Often been surprised by a movie after what a film critic said about it? Ever felt cheated out of big bucks on the recommendations of a punk 24-year-old? Or really loved the ones they panned? Well, you no longer need to feel out of step with the current movie review band. Different Drummer is for you. Read more about our take on the film world. And get ready to relive your favorite movies with the recipes that follow each review. You can find many other great recipes in Different Drummer’s own Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover’s Cookbook.
Divergent: Chicago Beer-Braised Burger Recipe
/It plays around with ideas like the dangers of conformity, but what really brings in the box office is the chemistry between its two stars and the kick ass action. The first is a slow sizzle and the second red hot – a nice combination of opposites.
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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus: Devils on Horseback Appetizer Recipe
/Is it an artistic triumph, an opium dream, or simply a “beautiful mess”? Or perhaps this film is like a poem that comes out of nowhere and carries us away with it – on one mad ride through modern London, ancient monasteries, and the dreamscape of the human mind.
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Weston’s World – Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: Tacodiles and Other Food-imal Recipes
/Maybe you also thought that the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs didn't really need a sequel because it sort of finishes the whole story in one film. But that was before they discovered that the machine had survived the explosion and was now creating living food!
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Crash: Crispy Potato and Wild Mushroom Tower Recipe
/Crash, the 2006 Oscar winner for Best Picture, is one of the most frank and insightful presentations of race ever committed to film. Prepare to have you own preconceptions shattered, shorn, and ripped apart like so much highway carnage, your own shiny Porsche of prejudice completely totaled and relegated to the junkyard.
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Maleficent: Skinny Blueberry Daiquiri Recipe
/It’s come to this. Disney deconstructs Disney. Old Walt must be turning over in his grave. This newest adaptation of the 1959 animated version fits in perfectly with the upended politically correct values of our age. The wicked witch is a victim, a beautiful kind fairy only made bitter by humanity’s plunder, greed, and treachery.
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Beauty in Trouble: Czech Chicken Paprikash Recipe
/The choice is a classic one – between sex and security. And yes, most of the characters in this Czech film are flawed, their relationships dysfunctional. They wound each other with lacerating truths even as they awkwardly reach out for love or something like it.
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Godzilla: Godzilla Cookie Recipe
/Enough with the nuance. Godzilla is back, rampaging into theaters and chewing up the scenery as well as considerable portions of Japan, Honolulu, and the streets of San Francisco.
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Kathy's Oscar Picks, February 2013
/These were my Oscar picks from last year. They were not predictions about who would actually win, because the whole awards contest has about as much substance as a junior high student council election. Too much maneuvering behind the scenes for my taste.
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The Master: Homemade Hooch Recipe
/Hoffman in the title role in this 2012 film is equally complex and flawed. He is unctuous and soothing, his honey tongue almost hypnotic. Full of himself as well as bonhomie, he turns taciturn and peevish when his methods are questioned.
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American Hustle: Four Soup-er Dips from the 1970s
/While it purports to recap the notorious FBI ABSCAM sting of the late 70s, what American Hustle really mirrors is Hollywood itself – its self-obsession, crass showmanship and vulgar superficiality. But the talent overflows as well, so we can’t help ourselves from having as good a time as the entire cast seems to be doing.
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Duplicity: Hawaiian Pizza
/Take one part 007 spy-jinx romance, whisk in some high tech mind games via television’s “Mission Impossible,” and spice it up with a few David Mamet type sly maneuvers. Boil off any real malevolence and violence, and you have one steaming hot dish to tantalize your palate as well as your “little grey cells.”
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ParaNorman: Bringing Dinner Back from the Dead
/Think of those sweet-faced kids who don rubber masks, wax vampire teeth, and the occasional white sheet as they pretend to scare you out of the packaged sweets you hand out to them every Halloween. That’s about as charming as the assorted ghosts, zombies, and witches that “people” Paranorman’s world are.
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The Grandmaster: Hong Kong Honey Milk Tea
/This biography of Ip Man, Bruce Lee’s legendary teacher, is literally a grand mess. Wing Chun Kung Fu, that perfect blending of martial arts styles this film purports to describe, is at odds with the self-indulgent mishmash of plot, ethos, and “authentic” history the artsy director Wong Kar Wai gives us.
Read MoreWorld War Z: Zombie Mocktail
/This movie grabs you by the throat and bites you in the neck. World War Z drops you in the middle of an apocalyptic panic on a quest to find the cure for the ultimate sickness.
Read MoreThe Hunger Games: Roast Wild Boar Recipe
/Maybe I’m out of touch. But I cannot garner much enthusiasm for a film that celebrates – while pretending not to – children killing children.
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In a Better World: Danish Dilled Shrimp
/Great films ask more questions than they answer. The 2010 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language film, In a Better World, almost misses the mark with a few too many pat answers. Yet its wonderful understated cast brings a bracing authenticity to the story that succeeds best when it doesn’t try so hard.
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Star Trek Into Darkness: Klingon Bloodwine Recipe
/Long on style, short on substance. This latest J. J. Abrams reboot goes boldly, but it’s hardly where no man has gone before. Like the best of sugary confections, this film rides high for its 2 hour plus screen time, but there is the inevitable letdown afterward.
Read More Iron Man 3: Swiss Potatoes au Gratin
/Is Tony Stark morphing into a metrosexual? Has he been paling around with Pepper Potts (or Gwyeneth Paltrow) too much lately? Yeah, the bad boy is certainly more sensitive, caring and committed in this third installment, a better man, so to speak. that doesn't mean we have to like it, though.
Read MoreIron Man 2: Ice Cream Tiramisu Cake
/He’s back. Iron Man, that is, zooming into our theaters to pack a second cinematic punch that is almost as much fun as his first unexpected knockout in 2008. Tony Stark’s unabashedly American Superhero breaks the rules with no apologies and plenty of pizzazz, an arrogantly charming man-child who wins hearts and kicks butt in equal measure.
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