Lights, Camera, Survival Spice™, Action!!!

(I love food, but what I really want to do is direct...)

"Lights, Camera, Survival Spice™, Action! was the subject line of an email I got from John in Chicago recently that linked to this article on the popular relationship between food and film:

In the coming year, however, a wave of ambitious studio films will try to capitalize on Americans' growing appreciation for all things epicurean. On Nov. 10, 20th Century Fox is scheduled to release "A Good Year," in which a London investment banker, played by Russell Crowe, inherits a vineyard in Provence. And Warner Brothers just finished filming a remake of the German film "Mostly Martha" in New York, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as a controlling chef and Aaron Eckhart as her culinary opposite, an earthy Italian-American named Nick. Also on the horizon is "The Food of Love," based on the novel by Anthony Capella, which reimagines the Cyrano de Bergerac story as a contemporary romance set in Rome with gastronomy as the poetry of seduction. The project, scheduled to shoot in September, will combine two of the director Peter Chelsom's greatest passions: romance and Italian food.

What's more, Nora Ephron, a food enthusiast who helped make the joy of cooking and eating so palpable in "Heartburn," which she adapted from her own book, will write and direct Columbia Pictures' planned adaptation of the Julie Powell book "Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen," inspired by Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

I've never seen Big Night. Hmmm... have to put that on the list.

Did Sideways really make you trade your Merlot for Pinot Noir? Personally, I've never been much of a Merlot fan, anyway. Thanks for the link, John!