Gourmet food, luscious locations and Diane Lane in Eleanor Coppola's PARIS CAN WAIT

If you're a sucker for movies that offer reams of food-and-travel porn or a fan of that intelligent and beautiful actress Diane Lane (on poster, left), then PARIS CAN WAIT, the new film by Eleanor Coppola (her first full-length narrative work, and yes, she's the wife of a certain Francis Ford), will most likely be your cup of (lukewarm) tea. The movie, set in the French countryside, is often gorgeous to view, the many meals look succulent indeed, and Ms Lane comes through like the trouper she has long proven to be.

Ms Coppola (shown at right), who both wrote and directed this trifle of a movie, sets her heroine, Anne, up with a hubby -- the under-used Alec Baldwin (below, left), who mostly ignores her, her career and her interests to focus on his own -- and that hubby's business associate, Jacques, played by Arnaud Viard, who promises to deliver Anne via automobile to the couple's digs in Paris. But Jacques has his own agenda, which involves stopping at every important tourist site, fabulous inn and swank hotel along the way, dining and drinking like there was no tomorrow, and, yes, allowing a certain "attraction" to bloom.

Bloom, it does, and before you can say, "Where have I seen this movie, maybe 20 times before, but usually done with a lot more subtlety?", 92 pleasant, pretty minutes have past and the film has finished. M. Viard, below, whose career so far has been in French film and TV that has not, for the most part, reached our shores, makes a perfectly appropriate tour guide and would-be lover. I do wish the distributor has seen fit to grace our critic's screening link with English subtitles, however, because TrustMovies missed about one-third of Viard's very heavily-accented English dialog.

Ms Lane, as ever, is the consummate actress. Beautiful enough to consistently hold our gaze, she also brings whip-smart intelligence and nicely buried feeling to so many of the moments here that she almost convinces us that any of this really matters.

Ms Coppola has constructed her tale in a fashion that is not remotely believable (if the goal were actually getting to Paris and not making a movie about travel and food), but she has written her screenplay/dialog with a bit of occasional zing and then directed the proceedings well enough to keep us watching.

How you will react to the last-minute breaking of the fourth wall so that Ms Lane can let us know that all this has just been playful naughtiness will depend, I think, on your tolerance for the cutesy. Bon appétit!

From Sony Pictures Classics, after opening two weeks ago in New York and Los Angeles, and elsewhere the following week, Paris Can Wait hits South Florida this Friday, May 26, in Miami at the CMX Brickell City Center and the Tower Theater. Click here and then click on GET TICKETS to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters around the country.

Now on DVD & Blu-ray and better than you've heard: John Wells' food-porn dramedy, BURNT

Do you really think you want to pass up the chance to view a movie starring Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Emma Thompson, Daniel Brühl, Uma Thurman, Omar Sy, Matthew Rhys and (for you Italian film lovers) Riccardo Scarmarcio. There are even more good actors involved, but I don't have time to connect all the links). The movie is BURNT, and if you listened to most of the critics, you'd run the other way. Granted, this is no great shakes, but it is a perfectly OK piece of mainstream entertainment, aimed smack dab at audiences who love food porn and chic, pricey restaurants.

As decently directed by John Wells (at left, and who has yet to have a hit film but has given us a couple of perfectly enjoyable and very well-acted mainstream/ arthouse movies: The Company Men and August Osage County) with a screenplay by Stephen Knight (of the marvelous and underseen Locke), Burnt turns out to be a tale of cooking, chef-ing, success, failure, betrayal and, yes, regeneration. But so tasty are all the performances, (of course the cinematog-raphy of the food and its preparation is succulent enough for salivation) that it is easy to sit back on your sofa and enjoy.

Mr. Cooper's character (above and below) is pretty much an asshole, and the actor does not slight us in portraying this. How he treats his staff in the film is said to have turned off mainstream audiences, but more likely, since they can get plenty of food porn and bad-behaving chefs via TV and cable, they took their business elsewhere. Arthouse audiences, more swayed by the critical factor, also stayed away.

