grocery Shelves Turns Dangerous

Grocery stores have been deemed essential businesses, meaning their employees are worried about being exposed to the coronavirus.
By MICHAEL CORKERY, DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY and RACHEL WHARTON

‘There Is Plenty of Food in the Country’

Americans have been alarmed by empty grocery shelves, but while food suppliers and retailers say they are struggling with surging demand, they insist the supply chain remains strong.
By MICHAEL CORKERY, DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY, AMELIA NIERENBERG and QUOCTRUNG BUI

France’s Bistros Close, in a Frenzy of Donated Cheese and Pâté

The country’s clampdown on public life has left businesses reeling. As the government pledges support, a restaurateur prepares to hunker down.
By LIZ ALDERMAN

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

A Frantic Few Days for Restaurants Is Only the Beginning

However long the closings across the country last, governments need to move fast if the industry is ever going to come back.
By PETE WELLS

A Boom Time for the Bean Industry

A few years ago, Mr. Sando started a “bean club” in which members could receive special bean shipments every three months for a subscription fee. It was meant to be a joke. “We’re in Napa, and I thought, ‘Oh, wine club — let’s do a bean club,’” he said. Now it has a waiting list of more than 8,000 names.

“It’s just shocking,” one bean supplier said. “I used to be the loneliest man at the farmer’s market.”
By DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY

EAT

Crepes Don’t Have to Be Fancy to Be Delicious


This savory galette de sarrasin is a perfect reminder that a French crepe is nothing but a humble pancake.
By GABRIELLE HAMILTON

Tejal Rao’s 10 Essential Indian Recipes

Our California restaurant critic, whose taste was shaped in family kitchens far from the subcontinent, picks dishes that show the cuisine’s many facets and techniques.
By TEJAL RAO

Dinner in French!

Melissa Clark has a delicious excerpt, and four recipes, from her book, including a Campari cake that may just transport you to Aix.
By SAM SIFTON

A GOOD APPETITE

How I Came to Cook in French

For Melissa Clark, the food she grew up eating in Brooklyn, and the French cuisine her parents adored, laid the foundation for how she still cooks.
By MELISSA CLARK

How Do They Make Plant-Based Meat Behave Like Beef?

J. Kenji López-Alt explains the science behind the new vegan products.
By J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALT

How to Cook With Plant-Based Meats

You may have tried restaurant versions, but making them at home is another matter. J. Kenji López-Alt has tested them and offers practical advice.
By J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALT

Warming Winter (Almost) Cuts Off a Sweet Wine Tradition in Germany

Years of milder temperatures have made German ice wine increasingly rare and expensive. This year, the industry body says, there will be only a few bottles.
By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE

Michael Broadbent, Who Put Wine on the Auction Block, Dies at 92


At Christie’s in London, he essentially created the notion that wine could be auctioned like furniture or art. He was also an influential wine writer.
By ERIC ASIMOV

Gray Kunz, 65, Dies; Four-Star Chef Fused France and Asia


Raised in Singapore, trained in Hong Kong and apprenticed in Switzerland, he made a celebrated mark in New York at Lespinasse.
By JULIA MOSKIN

An Incident in a Hotel Bar in Cambodia

Several of us gathered in the bar at the hotel bar in Siem Reap, Cambodia at the end of the Road Scholar tour. I think it’s called destressing, but one person drank a wee bit too much, like a double martini or more too much, although she was having some trouble finding her mouth, so I was kind of aware she had had too much. There was also a bit of slurring.

When the last three of us left, she walked into a glass door, but only the edge, and got around it with a little difficulty. I had my camera and a drink to take back to the room while we packed for an early flight to Bangkok, but as we went down the three steps to the main level, she crumpled. The two of us kind of stood there watching it in shock. One had offered her hand to the drinker, but it was ignored. Both of us were carrying a drink, of course.

Two Australian men ran over to pick her up before we had shed our junk to help and got her standing with some very careful lifting. Some jokes were exchanged about Minnesota, but the woman’s white pants were turning red on one leg.

The Australians helped her into a chair, and a cloud of hotel staff appeared. They lifted the pant leg and displayed the 2-3″ of skinned shin that was bleeding. They started trying to clean it a bit, and then a kit arrived with gloves and bandages and cleaning materials. After cleaning it, they carefully covered and wrapped it.

After the bandage, two of them, one to each side stood her up and we navigated to the elevator. I think an additional one or two of the hotel staff went up with us, but in the elevator, I noticed that the other pant leg had some red on it as well. While it was possible it was from the skinned shin, I suspected another skinned shin on the other leg that we’d missed outside the bar.

The hotel staff often suggested the emergency room or a doctor. Let’s just say that the injured person was not in a state to make a decision, and while I ain’t a doctor nor do I play one on TV, I’ve taken enough cooks in for stitches to know that they can’t stitch a skinned shin. The woman’s slacks had also not ripped.

