Gold Medal Plates Saskatoon

What a foodie fantastic evening! Ten chefs outdid themselves with wonderful creations and, I'm proud to say, every one of them filled their menu with Saskatchewan ingredients - from pickerel cheeks to wild boar belly, from lentils to wild rice cracker, from black pansy syrup to pea shoot foam.

I had the wonderful opportunity of sitting on the judge's panel. A tough decision, to be sure, but the clear winner was Chef Dan Walker of Wizceria, a restaurant in Saskatoon's Broadway district. Here are pictures of the winners with mouth-watering descriptions by fellow judge, the food and wine writer James Chatto.

Taking the gold medal by a unanimous decision of the judges was Chef Dan Walker of Weczeria Food and Wine in Saskatoon, by far the smallest restaurant in the competition. His strip of wild boar belly was perfectly textured – crisp where it needed to be, unctuous elsewhere, and richly flavoured. An almost undetectable scattering of crumbled pecans added an extra dimension. Beneath the belly we found some pulled leg meat from the boar, moist and sapid from a well-seasoned marinade. Two purées – one of carrot, the other of jerusalem artichoke – were delightfully lightweight but also full of flavour, matched by crisps made from the same vegetables. Two soft, pan-fried potato gnocchi were exemplary in texture and useful for mopping up a finishing flourish of green herbal oil. The winning wine was a great match – a wine that has already captured gold elsewhere in this year’s campaign – Rockpile 2008 from Road 13 winery in the Okanagan

The silver medal was awarded to Chef Ryan Marquis of the Delta Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon. Front-and-centre on his plate stood a hen’s egg shell filled with a spectacularly luxe foie gras crème brûlée that many of the judges deemed to be the single most delicious item of the evening. Beside it stood a big square-cut slab of smoked pork belly with a maple molasses glaze and more dots of the black, deeply flavoured glaze decorated the plate. A stripe of parsnip purée and a crisp parsnip chip represented the vegetable kingdom. Chef’s wine choice worked well – the awesome 2008 Nota Bene from Black Hills winery in the Okanagan, British Columbia.

Our bronze medallist was Chef Anthony McCarthy of the Saskatoon Club. He braised Berkshire pig cheeks to the point of tenderness and sauced them with the braising liquid and a pork demi-glace made from the pig’s bones. The lean meat stood beside a small and elegant pirozhki filled with a purée of semi-dehydrated Prairie Sensation apples, touched by a subtle hint of black truffle. A fava bean purée added lovely colour to the plate and a delicate apple cider cream picked up the flavour of the pirozhki. Chef had twisted a very crisp, lightweight strip of crackling into the Q of a pig’s tail and the dish was finished with a couple of perfect little golden chanterelles foraged in the Whitefox area by a gentleman called Lorne Terry. “Call it ‘pork and beans,’” said McCarthy. So we did. The wine was a good match – the dry, aromatic 2008 Pinot Blanc from Peller Estates in B.C.’s Okanagan valley.

This was the first Gold Medal Plates chef's competition held in Saskatoon, and it raised the most money in the history of Gold Medal Plates - $400,000 for elite athletes. Way to go S'toon!



Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween from Movie Dearest!

MD Poll: Let's Sing a Gay Little Show Tune

In the mood for a little "Le Jazz Hot"? Or perhaps some "La Vie Boheme"? Do you have a "Wig in a Box" just waiting to do the "Time Warp" again? Is life, for you, a "Cabaret", ol' chum?

Then get out your tap shoes, Francis, this is the MD Poll for you! We've compiled a list of the biggest, gayest movie musicals of all time, and now it is your turn to pick, well, the biggest and gayest!

Choose your favorite and place your vote in the poll located in the right hand sidebar. Results will be revealed on Saturday December 18!

UPDATE: This poll is now closed; click here for the results, and click here to vote in the latest MD Poll.

MD Poll: Bloody Good Costumes

When it comes to Halloween costumes for 2010, MD Poll-takers prefer theirs' with a little teeth... and a lot of blood... True Blood, that is. Of course, well all know that the vampires, werewolves, et al from that hit show spend most of their time in their birthday suits... which should make for some fun trick or treating this year.

Johnny Depp's take on the Mad Hatter came in a close second, while Glee's Sue Sylvester rounded on the top three Halloween costume ideas. See the comments section below for the complete stats.

Soup Week 43 - Lentil Carrot Bacon

Grandma Lou's lentils in another pot of soup. I must admit that I accidentally burnt the soup (of course, who would burn soup on purpose?). To overcome the burnt taste, we added bacon, carmelized onions and honey. Not bad!

Reverend's Reviews: Monsters & Magicians

With Halloween this Sunday, it would seem a most appropriate weekend for movies entitled Monsters and The Magician to be opening in Los Angeles and New York. However, neither is a traditional horror movie like Saw 3-D or Paranormal Activity 2, both of which are sure to be more popular at the box office.

