ODD COUPLE MOVIES
Not just for Valentine's day
My java-obsessed friends would have me hanged for me for this, but now and then I like to indulge in a sugary coffee beverage. The key to enjoyment is reminding yourself that it’s categorically dessert, and not a proper cup of joe. Here are three unorthodox concoctions I’ve had recently, ordered from least to most illicit.
At Nako, a new cafe nestled in Brooklyn Heights, the signature latte is shot through with a sweetened cardamom syrup and mixed with cashew, cow, and oat milk in a proprietary ratio meant to maximize creaminess.
The newish spot La La Bakeshop in the East Village serves Vietnamese coffee, and I am infatuated with a version topped with a soft cloud of pandan cream.
The tiramisu latte at Kore Coffee is that rare drink that actually tastes like what it’s supposed to be. It boasts a pudding-thicc texture without any booze, which is actually how I prefer the dessert. I have it on good authority that the croffles at this tiny Chinatown shop are on point, too.
Past Valentine’s day issues:
It’s hard to beat last year’s newsletter pairing pasta to CS Lewis’s 4 types of loves but I’ll try. Today’s movies explore unlikely romantic pairings and they diverge widely in tone and texture. But they share one similarity: each of the filmmakers refrains from passing judgment on the characters and their foibles. We should extend ourselves the same grace. When you love someone, why let the world cast any shame on it?
In other news, you can read me this month in the new art + film issue of Cultured Magazine alongside writers like
and Haley Mlotek. I profiled Ali Abbasi, director of The Apprentice, and wrote up a little something about Cristin Milioti.I’ve opened the floodgates to the subscriber chat. Come say hello! Ask any burning movie- and food-related questions, and stay tuned for a ticket-raffle for the NY premiere of what I know is already one of my favorite movie of the year.
5 MOVIES WITH UNLIKELY COUPLES
THE ANNIHILATION OF FISH
Charles Burnett, 1999
This film, from one of America’s seminal filmmakers the UCLA Rebellion, is an unexpected love story between two self-professed “kooky old people” that balances humor and depth without reducing the them to pitiable caricatures of age. Burnett’s feature was marred by a negative review in Variety by one Todd McCarthy, which kept it from being from being widely released—and that’s after it went through the protracted production to get made. At various points Danny Glover, Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft, and Shirley MacLaine were all attached to star in the lead roles, which ultimately went to James Earl Jones and Lynn Redgrave. Jones—dignified, charismatic, makes you feel protective of him—plays the newly deinstitutionalized Obediah aka "Fish, a Jamaican immigrant who literally wrestles with invisible demons. Redgrave—truculent, noodly, the impressive squishing of her facial features and contortions of the mouth make her a predecessor to an actress like Catherine O’Hara—plays the often inebriated divorcee Poinsettia who believes she’s dating the long deceased composer Giacomo Puccini. She wanders, mumbling to him and draping an arm over his invisible shoulder, behavior so outlandish even the hippies won’t officiate their marriage.
The original film review I mentioned was straightforward and mostly unremarkable, clearly penned by someone who just didn’t get it, or want to. The Annihilation of Fish subsists on the single-issue conflict of the couple’s courtship—and really it’s enough under Burnett’s direction. (If you like this and haven’t seen Burnett’s movies before, watch To Sleep With Anger next and work backwards.) Fish and Poinsettia meet as new neighbors at an LA boarding house under the watch their landlord (Margo Kidder, of Superman but also Brian Depalma’s Sisters) who may also have a screw or two loose. Or not. The movie carefully avoids pathologizing or explaining anyone’s mental health conditions, other than impressing upon us their deep loneliness and tragedies of the past. Burnett takes a distinctly humanizing stance that leaves room (~~holds space, as it were) for the mystery in these unanalyzed eccentricities and in life. In theaters now.
BETWEEN THE TEMPLES
Nathan Silver, 2024
Jason Schwartzman is a cantor who loses his voice after the death of his wife and Carol Kane is his old music teacher/new bat mitzvah student. This unconventional and optimistic comedy about rekindling joy in the midst of despair is teeming with off beat charm. It made my heart ache and not just because it takes place in a very familiar Upstate New York. I wrote about it and other older-woman/younger-man movies here. Streaming on Max.
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