Our reviewers select and review the best independent and foreign films on amazon.com, cd universe, and netflix

Food and movies together must excite some primitive oral/visual stimulation center hidden in our brain. Why else would eating be the perfect pastime while viewing? In the theater it is popcorn and cheese nachos. At home it is a wildly appetizing variety of food (better than sex which obscures the view of the screen).

Becky Thorn’s Movie Dinners: reel recipes from your favorite films, sophisticates our grazing urges by offering actual recipes paired with well-loved movies. We should watch All About Eve while drinking a Gibson, chomp a chili cheese dog during Dragnet, slurp poutine and slide into the booth of Diner, or crunch the BLT Adam Sandler makes in Spanglish. Some of her choices come from the films, others are just inspired pairings.

Becky Thorn is a Brit. Her taste may be a bit weird to American eaters. Who eats poutine except overweight Quebecois hockey fans? Her recipe for chilidogs includes mustard and ketchup. On a chilidog? Any late nighter at Tommy’s knows putting either of these on your dog means you’ll be permanently banished to the losers line at the auxiliary shack near Beverly Boulevard.

But the book shows its American cupboard by including a section called TV Diners, and ends with Ms. Thorn’s own Oscar speech, “Thank you, thank you, I can hardly believe this. I feel so blessed.” She then goes on to thank her agent and editor. Cute.

She’s on to something bigger than she knows. I’ve noticed dining room tables are rarely used anymore because coffee tables, in front of the couch, are the proper eating distance from the giant flat screen across the room. This is an improvement over the TV trays, at sitting height, that were once manufactured to hold our Swanson frozen TV diners (now available at garage sales across America).

The great thing about eating while watching movies at home is you can hit pause to pour another glass of wine. Most available surveys of TV eating focus on childhood obesity and the lack of full family dining. No one has done a study of the joys of TV eating, or the fact that we all secretly love it. A 2001 one survey found that over 50% of the population admitted to TV eating. And that was before big flat screen TVs!

If American truly wants to cure obesity, put ads on TV showing great looking, sexy people having a great time giggling and copping some foreplay while eating carrots sticks. If it look good in the watching, it will taste good in the eating.

Meanwhile Becky Thorn’s book is worth some serious mastication. I wish she’d do a follow up matching take-out food available for delivery with favorite movies to watch on your flat screen LED 3-D Hi-Def 128hz 55 incher.

And a further note to fans of movie watching on TV: watch your favorite films with Comcast TV

Year: 1970
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Writers: John Crawford and Edmund Penney
Stars: Jason Robards, Stella Stevens, David Warner, Strother Martin, Slim Pickins, L. Q. Jones

The Story: A laid-back outlaw is abandoned by his no-good buddies in the middle of the desert. Wandering until he’s on the verge of death, he finally finds water, right where the stagecoach companies happen to need a watering hole. Teaming up with a randy preacher and big-hearted hooker, he follows an arc that mirrors the rise and fall of American capitalism, (all while pursuing the world’s laziest quest for revenge.)

How it Came to be Underrated: Fans and critics who were blown away by Peckinpah’s previous movie The Wild Bunch didn’t know what to make of this scruffy, sweet little follow-up. Unfortunately, Peckinpah listened to their complaints and quickly descended into self-parody, endlessly trying to re-create the previous movie’s ultra-violent appeal in his later efforts. This gem, meanwhile, quickly become forgotten. Like Blast of Silence and Brother From Another Planet, this is another modestly-budgeted movie that isn’t ashamed to extrapolate one small journey into a grander parable about the stages of man. It’s surprising to see something this funny and laid back quietly accrue so much meaning. It sneaks up on you. Let me also say something about how great Stella Stevens is here: Even in the “free love” early ’70s, there was a stark divide between the actresses who engaged in naked shenanigans and those who got taken seriously. Stevens was a former playboy bunny who got lots of “go-go girl” roles but didn’t get anything serious until Peckinpah saw something great in her. The worst crime of this movie’s lack of success was that not enough people saw what should have been a breakthrough performance. This is one of the sweetest on-screen love stories you’ll ever see.

More at Cockeyed Caravan!

Head-On (Germany 2004, 128 min, Fatih Akin, cast: Birol Unel, Sibel Kekilli).

