“I entered the forest here and a hare appeared, then did many more everywhere in a prolific dance, prancing into a murky world of green and blue, a haze of dark colors ablaze dripping morning dew hidden beneath the roof of tree’s shelter as insects flew and fungus grew. I waited in the pond, ankle deep, address of blue silk pattern in hand to avoid getting it wet, an arrow on it pointing the way which kept changing as I moved. My thoughts were adrift absorbing the visual play seeing images all around me reflected off the pond’s surface. After a conversation with a flying squirrel who had spoken to me about the rocky, bumpy hole with the hare, I jumped into this whole, over there, traveling to an another place to attend a tea party with all sorts of strange talking creatures, going through keyholes and eating mushrooms along the way.”

This excerpt, hand-written in Yiddish, was found in the diaries of German Baroness Gertrude Von Ludwig Dodgson, reportedly the second cousin once removed of Charles Lutwig Dodgson, known by the pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, noted British author and master of Literary nonsense. His most popular works include “Jabberwocky”, “The Hunting Of The Snark” and the complete works of “Alice in Wonderland”.

Disney studios brought it to the screen as a beloved 1951 epic animated fantasy, an interpretive adaptation of colors and epic symbols about the girl with golden hair seeing a talking hare, holding watch, nervously observing the direction as thyme grew late for a clue that would help him find his lost hole, running, claiming to be late for a very important date, a gathering with some questionable characters hosted by a loonytoon with attitude and a hat. Now, Tim Burton has created a 3D version starring Johnny Depp.

Dodgson never met his cousin who had been committed to the Bavarian Sanitarium For Anthropomorphic Research when she was observed talking to birds, squirrels and vampire bats migrating from Romania. After her death caused by an attack from a hive of bumble bee’s and spawning salmon, her vast estate including a crypt of secret documents and diaries from some of the most illustrious royal families of Europe, were left to her closest living relative then known by the name Lewis Carroll.

These quotes are believed to be the basis of his most popular books, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and its sequel, Through The Looking Glass And What Alice Found There. Many parallels can be found between his novel nonsense and the stories in her most recent diaries.

Since imagination is a place where living or inanimate objects can have human qualities, it’s sensible to conclude that animals, imaginary people, and even cartoon characters we know can’t   exist, can also act with human traits in a place where everything makes scents despite having no logical sense.

“Even a man who is pure in heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms

And the autumn moon is bright”

Among Europe’s most popular legends are the Strigoi, known as the tortured souls that rise from the dead with the ability to transform themselves into animals, drain energy from their victims and make themselves invisible. Some scholars argue that they can be living beings with supernatural instincts instilled with the power to move objects, control the passage of time and possess special insight to foretell the future.

There are many stories about what lurks in the forests of Europe where the Strigoi dwell as human sized predatory creatures with unusual speed. A ripe subject for literature, cinema and television. They tell the common tale of chronic dissatisfaction with life, cursed while trapped within a fear of change. The only other way to attain immortality is by seeing though the illusion of life’s addiction and ascend, aware only of movement since direction is subjective. But even to do that, one still has to suffer as does the tortured souls most feared in myths in an ironic twist of fate.

Although he never refers to the undead, Woody Allen has included some witty dialogue about chronic dissatisfaction in his 2008 film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, “Life is short, life is dull and full of pain and this is a chance for something special.” Some of the directors words also seem to explain why love stories between humans and the Strigoi are so compelling, “Only unfulfilled love can be romantic,”  as images of Edward and Bella, Angel and Buffy are evoked.

Most of the claims about the Strigoi have been dismissed as hallucinations, fables usually attributed to a curse using breadcrumbs to lure an audience as a common ploy of witches who live in candy houses somewhere in the woods of the Carpathian mountains where beasts prey upon lost souls who only know what they don’t want, effectively becoming yet another victim of chronic dissatisfaction.

Sixty years earlier the film Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) took a comical look at the undead. A respected horror film that is considered by the American Film Institute (AFI) among the top 100 films of American cinema. The plot is set in Florida and surrounds four different kind of Strigoi as Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster are smuggled out of eastern Europe as wax dummies pursued by the man who turns into the werewolf while the invisible man makes a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Even though he cannot be seen a voice is heard, “allow me to introduce myself, I’m the invisible man.”

