Comments on Want to be a free thinker but still a nice person: Why didn't they finish breakfast?

What is a Franzia dispenser?

2008-04-30T00:35:00.000-07:00

What is a Franzia dispenser?

Well now I don't feel so bad about my continuous a...

2008-04-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

Well now I don't feel so bad about my continuous alcohol-related posts... see where I get it from?!

(I have yet to install a Franzia dispenser in my new car. I suppose I could put it in a thermos a la Brenda...)

I don't know if this holds true for movie producti...

2008-04-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this holds true for movie production, but in theatre it's considered terrible luck to have/consume real food onstage. So perhaps all this delicious-looking food is just made out of---oh, whatever---rubber, silicon, resin---and the reason the actors leap up and carry on without eating it is that they'd die or choke. I do remember rebelling against this silly rule in college---I was in a play with a long dinner scene with champagne. The props mistress provided boring ginger ale in the glasses, but I snuck in after costuming and make-up and put THE REAL THING at my place.

I seem so sage and wise in this latest blog entry....

2008-04-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

I seem so sage and wise in this latest blog entry.
Keep it up!

I remember a movie wherein the food was actually e...

2008-04-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

I remember a movie wherein the food was actually eaten! In one of my favorites, *Something to Talk About*---Julia Roberts served her cheatin' husband Dennnis Quaid poached salmon, and added ipecac (an emetic) to the mint-mustard sauce. Ol' Dennis ate every bite, right there on camera, then got so sick he had to go to the hospital.

Remember when you and I toured Jane Austen's house, and I bought that book by Maggie Lane, *Jane Austen and Food*? Ms. Lane analyzed the brilliant way Janie used food as trope, metaphor, emblem (insert any applicable English-major terms here.) The bounteous offering of food to indicate a generous character---the witholding of food, or self-starvation, to indicate spiritual meanness or turmoil---it's a terrific book. Anyway, since reading it, I've often thought that TV/cinema is missing a bet by not using food more effectively as outward/visible expression of psychological stuff. Of course, some directors do it---an example is---uh---uh---well, that food fight in *Animal House* comes to mind. Seriously---*Chocolat* and *Babette's Feast* use food well...but them be furrin films. I think it's American directors that don't get it---they just plop their actors down at a restaurant and say, "Roll camera! Start chewing!"

I just hate to see it all go to waste when I hate ...

2008-04-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

I just hate to see it all go to waste when I hate coming home from the office and having to cook dinner. People on TV have beautiful food that they don't even touch. Maybe they could just hand it over to me when we get more advanced technology?

Another thing: I appreciate that chewing and swall...

2008-04-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

Another thing: I appreciate that chewing and swallowing take time to do properly, and with a specific timeframe to get the plot to the denouement, the director can't waste minutes, BUT---even supposedly genteel characters, when a scene is set at a meal, spear a big bite and say their lines with their mouths full of food. It's as gross onscreen as in real life---worse, actually, as if it's a movie you're seeing their big ol' giant jaws flopping wide open while they deliver that dialogue. That scene in Godfather 1 in which Michael met with Solozzo and the corrupt cop---ugh. It was a relief when Michael came out of the pissoir shootin'---I'd rather see bloody dead bodies than someone's masticated dinner!

It doesn't even have to be anyhing to do with plot...

2008-04-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

It doesn't even have to be anyhing to do with plot development. Sometimes they get up from their meals for no apparent reason after only a few bites.

You never see a clean plate on a TV show or in a movie.