Cahit crashes his car head on into a wall and wakes up in recovery to meet a suicidal girl who says she’s going to marry him. That’s just the first ten minutes of writer/director Fatih Akin’s pretty amazing maze that leads from Hamburg to Istanbul.

To know the characters, you’ve got to know the history. In the boom days of German car companies they needed more workers than the country could supply. So Turks were imported as guest workers. To the everlasting regret of proper Germans: they stayed. Today the major cities of Germany have big Turkish communities. German’s have had a hard time adjusting to head scarves, but an easier time snacking on doner kebab and curry wurst (supposedly invented at Konnopke’s Imbiss, a Turkish snack bar in Berlin).

Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) is needy for love in all the wrong places and targets Cahit (Birol Unel). He’s a druggie who won’t talk about his first wife’s death. She’s tried to slit her wrists and is now captive of her family. Both share a Turkish lineage and both have turned away from their roots. They speak German when together.

He agrees to a marriage of convenience so she can escape her parents’ home; but even on their wedding night his violence erupts and he throws her out of his apartment. She drinks at a bar in her wedding dress and seduces the bartender for a place to stay.

The film walks a tortuous path towards self-identity: Capit and Sibel yearn for love but are blocked by fear and violence. Capit kills a man in a bar fight and goes to jail. Sibel taunts a gang to beat her to death and they nearly do. It sounds grizzly but this is all subtext. What keeps us interested is our belief that these two really want to share love for each other, and somehow will find a way.

Like Akin’s later, superb film, The Edge of Heaven (MovieWithMe), these strangers in a strange land must return from Hamburg to Turkey to find themselves, and in this case, understand their love. (Sibel Kekilli also stars in When We Leave, a 2010 German/Turkish film is which displacement in an alien culture has tragic consequences).

In Akin’s films Turkey is a mystical place where modernism is mixed with a gathering sense of self. It is the homeland where truth, blotted out by Western European life, reappears. In The Edge of Heaven it is Nejat’s road trip to the village of his father. For Capit, just released from prison, it is the pilgrimage to a place he doesn’t know with a language he doesn’t speak in search of the girl he never let himself love.

What makes Aikin so brilliant are stories that border on pathos but always manage to hold the line. In less skilled hands, they would be soap operas. Head-On is only the second of many full-length films by a now-acclaimed brilliant filmmaker. But it needs no excuses for being an early work.

Buying a big screen LED, LCD or Plasma TV ranks just below buying a car in complexity. The advantage of buying a car is you don’t need to connect it to your old car. With over 20 million Americans subscribing to Netflix, you would think there would be a gold rush of TV manufactures’ making it easy. Guess again.

The basic choice in big screen used to be LCD or Plasma. Now LED is the new LCD. LED is brighter, but what is the refresh rate? Is it 60 Hz or 120 Hz or 600 Hz? That’s the rate at which the picture redraws itself. Not important if you watch time-lapse photography on PBS, but real important for action movies and sporting events.

Nearly all the new (more expensive) models advertise “Internet ready or Netflix connection or 3D.” What this means is something inexplicable (at least in TV manufacturers terms). I’m Internet ready: I’ve been using the Internet for fifteen years. And “Netflix connection” seems to mean you can connect to Netflix until you learn you’ll need a connection box for another $75. That is, unless the TV has a built in Netflix router, for which they’ll charge you a few hundred dollars more. Why is it hundreds of dollars inside the TV when it is only $99 from Roku outside the TV?

Want this year’s new model rather than last year’s distressed stock sold at Wal-Mart? Don’t think you’ll be able to tell by the model numbers that start with the year like “2012 Ford Explorer.” The top of the line Panasonic is the TC-P55ST30. The Samsung is the UN55C7000WF. The LG is the 55LX9900. The Vizio is the VVT3D650SD. But even if you master these numbers you still must determine whether they are 3D ready or 3D equipped. What is the difference?

Forget the numbers, just go shopping. Online you can go to a dozen sites that seem to carry the same TV, but use their own stock numbers so you can’t compare. A better way might be to compare technical specs; if only the bigger sellers included them (most don’t, or don’t in a way you can easily compare). Shopping in stores usually means going to Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart of your favorite big box store. Wal-Mart gives cursory information and Target almost no information. And what you can read is only on the TVs mounted on the lower display rack. For the upper tier prices and specs you’ll need binoculars.