Although none of them appear in a Woody Allen film, all of them were effected by chronic dissatisfaction and madness.

Disaster films are most engaging when they convey the immediacy of an unexpected catastrophe that is about to happen at the moment its first perceived. No way out and little time to think, absorbed more with the survival struggle of the main characters, usually portrayed by an array of high profile actors unwilling to accept their fate.

The threat, if caused by something from outer space is relegated to science fiction, possible but not probable when scientific evidence to think creatively is obscured by disbelief - a meteor hitting Earth, or a rogue planet out of orbit as portrayed in When Worlds Collide, a 1933 science fiction novel. A story about two planets, one on a collision course with Earth, the other coming close enough to be a haven for survivors if a rocket ship could be built in time to shuttle to the new planet. The continuity of humanity depends on constructing this ark to transport two of every species to a place that may not even have the climate to support Earth’s biodiversity.  A tale filled with uncertainty and biblical drama as portrayed in the 1951 film of the same name. An end of the world scenario inspiring a string of disaster films with a cast of billions and numerous sub plots. The survival of each character depends on luck and the ability to minimize shock, control fear and be able to act quickly while experiencing catastrophic events. But wait, doesn’t this   sound like 2012, the movie?

The fourth cycle of the Mayan Calender culminates at 11:11 am GMT on December 21, 2012 . An anthropological examination of other cultures and their belief systems independently mark this day for some impending change. As the date approaches, prognostications from many sources will become increasingly quoted from the Hopi, I Ching, and Nostradamus to name a few. What will really happen on this date if anything is unclear. Here is where science can speculate on the possibilities of a sudden planetary event such as the reversing of Poles which would cause a ripple in gravity effecting the very atmosphere of Earth.

The basis of Mayan belief is that time is linear and cyclical simultaneously. They looked towards the sky for architectural landmarks which lies at the heart of the structures they built and their cosmological science expressed in surviving records. The sophicated mathematics of its calender are universally recognized for predicting eclipses thousands of years before they occurred. The ancient texts described knowledge of sudden shifts in the climate and references to the dark center of the Galaxy referred to as the cosmic womb identified long before telescopes found evidence for a black hole as the core of The Milky Way.

Many legendary prophecies continue to be credible as long as they remain generic and open to interpretation. Then if something happens it can neatly fit withing the guidelines of what was foretold, but they can also contain ironic twists associated with understanding their meaning in the context of contemporary thought. Some of the great oracles in history such as the one at Delphi went into trances and gave readings in cave dwellings usually connected to fault lines that exposed gases such as ethylene known to have hallucinogenic effects. The one’s that have some basis in science and mathematics, are not as easy to dismiss even after the anointed interval surrounding the date passes because the factors involved that could make the events happen are noticeably present such as global warming and global dimming.

What is agreed upon is that The Sun, Earth and the other planets of the solar system will be at the center of the milky way in an alignment that only happens once in 25,800 years on the winter solastice of 2012. An increase of solar and magnetic energy from the sun is anticipated, but how all this will impact on the crust of Earth, volcanic activity, movement of the oceans and shifting of the continental plates is hard to assess.

Predicting a great change doesn’t necessarily mean annihilation, and all the remaining records of Mayan civilization indicates is that the end of a cycle will occur on that date. The fact that they associate great disaster and upheaval with the transition between one cycle to another is where all the doom and gloom theories are emanating, and yet no one really knows what will occur at 11:11 am GMT on December 21, 2012.

The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that it will be awarding an honorary Oscar to Roger Corman, the director/producer with a vast array of low budget horror films including The Attack Of The Crab Monsters (1957) and Not Of This Earth (1957). Also among his long list of achievements are loose interpretations of many Edgar Allen Poe’s novella’s as The Pit And The Pendulum (1957) and macabre poems such as The Raven (1963). The films were often over the top and frequently starred the late Vincent Price as the demented protagonist.

So many of Corman’s films are considered B- classics, produced on a low budget, shot in several days and elevating exploitation to an art form that it’s easy to forget the list of distinguished directors and actors who were mentored by him such as Martin Scorsese, Frances Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme , John Sayles,  James Cameron, Jack Nicholson, Robert DeNiro, David Carradine, Peter Fonda, Talia Shire, Dennis Hopper and so many more. These filmmakers got their first break as members of the elite Roger Corman School of Film Making. All genres owe a debt of gratitude to his visionary form of schlock.

