Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
October 13-16, $45-$105, All-Access Pass: $299
www.thefoodfilmfestival.com
www.tribecacinemas.com
They’re truly two great tastes that go great together: food and film. Dinner and a movie has been a classic date since the beginning of the cinema, and the two are combined in the fifth annual Food Film Festival. Running October 13-16, this year’s delicious delights include John Craig Ross’s Amor Pulpo and Dinner for Two: An Edible Valentine in Three Acts, Bao Nguyen’s Banh and Mi, Jonathan Jacob’s The Burgerlution, Ximena Sanchez’s Changua, Liza de Guia’s Danny Macaroons: No Such Thing as Boring Macaroons Anymore, Ovenly: Reinventing Crappy Bar Snacks, and Robicelli’s Cupcakes, festival founder George Motz’s Fun with Pig at Saxon+Parole, Michael Fox’s The Good Beer Seal, Hilah Cooking’s Hangover Tacos, Matt Duckor’s Scenes from Staff Meal: Café Boulud’s Fry Burger, and Joel Herm’s Pastry Paris. Food porn aficionados don’t only get to salivate at the gastronomic wonders on-screen but will actually get to sample much of the food they see.
The popular — and free — Korean Movie Night returns to Tribeca Cinemas this month with the start of Subway Cinema’s new Tuesday-night series, “The Hidden Gems of Indie Cinema,” focusing on smaller, independent films from South Korea. First up is the North American premiere of writer-director Min Yong-geun’s wonderful Re-Encounter, winner of a number of international festival awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress. Yoo Da-in stars as Hye-hwa, a charming young woman who works in a veterinary hospital, rescues stray dogs from the evil dogcatcher, and helps take care of her widowed boss’s (Park Hyeok-Kwon) son. But when her high school boyfriend, Han-soo (Yoo Yeon-seok), suddenly shows up after a stint in the military, her life is turned upside down, as he convinces her that their baby, the result of a teen pregnancy five years earlier, is living nearby, having been adopted by a local professor and his wife. Re-Encounter is a moving, intimate film about motherhood, family, and adoption, filled with plot twists that echo Hye-hwa’s complex emotional state; at one moment, she can be playing “mom” to a young boy, while the next she clips her fingernails and adds them to her growing collection. While she relates well to canines, her human relationships are far more difficult. Min never gives straight answers, instead keeping things just mysterious enough to keep the audience riveted without getting frustrated. Yoo is outstanding in the lead role; you won’t be able to take your eyes off her. The series continues May 24 with the North American premiere of Lee Seo’s Missing Person, June 7 with Lim Woo-seong’s Vegetarian, and June 21 with Jeong Seong-il’s Café Noir.
South Korea’s submission for the 2010 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, A BAREFOOT DREAM is an alternately heartbreaking and heartwarming tale of hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Inspired by the true story of Korean soccer player Kim Shin-hwan, Kim Tae-kyun’s (CROSSING, HIGANJIMA) film follows the broke and broken Kim Won-kwang (Park Hee-soon) as he heads to East Timor in Indonesia to try to make something of his failing life. Urged to immediately return to Korea by Ambassador Park (Go Chang-seok) because of the many dangers and lack of opportunity in the first independent nation of the twenty-first century, he instead opens up a sports store after seeing a group of kids playing soccer in their bare feet. He talks them into leasing counterfeit Nike cleats from him for a dollar a day, not understanding how truly poor they are, but soon finds himself coaching them against a rival team, building their confidence as they dream of playing in an international competition in Japan, their only ray of light in an existence mired in poverty and civil war. Firmly rooted in the tradition of such sports movies as RUDY (David Anspaugh, 1993), BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM (Gurinder Chadha, 2002), HOOSIERS (David Anspaugh, 1986), and THE BAD NEWS BEARS (Michael Ritchie, 1976), A BAREFOOT DREAM is a charming picture despite its many clichés and predictability, lifted by Park Hee-soon’s sweetly innocent lead performance and some fine turns by the kids (particularly Francisco Varela as Ramos and Junior da Costa as Tua), some of whom were actual members of Kim Shin-hwan’s team. The film is being screened on January 11 as part of Korean Movie Night’s free Sports Films! series, presented at Tribeca Cinemas by the Korean Cultural Service and Subway Cinema, with director Kim Tae-kyun on hand to discuss it. The series continues January 25 with TAKE OFF (Muju, 2009), February 8 with LIFTING KING KONG (Park Geon-yong, 2009), and February 22 with FOREVER THE MOMENT (Lim Soon-rye, 2008).
While most free Korean Movie Nights at Tribeca Cinemas focus on newer films, this week it reaches back to 2000 to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Korean War. Park Chan-wook’s (the Vengeance Trilogy) drama takes place at the DMZ Joint Security Area known as Panmunjeom, the dividing line between North and South Korea and where soldiers from each country actually face one another directly. Major Sophie Jean of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (Lee Young-Ae) has arrived to investigate the violent murder of two North Korean officers but discovers during her inquiry that key facts are missing involving South Korean hero Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok’s (Lee Byung-hun) relationship to injured North Korean Sgt. Oh Kyeong-pil (Song Kang-ho). Told in a series of flashbacks, the gripping story deals with duty, honor, courage, and brotherhood — as well as the absurdity that war and politics inject into individual behavior and common human decency. As always, Song Kang-ho’s (THE HOST, THIRST) big, round face dominates the screen, his hulking figure at the center of the controversy.