Film Fest

With another film festival in the books, we look back on a season of cooks, dishes, and legendary screen performances. Plus: Hot Topic, 4DX, crowning Top Chef, and announcing the next thrilling season of Film Fest! Film Fest is brought to you by wig-wag: personal essays on movies.

In the pantheon of bad movie haircuts (wigs??), one film rises above. We reach the end of another great festival with a new comfort classic, the double biopic Julie & Julia. Is the Julie half really all that bad? Is Chris Messina so hot it excuses his rude behavior? Does this movie hit different in a Substack's America? We get into all of it, plus a lot of Adam and Streep talk, with food reporter Madeline Wells! Read Madeline's reporting at SF Gate here. Film Fest is brought to you by wig...

Bonjour madames et monsieurs et bienvenue a le cinema du Sexy Chocolatiers hon hon hon! It's time to get down and dirty with Swede king Lasse Hallstrom's ode to all things cocoa: the great (?) 2000s time capsule Chocolat. Marie Sicola joins us to help break down the careers of Binoche, Dench, Molina, and oui, le sigh, un petit Johnny Depp, as well as the wacky ins and outs of post-war provincial France. This one's a little darker than you might remember! Film Fest if brought to you by wig-wa...

Ayyyy I'm making pizza heah! Journey with us to the world's most famous Italian neighborhood: Little Italy, Toronto, with one of the world's famous famous Italo-Americans: Tara Giancaspro. We try our hardest to get into a truly wild movie, from the great Danny Aiello to frappuccinos and figs, and try not to have a total breakdown in the process. Visit and subscribe to xoxo Gossip Giancaspro here. Film Fest is brought to you by wig-wag: personal essays on film.

If you've ever wondered what it would feel like to live inside a Renaissance painting, today's episode is for you. We all fall head over heels in love with Peter Greenaway's lush and disgusting 1989 confusingly titled classic The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, thanks to pastry chef and internet icon Sadie. The very long and British careers of James Gambon and Helen Mirren...Michael Nyman's perfect score...the myriad uses for a merkin...we leave no bustier laced and no plate unclea...