One of his most intriguing works and a personal favorite is the prophetic 1960 pre bot-ox tour de force, The Wasp Woman starring Susan Cabot in the title role as Janice Starlin, the owner and CEO of a cosmetic firm at a time when women did not mingle in the business world let alone run corporations. When sales of her beauty products began to slide as her consumer base realizes she is aging, she was motivated to become the chief patron of a scientist who had devised a method to extract enzymes from the royal jelly of the queen wasp that can reverse the aging process. Starlin agrees to fund further research provided she can serve as his human subject. Displeased with the slowness of the results, she breaks into the scientist’s laboratory after hours and injects herself with extra doses of the formula, causing an unanticipated side effect, transforming her into an angry woman with the head and arms of a wasp resulting in quite a buzz,  aggressively killing all the men on the board of trustees of Starlin Enterprises, sacrificing everything for a youthful appearance. A perfect character study for aging actors and actresses obsessed with reversing the effects of time.

Corman’s last directorial achievement for American International Pictures was Gas-s-s-s (1971), also known by the title, It Became Necessary To Destroy The World In Order To Save It. A dark comedy of a post-apocalyptic gas leak at a military installation that kills everyone on Earth over the age of 25. Look closely for the performances of Ben Vereen, Cindy Williams, and a young Talia Shire.

The noted producer/ director was once quoted as saying, “I can make a film about the fall of the Roman Empire with two extras and a sagebrush,” also appeared in minor acting roles in such films as The Silence Of The Lambs, Apollo 13 and Philadelphia and was given the title, “King Of The Bs,” a reference to over 400 films he has been associated with. The bad news is that the Academy has opted not to present any of the honorary awards during the live telecast, but will give them at the governors award dinner on November 14th. The other honorary awards being bestowed are to actress Lauren Bacall and cinematographer Gordon Willis.

For a complete list of Roger Corman’s cinematic achievements follow the Idbm link

In The Holy Grail Of The Unconsciousness, an article appearing in the the September 20th, 2009, New York Times’ Magazine section, Sara Corbett describes the fascinating and unknown history surrounding Liber Novus (L), the unpublished work of Carl Gustave Jung (1875-1961), the founder of Analytic Psychology. These are the handwritten pages of the thinker as he descended into what has been described as severe psychosis for six years.

The text is also known as The Red Book and was penned in German and ornately described as “pages of thick cream-colored parchment, filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils evoking images of medieval times.” Release date is October 7, 2009.

The drama surrounds the reticence of the Jung family, unsure for decades of what to do about publishing this unusual book, fearing it will adversely impact Jung’s legacy. Some who have read it claim it is intensely private and describes it as either the descent of Jung into the underworld of insanity or a transcendental diary of a man chronicling his search by defining his innermost soul.

Over the course of his life, Jung came to see the psyche as inherently spiritual. There is no doubt his thought was greatly influenced by Eastern mysticism, also adopted by The New Age Movement and Theosophy - the school of thought generated by H. B. Blavatsky who wrote Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine. Reincarnation and karma have traditionally been fundamental to Eastern thought, often seen as “on the fringe” by the Western academic world, as was  Jung, especially considering mythology and paganism are also themes threaded throughout his work.

Early on, Jung was a disciple of Sigmund Freud but later wound up as his chief rival. Freud contended that the subconscious was a collection of repressed desires that could be interpreted, classified as pathological and treated in analysis. Jung had a much broader sense of analysis than did Freud, describing it more as a soul’s trans-formative experience then a form of treatment. His approach took him to the border of mystical philosophy and, some say, over the edge into divine madness.

The publication of his Red Book, kept under lock and key for decades by his children and grandchildren, may reveal new insights on the schism between the two foremost thinkers of the Twentieth Century. Some of his descendants have claimed that it’s too private, containing so many unsavory descriptions, part of what could be his dementia, while those from the mystical community might see it more as his unfolding soul’s search as he confronts his dark side. This may change how history views Carl Jung. In any event, it should be an interesting read.

For more information on C.G. Jung, visit this Amazon.com web page.

Promoting a product or a range of services is known as advertising - part art form, part science - using psychologically inspired messages, both overt and subliminal, meant to effect a target audience revealing a need for “something,” suggesting the article or service offered can satisfy the inner craving better than anything else.

