• Evil Does Not Exist ****
• Force of Nature: The Dry 2 ***
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ***
• Poolman **
• Chief of Station *1/2
• The Fall Guy ***
• I Saw the TV Glow ***1/2
• Tarot *
• Wildcat ***1/2
• Cash Out **
• Humane **1/2
• Abigail ***
• Blood for Dust ***
• The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare ***
• Arcadian ***
• Civil War ***1/2
• Sasquatch Sunset ***
• Sting ***1/2
• Coup de chance ***1/2
• The First Omen ***
• More...

• Dune: Part Two ***1/2
• Mad Props ***
• Mean Girls **1/2
• Death Rides a Horse ***
• It's a Wonderful Knife **1/2
• Lost in Space ***
• The Minus Man **1/2
• Night Swim **
• Amélie ****
• Wednesday: Season 1 ***1/2
• All That Money Can Buy (Criterion) ***1/2
• Bad Hombres ***
• The Color Purple **1/2
• A Fistful of Dynamite ***1/2
• Freelance *
• The Iron Claw ***1/2
• The Long Riders ***
• Lynch/Oz ***1/2
• Pi/π ***1/2
• Poor Things ***
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• 2023: The Year in Review
• Book Review: Clint Eastwood: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work
• Peter Nicks on Stephen Curry: Underrated
• Savanah Leaf on Earth Mama
• Peter Sohn on Elemental
• Kelly Reichardt on Showing Up
• Book Review: Once Upon a Rind In Hollywood
• Guide to the 2022 Oscars
• The 2022 San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle Awards
• 2022: The Year in Film
• Book Review: Escape Into Meaning: Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and Other Obsessions
• Book Review: It's Alive!
• Book Review: Dana Steven's Camera Man
• Domee Shi on Turning Red
• Book Reviews - Guillermo Del Toro: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work & The Unofficial Hocus Pocus Cookbook
• Destin Daniel Cretton talks Shang-Chi
• Brenda Chapman on Come Away
• Book Review: Sam Wasson's The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood
• Nisha Ganatra
• Anthony Daniels
• Will Forte
• Dan Scanlon
• The Decade in Review (2010-2019)
• Sam Mendes
• Book Review: Cult Filmmakers: 50 Movie Mavericks You Need to Know
• Gurinder Chadha
• Olivia Wilde
• Claire Denis
• Emilio Estevez
• My Top 100 Films
• Great Directors
• Essential Horror Movies
• Cult Movies

Book Review: Once Upon a Rind In Hollywood

Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) enjoys a $5 shake in Pulp Fiction. (Miramax)

Once Upon a Rind In Hollywood: 50 Movie-Themed Cheese Platters and Snack Boards for Film Fanatics
By Rachel Riederman
Ulysses Press
February 14, 2023
$19.95
Buy It

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

As someone who loves movies, food, and puns, this book was a grand slam even before it arrived in my mailbox. Once Upon a Rind In Hollywood: 50 Movie-Themed Cheese Platters and Snack Boards for Film Fanatics includes fifty actual recipes for cheese platters and charcuterie boards, and each one has been carefully thought out to incorporate elements from fifty movies. (The movies themselves are also miraculously well-chosen. Just about everyone alive would name at least one of them as a personal favorite.) Some examples include a recipe for "Miracle Max Pills" (peanut butter, crushed pretzels, honey, salt, and chocolate chips) from The Princess Bride, a Bento Board for My Neighbor Totoro, peanuts, Cracker Jacks, and mozzarella balls for A League of Their Own, Reese's Pieces peanut butter blondies for E.T., a BB-8 cheese ball for Star Wars, Royale with Stilton sliders and $5 shakes for Pulp Fiction, an Italian board (including Clemenza's Sunday sauce) for "The Gouda-father," a Silence of the Lambs platter with (of course) fava beans, a spicy Some Like It Hot platter, some "Nachos Libre," a platter based on the Breakfast Club lunches (Pixy Stix included), and even a lovely Christmas board for It's a Wonderful Life. Some recipes seem prettier than practical, such as the Wizard of Oz rainbow board, consisting of an odd mix of colored fruits and candies to make up a rainbow (raspberries, orange gummy bears, mandarin slices, yellow cheese, green gummy bears, blueberries, purple gumdrops, and blueberry chèvre cheese), but it makes for a great photo. You'll have to see the Willy Wonka photo to fully appreciate it. The recipes are divided by movie category: Romance, Kids & Musicals, Action & Drama, Horror, and Comedy, and author/photographer Rachel Riederman provides at least one photo for each, as well as punny intros. If any of this whets the appetite, then this book is highly recommended. It's really the bee's chee... er... knees.