After we’d gotten her into her room and sitting on the bed, I said we had to check the other leg while we still hand bandages. So, they rolled up the other pant leg to display a 1-2″ skinned shin on the other leg. The called down to have the medkit sent up, and they repeated the process on the other leg.

We had the hotel staff, after the bandaging was complete, call the front desk for a wake-up call. Most of the group had an early bus ride to the airport for a Singapore flight, and we wanted to make sure she was on it. When the call and the bandaging was done, we left to walk from one end of the hotel to the other.

The corridor stroll ran past the tour group leader’s room, but it was starting to get late. Fortunately, there was music coming from the room, so we knocked. I still had ma drink in ma hand, of course, to explain that there’d been an accident and that he’d have to take a bit of special care with the woman and her bandaged legs to make sure she was on the bus to the airport. I figured she would be sore as hell and maybe a little hungover when the anesthetic effect of the alcohol wore off.

Anyway, we packed, slept for what seemed like ten minutes, and checked out of the hotel around 5 or 5:30 am. We’d asked for a box breakfast, but the front desk offered us a real one — which we declined to head out to the airport. (There’s a custom thereabouts of watching the sunrise over some old ruins outside the city which requires tourists to get up really, really, really early, eat a brief snack, bus the Angkor Wat, explore the grounds and temple, and then come back to the hotel for a ‘real’ breakfast, which we had just done the day before.)

As we exited the hotel, or at least hovered near the door with luggage, the doorman asked if we had a taxi. I was going to call a Grab, but he ran out and got a tuk tuk before I got it ordered. They piled our luggage between the motorcycle and the fifth wheel, we got in, and were off for the airport in the morning dark. (I don’t think I saw any fifth wheel tuk tuks outside of Cambodia. Most of the tuk tuks are either three or four wheel open vehicles, but in Cambodia I had noticed the ones that just attached to the back of the seat of a motorcycle.)

All in all, we were incredibly impressed with the hotel staff.

A Little SE Asia Travel Advice for Travel in Plague Years

If you want/must/need to change a flight, contact the airline. They (Delta) changed my flight with no fee, but I tried to 1) be nice 2) request as minimum of a change as I could) 3) be prepared to pay if I had to 4) use CDC published levels and recommendations as a reason for requesting the change 5) be nice.

You can also contact airline ticket counters in cities and airports. Rumor has it that ‘being nice’ is still a wise approach. Ticket agents have a lot of rules and some ability to bend them. Being mean or demanding often isn’t a good approach when you need their help. YMMV

Airlines and airline call centers are very busy right now. Be prepared to wait or ask for a callback. While call centers are being overwhelmed, flights I’ve been on are often not full. The flight from Bangkok to Tokyo I was on had many, many empty seats. (Yes, I am generalizing from minimum data here, but airlines may have half-full flights they can change you to with little disruption.)

Your travel agent or booking company may also be able to help if you tell them what you need, but be specific with what you want to change and how. Also, it can be hard to communicate with spotty connections and many hour time differences.Do not wait until the last minute to try and change an itinerary. Call if you can on their time.

Your credit card company may also be able to help, especially Platinum American Express or any other card with concierge services.Big hotels with concierges can help as well, especially with local medical help. Capital cities also will have US embassies you can contact. If you want to play doctor, most SE Asian pharmacies will sell you most things you can name and you can at least ask for them. They can often recommend local medical help. If you want to see a doctor, an emergency room visit with a prescription in Bangkok cost my friend $60 USD. (I can’t remember if that included the taxi ride to and from or not.) Asians are not very concerned about medical privacy, so be prepared to be asked questions (triaged) in public before you see a doctor.

Most airlines and/or airports in SE Asia are performing temperature checks when you board an airplane and after you disembark. Many shopping centers are as well. If you have a fever, it’s going to be a very tough game. Most/many/some SE Asian countries are offering help (diagnostic and treatment?) if you already have corona virus’s symptoms. If you don’t have evacuation insurance, I’d try to get to a major city in a country with good medical facilities (Thailand or Singapore) as the first fallback. Second fallback, get to the largest city you can. If you’re on a tour, the tour guide is your first resource.

Yes, I am not a travel agent or medical doctor, nor do I play either on TV, but I did recently change my travel plans to avoid a 5-day stopover in Tokyo and fly as directly as possible from Bangkok to Minneapolis, and I’ve been in four SE Asian countries in January through March, and changed planes in Seoul and Tokyo airports.

At the Bangkok Samsung Service Center

At one point in my recent travels, I started having trouble plugging in my Samsung phone. I went off in search of a T-Mobile store at a shopping center in Bangkok — thanks Google for sending me to a ghost store, bounced off a phone store and a phone repair store (who wanted 800 baht to fix the phone). After failing to communicate blowing out the USB port to the repair place, they sent me to another floor where there was a Samsung store I thought, but it was a Samsung repair center.