One could argue that how something is advertised can create a mass obsession (illusion), with television and other forms of communication especially when focused by someone (ad manager or director) who is astute, charismatic and able to influence collective thought and public opinion. The consumer, a recipient of these effects, interprets input differently, believing some and seeing through others by evoking past experiences that reveal preconceived notions and cultural influences.

Known in Hindu as Maya, illusion in a general sense is held as neither true nor false, but is as real as the reflection one sees in the mirror, although initially considered by most as a falsehood.  Some people may be able to see through illusion as Hindu philosophy believes, by shedding ego and  evolving, presumably to yet another illusion that lies hidden, suggesting that existence is layered like an onion, with tiers when peeled.

Illusions  rarely present sequentially,  often appearing simultaneously, which is part of the reason why it’s difficult to identify let alone distinguish them, although they have been the basis of parables, myths and legends often unnoticed, sometimes invisibly obvious. It is possible that dream imagery reveals them in symbolic form. The number seven is a good example to illustrate: “An individual faced with the appearance of seven perplexing forms (choices, tests) emerging from something as mundane as a series of seven chalices in a cloud or mist. The person’s back is toward us gazing at the dazzling array of ‘prizes’ appearing from these cups as aspirations, fears and rewards, with positive and negative obstacles. Jewels, a snake, a laurel-wreath, a dragon, castle, head, and a shrouded person.”

There is nothing mystical about these symbols, some of which are arch-type in nature. A veiled shrouded figure commonly represents  that which one cannot see, while a person’s head perhaps signifies a relationship or ill tidings during the French Revolution. Jewels can be wealth but also clarity of vision. The wreath of power denotes influence and control over others which can be benevolent or malevolent. All of them  suggest duality of positive and negative with clues suggesting the attainment of balance. The problem with symbols is that they can be archaic,  and it’s possible to read more into them than they convey. However, the one thing they all seem to have in common is they all contain the potential for attachment, which is in and of itself an illusion.

for more reading: The Sacred Symbols of the Ancients.

Love stories portrayed in literature and film are usually but not always centered around attractive people. In the highly anticipated comedy, Julie And Julia, written and directed by Nora Ephron , the subject of this love story is the marriage of the late Julia Child, the apostle of cooking who died in 2004, two days before her 92nd birthday. In her autobiography, My Life In France, published posthumously in 2006, she chronicles her time in Paris during the post war period before becoming the icon of French cooking popularized in her landmark book, Mastering The Art of French Cooking (1961) which helped make French cuisine accessible to the American public. She first appeared on television as The French Chef in 1963, long before the food network or cable TV was ever conceived. Sometimes, while trying to flip something in the pan, she missed the mark and dropped it on the counter, or floor, smiling as she mumbled, “whose to see?” then picked it up and put it back in the pan.

Child, at 6′2″, a large woman with a shrill husky voice and a somewhat matronly bovine appearance, is flawlessly channeled by Meryl Streep in an astonishing performance revealing a new side to the cooking icon who had a passion for life coupled with a surprisingly sexually charged relationship with her husband Paul Child, who declares his love at a St. Valentine’s dinner party: “Julia, you are the butter to my bread and the breath of my life,” a poetic line, beautifully delivered by Stanley Tucci in a brilliant performance as Julia’s husband, a quiet understated Renaissance man and career diplomat who is her rock of Gibraltar,  proving that uncommon people can be as romantically appealing as Romeo and Juliette.

When she is unsure what to do with the rest of her life, Paul asks “What do you really like to do?” as they sit in a French restaurant.
“Well, I do like to eat.” she responds.
“And you’re so good at it too.”, he says.
“Yes, yes,” both laughing uncontrollably, “and I’m growing right in front of you as we speak,” as she feeds on some fillet of sole.