Best Buy has a unique approach. Each TV displayed has a QR (matrix) barcode on the price tag that you can scan with your smart phone, as long as it is equipped with a code scanner (many free apps for this). Just point your camera phone at the little code square, it takes a picture automatically, and all the technical specs appear on your screen in a minute. Charming. Delightful. But if Best Buy is pushing this idea you would think they would at least provide a free wi-fi signal in their stores. No. And since the code readers, at least the free ones, caution you in their terms of service that they may use some of the data they collect, you would think Best Buy would be eagerly collecting data on you. No.

If I walk around a Best Buy store for an hour and sample tech specs of ten TVs I would think Best Buy would have a very good idea of what I was shopping for and make me an offer on my smart phone I couldn’t refuse. “Dear Roberto, instead of walking around our store looking at endless TV’s with Netflix connections and ports to connect your old peripherals, we’ll give you a great deal on the Samsung that has everything you want. If you buy now, it is $100 off the store price and we’ll throw in a blu-ray player.” That offer is, sadly, years in the future.

And don’t even ask about the past. Buying a new TV means it will have at least four HDMI input jacks (ports), but few or no jacks for composite, component, DVI, S-Video and basic cable.(The only one I found with adequate old ports was a Sharp, and it was outrageously overpriced compared to the others). They expect you to junk your DVD player, Roku box, Apple TV (original), and Stereo amplifier. That is, unless you want to buy converter boxes that cost anywhere from $75 to $300. If you have an older cable set top box without HDMI, you’ll need to get a new, more expensive HD one from your cable company.

And don’t try to find more information on Google. Your search for facts will lead you to eHow and Answers.com where galley slave writers churn out worthless blabber content on any popular subject that will boost these companies to the top of the page and make them rich on ad buys. The guy with the real answers has a blog buried on page ten of your Google search. Chances are you’ll give up and watch your old TV before you ever find him.

A Secret (France 2007, 105 min, dir: Claude Miller, cast: Cecile de France, Patrick Bruel, Ludivine Sangnier, Julie Depardieu, Mathieu Amalric).

A coven of Jews keeps the dark secret of the past from a son who is haunted by dreams of a brother he never had. Sounds like a good programmer for Jewish film festivals but is actually a study in desire and lust that is so original it has to be true.

“Based on a true story” is carried in the main titles. How could you make this up? At Maxime’s (Patrick Bruel) marriage to Hannah (Ludivine Sangnier) he is introduced to his wife’s brother’s wife, Tania (Cecile de France). Cecile is a Belgian beauty who would stir anyone’s loins, and indeed, Maxime goes through his wedding night watching her ass across the dance floor.

If you want to see where this actress came from and the range of what she can do, watch L’Auberge Espagnole also on MovieWithMe.com. She’s an actress with a range far beyond mere seduction.

But in A Secret, that is her role and she’s up for it. Maxime and Tania waltz around each other for several years while Maxime and Hannah produce a perfect son who has all the personality of his mother and all the athletic skill of his father. But Hannah catches on to the heat she’s not part of, and, in suicidal despair, delivers herself and her son into the arms of the Nazis who have conquered France.

Meanwhile Tania’s husband is killed in the war. The last barrier is down and the lovers buzz towards each other like moths to a flame. Their passion produced another son. This one has neither the charm of his mother or the physic of his father. Everybody in the little circle of Jews, that includes neighbor Louise clams up about what happened during the war.

Finally the little boy pieces it all together. The story has the feel of grand opera. Indeed, it would be a good subject. And the movie is less satisfying carrying about the little boy learning of his secret brother than watching the pas de deux of the two lovers circling each other, denying then eyeing, then panting and finally arriving at that luscious moment of sex that would be the opera’s second act curtain. Forget the anemic kid, the lovers are movie enough.

Flame and Citron (Denmark, 2008. 130 min. dir: Ole Christian Madsen, cast: Thure Lindhardt, Mads Mikkelsen, Stine Stengade, Christian Berkel, Peter Mygind).

Director Ole Christian Masden is three years younger than Quentin Tarantino (1966 vs 1963), but their views on World War Two are both revisionist history. Flame and Citron is pure film noir, while Inglorious Bastards gallops in episodic bursts as an action shoot-em-up. Inglourius Flames might be the name of a great compression sequel.