Now both can get their fill via home video, and they will most likely be surprised at how enjoyable this movie actually is.  The performances, to a man and a woman, are every bit as succulent as the food. And while the writing and direction is perfectly fine, I do wish that the movie had ended at the point (very near the end) where the word "Service!" is uttered. It is clear that this is indeed the moment to end, and I suspect that the producer's hand came down heavily on the artists involved, forcing them to feed us a feel-good finale. This is particularly stupid because the movie seems to exist in order to tell us that, after all, winning isn't everything.

Well, Ms Miller (above) humanizes things quite a bit, as does the rest of cast, with Mr. Rhys a standout among the supporting roles (that's Herr Brühl, below, left, with Sarah Greene).

From Anchor Bay Entertainment (the original theatrical release came via TWC) and running 101 minutes, Burnt was released last week on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download -- available for both purchase and rental.

Gereon Wetzel's doc on EL BULLI, as that chic restaurant comes to its imminent close

TrustMovies suspects that many viewers will come away of two minds about the new documentary EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS. They will certainly, if they possess any interest in "cuisine," find this work of German filmmaker Gereon Wetzel worth a watch, if only for its crisp, clean cinematographical peek into the seaside Barcelona-based restaurant considered to be among if not the best in the world. At the same time they may better understand the meaning of a phrase that, until I saw this movie, I did not fully appreciate: food porn.

Mr. Wetzel -- that's he, I believe, shown at left (you're a hard man to find a photo of, Gereon!) -- follows in his film the several chefs of El Bulli, with emphasis on the "boss," Ferran Adrià and his cohorts Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch, as they plan the coming season's menu. Their restaurant is open for business spring, summer and fall but closed all winter so that the three can "create" their upcom-ing menu. This creation is by far the most interesting part of the film and takes up around half of its 108 and slightly overlong minutes.

From its opening-in-the-dark moment, the movie's a visual feast food-wise and otherwise. (Even the restaurant's seaside location, above, should take your breath away.) And though yours truly doesn't pay that much attention to his own cooking or eating, for people who do, the film could be a goldmine of education. How new dishes come into being provides several highlights. Often, when you hear a chef describing some screwy-sound combination of tastes, you want  to roll your eyes. Not here. Not, at least, during this first half of the film.

"But why?" One of the chefs asks about a certain dish at one point along the way. It's a question that ought to be asked more often. "It's not pretty!" notes Ferran later, which pretty much sums up the idea of "presentation." What we see one day as jelly turns into an exquisite vinaigrette the next, and later we discover a cocktail, above, with oil, like a soup: The top feels like silk, while the bottom remains liquid. And we go with two of our chefs to market, where, on one particular day, they purchase only five white grapes.

During the second half of the film, the new staff for the coming season is trained. While this portion will appeal most to those who plan to open their own first-class restaurant, there are some highlights here, as well. We see brilliance suddenly achieved out of a "goof": using the wrong water (carbonated rather than regular) has produced something magical. The preparation of food, at least in the hand of these chefs, seems to require a combination of science and art. And in the midst of all the planning/execution, at last there is mention of a dish I actually recognize: pine nut ravioli.

Your overall reaction to El Bulli - the film and the restaurant (which is slated to close for good on July 30 of this year) -- will depend, I think, on your overall reaction to food. Is it necessary nourishment or something to be treated as an art form, as a fabulous and tasty game to be played and won?  The last few minutes of the movie are devoted to menus -- with each dish, as above (coconut sponge), below (ice vinaigrette with tangerines and green olives) and at right (vanilla chips), named and pictured in all its bizarre glory. You may possibly be seized with a huge case of food envy at never being able to partake in these amazements. Or, like me, you will find yourself salivating at the thought of, tonight, grilling a simple burger seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and parsley, with a side dish of perfectly steamed, al dente and sauce-less, green beans.

El Bulli: Cooking in Progress, from Alive Mind Cinema, begins a two-week run here in New York City at Film Forum on Wednesday, July 27. Click here for screening times.