The movie is constructed like The Hours, a 2002 film based on the Virginia Woolf novel Mrs. Dalloway that won an Oscar for Nicole Kidman as Best Actress. In a similar way, separate story lines are connected through time by a book. In this case, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, used by Julie Powell, a Queens housewife in 2002, living a drab, uninteresting life surrounded by friends who have made it, not knowing what to do with herself until she decides to cook all 534 recipes from Child’s cookbook in one year, then writing about it in a blog: The Julie And Julia Project. Unfortunately, the Julie Powell scenes, played adequately by Amy Adams, are far less interesting than the captivating love story of Julia and Paul Child. The film would have been much better served on a buffet tray had it focused solely on Streep and Tucci’s characters which with all that food on display makes one irresistibly hungry for more by the time it’s over. This adaptation also has some wonderfully colorful scenes of the streets and markets of Paris with a running time of 2 hours and 4 minutes. Never the less, it’s a good film worth seeing before having dinner, perhaps at a French Restaurant.

Meryl Streep proves once again that she is the foremost American actress of her generation and is sure to get a sixteenth Oscar nomination come January 2010.Tucci is outstanding as Paul Child and conveys much with gestures, expressions and eye contact. Julie And Julia is an unusually touching love story between two uncommon people.

For a full list of credits see the Idbm database.

Further references:
Mastering The Art Of French Cooking
My Life In France
Julia Child -
Meryl Streep
Stanley Tucci
Nora Ephron
The French Chef

Although Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, the sixth cinematic installment based on J. K. Rowlings’ magical vision of an alternate reality, has received good reviews, it is the most disappointing of the series.  This adaptation, directed by David Yates, written by Steve Kloves and starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint as the famed trio of gifted wizards, spends a lot of time portraying the actors’ struggle with teenage angst as all the kids of Hogwarts are no longer children, yet it’s hard to believe that the student body has matured so much in the three weeks from the end of the story line in the previous film, The Order Of The Phoenix, unless Hermione Granger secretly slipped into Professor Snape’s magical apothecary using Harry’s cloak of invisibility and concocted “the instant post puberty potion.”

Awkward sexuality and buds’ first bloom are as much apart of this film as it is in the book, however the visuals and humor would have been better served by a less juvenile score, composed for this film by Nicholas Hooper.  A subtle musical backdrop to match the post pubescent awakening would have been an improvement since magic is featured less prominently in this installment, unless love potions and memory vials are considered magic. In fact, hardly a wand is exposed until the very end of this long, two hour and thirty three minute film.  The dialogue is so fast moving and rushed at times that it took about a half hour before I could follow the heavy British accents, a problem I did not have with the previous films. Perhaps English subtitles would have been helpful.

As thunder and lightning suggest in the opening sequence of dark clouds, the approaching storm is nearing. Voldermort and his death-eaters are openly attacking the Muggles’ world. Bridges are collapsing with explosions all over London, but the CGI effects do not impress the dire nature of what was happening.

The movement of the plot is erratic and distracting, never keeping up with the tempo of this chapter of the epic seven-book novel which involves discovering the secret of  Voldermort’s indestructibility and how it is connected to Horace Slughorn - brilliantly played by British thespian Jim Broadbent as the professor hiding a dark secret, while in a state of denial. Broadbent, who won an Oscar in 2001, gives a well-crafted  performance and the best of all the characters in Rowlings ‘ world.  It’s Harry’s job to get close to the teacher and discover what lies beneath the dark Lord’s power which we learn is the “horcrux,” an object imbued with part of the soul of its creator, consciously splintered using dark magic. All of the seven horcruxes created by Voldermort must be found and destroyed before he can be defeated. Therein begins the quest that lay before Harry, Hermione and Ron.

The notion that the way Voldermort could attain immortality by fragmenting his soul and placing parts of it in objects through the use of the dark arts is a very mystical concept. That the fear of death would be so overpowering to motivate him, or anyone else, and to accomplish it by tampering with the very essence of their soul, is quite alarming. We know that objects can and do have the “vibrations” of their owners. Heirlooms are always special for this reason when they are passed down from one generation to the next. This is not exactly the same as a horcrux, but it is along those lines.

Rupert Grint does a good job acting in some very comical scenes while enchanted under the influence of a love potion while Emma Watson is convincing with a crush on Ron, frustrated by his deftness. On the other hand, Daniel Radcliffe seems distracted, unfocused and a bit bored in this installment and the film suffers for it, missing the magical chemistry between them that is so striking in the earlier films as Hogwarts is no longer a central character and the rest of the supporting cast, such as Maggie Smith as ProfessorMcGonagall, are rarely seen.