But Tarentino’s resistance fighters are pure invention while Masden’s Flame and Citron actually existed. They were part of the Danish underground, the Holger Danske, that was formed to counter the happy welcome most Danes gave the German invaders. The Holger Danske kept up sabotage and assassinations until the end of the war. The Mindelunden memorial in Copenhagen is dedicated to 64 who were killed during the War, including Flame and Citron.

Masden’s film, one of the most expensive Danish movies ever, is actually quite close to actual history; at least once you remove the movie swagger of both characters and the three-day beard Mads Mikkelsen (Citron) always keeps carefully to length. I don’t think face stubble became stylish until the mid-eighties. In the era of World War Two, men felt lucky to have a clean shave each day.

As for attention to other facts: one of the most improbably sequences in the film actually happened. The real Flammen and Citron were arrested trying to penetrate German headquarters disguised as Danish police offices. It turns out on that day the Germans ordered the arrest of the entire Danish police force, whom they suspected of collusion with the resistance. The real Citron actually did try to escape over a wall and was shot (as in the movie) and was saved by the ambulance crew that took him away. The real Flame walked away in the confusion and escaped.

There was also a real resistance leader named Winther (Peter Mygind). Hoffman (Christian Berkel) was the head of the Gestapo in Denmark. There was a Ketty (Stine Stengade) but her film personality and love affairs is mostly fiction. Every film noir needs a femme fatale.

Flame was Bent Faurschou-Hviid, who had red hair and is credited with killing 22 people. Citron was Jorgen Haagen Schmith who got the name because he worked in the Copenhagen plant of the French carmaker, Citroen. (A name that has nothing to do with lemons, unless you count some of their cars).

Both men were killed by the Germans in October, 1944, just as in the movie. The real Citron, however, died with a group of resistance fighters hiding in the same safe house.

The inscription on the memorial to Citron in Copenhagen says, “For all good thoughts they cannot die before even better thoughts are sprouted of their seeds.” I guess that’s a Danish way of saying that we ought to make their deaths lead to a better world. I’m not clear we’ve done our part.

Flame and Citron is a good movie, and also a reminder that bravery is often mixed with bravado, that good deeds often turn out to be bad, and movie heroes are only in the movies. Maybe the only lesson is the one found on so many French World War Two memorial sites. “Passersby, go this way and remember.”

Beaufort (Israel 2007, 131 min, dir: Joseph Cedar, cast: Oshri Cohen, Eli Eltonyo, Italy Tiran, Ohad Knoller)

Beaufort is a ghost story without ghosts. This ancient mountain fortress, straddling a strategic valley in southern Lebanon once sheltered the Crusaders. Now Israeli soldiers huddle within its cold walls; about to be the next ghosts of the fort’s history.

Armies have come and gone, each using fortress Beaufort for the same purpose: to block movements of armies below. The Crusades are an unlikely metaphor for the last withdrawal of IDF (Israeli Defense Force) troops at the close of the Israel’s Lebanon adventure in 2000. But the grim pile of stones these men are leaving has a history of a thousand years before Israel and Hezbollah took up positions.

Liraz (Oshri Cohen) commands his unit of bored, frightened, and brave soldiers waiting out the days and hoping they are not the last to be killed by roadside bombs or daily rocket attacks. Each day his men dive for cover, each night they run for their lives at the real or imagined sounds of the enemy crawling up beyond the walls.

Why they are here, why they were ever here? This is the question the film asks. Like Waltz with Bashir (MovieWithMe), Beaufort looks at the Israeli incursions into Lebanon as an exercise in nihilism. What good came of it, what good can come of it? The politics of conquest always way the heaviest on the conqueror; momentary solutions are rarely history’s solution.

If you make war on Hezbollah to control the politics of Lebanon, what is the message to Hamas in Gaza? And if you build a wall around the West Bank of Palestine to shut out suicide bombers, does it shut in hate? Like the French in World War One, the Israelis seem to build one Maginot Line after another, and each fails before the concrete is dry.

All the men defending Beaufort are young; all yearn for home. All have long since given up hope of understanding the events that are killing them. In the last scene, the commander of Beaufort, now safely back behind the gate that separates Lebanon from his Israel, kneels on the ground and spreads his arms. He is home at last. But then, what makes it home? The gate?

The release from the nightmare of Beaufort? Or is the last scene only the first of another story now being told that includes the youth uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, and Iran? And when will it be Israel’s time to try another turn towards its enemies, or continue building the country into its own Beaufort, stone by stone?