I certainly did not impress the young Thai guy at the desk either with my Thai or my hand sign skills, but he went and got me a numbered ticket. I watched the TV monitor for the ticket number since I’m not great at reading or understanding Thai. Then to my surprise, when my number came up the announcement voice switched from Thai to English and I was directed to a desk where the Thai woman spoke English. Gadzooks, I thought. This ain’t the first idiot tourist that’s been in here! Anyway, she disappeared with the phone for a minute or two, returned after removing something from the port, and handed it back to me after plugging it in to show it would charge now, and she did not charge me for the repair.

Not on the Road to but in Mandalay

In the city of Mandalay, where there ain’t no flying fishes nor have there ever been any flying fishes along any road going there either, a woman on the tour ran out of space on her not very new Samsung phone. Not knowing that it was of the vintage where you could take the back off it and look, I googled the phone and determined it would take a microSD memory card. The morning before we left, we finally had a chunk of time and I suggested we Grab a tuk tuk, hit a phone store, buy a microSD memory card, and tuk tuk back to the hotel before the bus left.

I googled the closest phone store as one is wont to do in unfamiliar cities, and casually asked the doorman for the best closest phone store. He gave me one that was a bit further away, but I entered it into Grab, the tuk tuk arrived, and off we went through the morning rush hour traffic in Mandalay.

When we got to the phone store, about twenty sweet young things approached us in matching phone store uniforms to help us. Since neither of us spoke any of 136 languages of Myanmar, I asked if anyone spoke English. One of the girls said ‘yes’ and I carefully explained that we needed a ‘microSD card’ for the phone which produced absolutely no response Now trying not to be the usual idiot tourist, I did have a picture loaded on ma phone of a 128GB memory card, which I thought would hold a whole lottta pictures.

‘Memory card?’ she asked and off we went to the memory card area. A discussion broke out in the local language, and a tech guy was summoned who knew more about the phone than I did. He recommended a 32 GB card, Ma mouth almost dropped open when they pulled the back off the phone and inserted the memory card. I had figured it had the newer SIM card, microSD popup that you need a pin to open — yes I am past my eye exam date. Vivian paid for it, they made sure it worked, and we went outside to Grab a tuk tuk back to the Mandalay Hilton after saying goodbye to our twenty newest friends.

There and Back Again

Well! I left at the end of January for Bangkok for a couple of weeks of Thai massages and 90 degree days before joining most of the group I went to Egypt with for a Road Scholar tour of Myanmar, Thailand (Chang Rai), Laos, and Cambodia. The tour ended in Seam Reap, but two of us went back to Bangkok intending to stop in Tokyo for a short week. With Tokyo at a level 2 CDC warning, we changed plans and spent the time in Bangkok.

Thailand

The food in Thailand exceeds anyone’s expectations, although you do have to look out for chilis and the little baby Thai eggplant that looks like a pea and tastes too bitter to me.

Myanmar

In Myanmar, we stayed in Yangon, Bagan, and Mandalay. In Yangon, we visited the temples. They’re covered in gold and sparkle. In Bagan, we visited the stupas. They’re mostly old and much of the glitter is gone. I blew a bunch of money on a hot air balloon ride and let’s just say I was pining for the toilet and leave it at that. A few Cipro later, I was back on the bus, albeit a bit green.

In Mandalay, we visited temples and a nunnery. Some of us went to a mulberry paper factory/store and crossed the street to a silk store.

From Mandalay, we flew to the Thai border and walked across to Thailand.

Thailand

In Chang Rai, we visited an Opium Museum, cruised the river and walked across the border into Laos.

Laos

Once in Laos, we borded a river boat and spent two days cruising down the Mekong to Luang Prabang after spending one night across from an elephant sanctuary. We also visited two villages along the river. The first, a Hmong village had the worst climb and the most children trying to sell trinkets. The second village was more indifferent to strangers, and we ran into a teacher who showed us part of the school. The children were playing with tops and failed to try and sell any of them to us. We also stopped at a Buddha cave along the Mekong where the Asian ability to make uneven and really, really tall stairs left most of us puffing — well, OK, some of us. Most of us went back to the boat rather than ascend to the second, higher level of the cave.

I dropped my memory card wallet in a bar in Luang Prabang, but contacted them via Facebook and picked it up there the next day.

Cambodia

We flew from Luang Prabang to Seam Reap in Cambodia and started temple hopping, ending up at Angkor Wat before sunrise. We also went on a cruise to the floating village where they farmed crocodiles and turned them into leather goods. It’s the closest I’ve been to that standard fantasy setting of a floating village, but I did not imagine beggars in boats with half nekkid boys holding snakes.

I took a zillion photos. They’re here.

Video is in my SE Asia playlist on YouTube