The film also fails to address Dumbledore’s burned hand, presented in the beginning of the film without explanation, appearing throughout the sequence of events that seem to drag on. His damaged appendage also changes from right to left and it’s hard to tell whether this is intentional or an oversight; a minor detail, but never-the-less noticeable. The other question that keeps popping up is why Harry never suggests that Dumbledore go to a physician to have himself looked at, or a pharmacy to  get some gauze and antimicrobial ointment to cover his wound. Instead,Dumbledore walks around in the film with one hand charred black.

My biggest problem with the film is that the attack on Hogwarts by the death eaters, so important to the climax of the book, is completely diluted in the film. The battle was extensive in written form as the impenetrable Hogwarts, protected from outside evil by charms and spells, is invaded. An important symbol in the story, although one could argue that the film was already too long to have included this in any more detail. Another explanation is that they filmed these scenes but decided to put them in the last film which involves the final face-to-face confrontation at Hogwarts between Harry andVoldermort.

In spite of all the good write-ups, which are puzzling, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince coasts on the momentum built up from the previous films without sustaining the unfolding mystery or telling the story as well as it unveiled in the previous cinematic adaptations. I went into this film as a fan of the novel and the films, wanting to like it but left the quiet theater disappointed by all the outstanding problems. Let’s hope that the Harry Potter and The Deathly Harrows, reportedly being shot simultaneously in two parts, will be done with a bit more thought and care. The strength of these films is less about what happens as it is with the way the plot and visuals unfold since the outcome is already known.

For a full list of the cast of actors see the IMDb link below.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1395738/
Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix

When Star-Trek premiered on Sept 8th, 1966, star date 1513.1 on NBC, no one knew it would trigger a chain reaction that would ripple through time, transporting several generations through endless syndication, a total of seven hundred episodes, ten movies and countless novels. Now we have phasers set on high stun as the 2009 interpretation of the franchise hits theaters the first week of May.

In recent years, the cancellation of  Enterprise, the last of the Star Trek television series after a four-year run marked a decline in the popularity of the forty year saga, a bit time-worn, partially due to the speed at which technology is moving in the real world, so much so that it’s hard to imagine anything more advanced than the transporter, Hollow Deck, or the touch tap control panels of the Enterprise 1701-D.

The new film brings J.J. Abrams to the helm of the franchise in an attempt to resuscitate the flailing saga by exploring the formative experiences of the original crew of the Federation Flagship, Enterprise 1701, filling in some of the gaps in the relationships that generated the popularity of the series that explored the final frontier. Abrams is noted for his direction of Mission Impossible 3, co-creator of Alias, Lost, and executive producer of Fringe. His icon is Stephen Spielberg and his favorite TV program of all time is The Twilight Zone. Mr. Abrams excels by exploring the inner nature of the hero and the background stories that made their journey extraordinary. There is no one better suited to present for your consideration a rein-visioned Star-Trek. Let us hope he is successful in his attempt.

My review of the film will be posted as soon as I am able to see the film.

Seeing The Future In Psychedelic Color

There is nothing worse than an omelet with egg shells in what should be a wonderful mix of variety: mushrooms, onions, peppers or cheese gently cradled within the perfect enclosure. Perhaps the French had an esoteric understanding when they invented a variation, La Crepe, in the specially designed pan to insure the thinnest pancake. A delicate balance of getting it heated properly and using the right amount of butter or substitute and the proper utensil to fill with the batter to ensure uniform consistency. Culinary historians might say the Chinese invented Crepes first, but it was the French that popularized it just as spaghetti was by the Italians.

There is also an art to cracking an egg open, yielding its nourishing contents, vividly portrayed in literature with great focus in Jonathan Swifts’ classic political satire “Gulliver’s Travels“. In the 1960 adaptation of The Three Worlds Of Gulliver, war is waged based on which side the egg should be cracked (the right side).

The ritual when depicted in cinema is often a mesmerizing event filled with audience anticipation. Imagine Angelina Jolie cooking breakfast, intensely gazing at the egg in one hand, with fork in the other, puckered lips, taking a second or two, thinking “What is the best way to crack it?” In fact I can’t think of ever being distracted or semi conscious when preparing to open one. The answer that usually comes to me, “Any way you can to avoid getting the shell mixed in with the eggs.”

Bon Appetit!

References
- Mastering The Art Of French Cooking by Julia Child
- Sophia Loren’s Recipes & Memories