Despite its gigantic, squid-like aliens from outer space that have crash-landed in northern Mexico, Monsters (from Magnet Releasing) conjured memories for me of Frank Capra's 1934 comedy classic, It Happened One Night. In that earlier film, Clark Cable plays a reporter who is employed by the wealthy father of an engaged heiress (Claudette Colbert) to hunt his runaway daughter down and escort her home. The sci-fi and serious Monsters similarly has a publishing tycoon hiring one of his lower-level, Mexico-based photographers to safely accompany his soon-to-be-married daughter (well played by real-life partners Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able) across the "infected zone" that bumps up against the US border. In both films, the two protagonists end up falling in love before the end.

Monsters, written and directed by Gareth Edwards, is a marvel of low budget (reportedly less than $500,000), economic storytelling that boasts impressive visual effects. In addition to the title creatures, there are effective shots of destroyed cities and buildings as well as spectacular, all-natural views of Central American landscapes and sunsets. The actors aren't as accomplished but they don't hamper Edwards' efforts to tell a thoroughly compelling story.

One can ascribe various parallels and analogies to Monsters, with the plight of human immigrants from the southern hemisphere being the most obvious but the difficulty we have accepting anyone/anything different from ourselves also apparent. Although the movie is set in the present day, we are told at the outset that a NASA probe carrying samples of an alien life form broke up over Mexico six years prior. A massive concrete wall was subsequently built by the US along the border with Mexico, which the powerful yet sympathetic aliens end up breaching (not surprisingly) by the film's end.

The Magician (Regent Releasing), meanwhile, has little in common with either classic comedy or sci-fi movies. Rather, it is an Australian-based faux documentary about a vicious hit man, identified simply as "Ray." The film's title refers to Ray's ability to make his victims disappear without a trace.

A cameraman/interviewer (referred to as "Max") follows Ray as he kidnaps, beats and/or kills numerous subjects, most of whom are drug dealers or addicts who have fallen behind in their payments. Both Max and Ray emulate The Dirty Dozen for its "good actors, like Jim Brown and (erroneously) Clint Eastwood."

Midway through, The Magician inexplicably takes a gay-interest turn, as Max begins to question Ray about the Sydney Mardi Gras and gay actors in Hollywood. Max also calls Ray "beautiful" and "charming" and lovingly records the killer as he works out in their hotel room. Ray goes along with most of this but protests vehemently once Max expresses his intention to share a bed with Ray while naked.

The Magician is a fairly pointless and not particularly well accomplished exercise, although Scott Ryan (who also wrote and directed) gives an impressive, charismatic performance as Ray. Shot in 2005, the film is only now making its US debut in a triple feature with Eichmann and Shake Hands with the Devil, which similarly focus on morally questionable deeds and those who commit them. Together, they could make for a frighteningly true-to-life movie going experience. Happy Halloween!

Reverend's Ratings:
Monsters: B
The Magician: C-

UPDATE: Monsters is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Prairie Feast Book Review

Author Shelley Leedahl had nice things to say about my book. Read the full review online.

“Prairie Feast: a writer’s journey home for dinner” is a literary, culinary, and, dare I say a cultural tour de force... I ate up her every word.


Another lovely review was published in the Edmonton Journal. Read it, too!

Soup Week 42 - Grandma Lou's Lentils

Grandma Lou is a good cook, and she has the lentils to prove it.

Grandma Lou (aka Louise McDougall) farms with her family near Moose Jaw. They have packaged their lentils, chickpeas and flax under the label of Grandma Lou's, complete with recipes.

I made Grandma Lou's lentil soup, but since I can't stand to follow recipes, I substituted chanterelle mushrooms for the potatoes and instead of celery, I used carrots (orange and yellow), then spiced it with a bit of cumin. Voila - délicieux!

Check out Grandma Lou's website for purchasing information.

Tune in to TCM: Moguls & Movie Stars

With their brand new documentary series Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood, Turner Classic Movies lives up to its sterling reputation as the finest purveyor of all things grandly cinematic. Whether you’re a seasoned cinephile or a film novice who doesn’t know a Griffith from a Goldwyn, this epic, seven-part series (premiering this Monday, November 1, on TCM) will offer plenty of insight on how the movies were born and evolved over the past century.

Divided into one-hour episodes covering roughly each decade, from the 1900s to the 1960s, Moguls & Movie Stars presents a rich history of the art — and business — of moviemaking. Along the way, one discovers that this is also the story of America, as such historical touchstones as the Great Depression, World War II and the age of television drastically affected the players involved… and the movies they made.

And what a cast of characters, from the immigrants who rose from poverty to create and control their own Hollywood “Dream Factories” to the actors and actresses who, defying the odds, ascended the ranks to become “American royalty”, a.k.a. “movie stars”. A veritable “Who’s Who” of the Hollywood elite can be seen (both in clips from their screen classics and in rare behind-the-scenes footage), including Pickford, Gish, Chaplin, Valentino, Keaton, Garbo, Cagney, Davis, Gable, Hepburn, Grant, Stewart, Crawford, Bogart, Astaire, Garland, Rooney, Wayne, Brando, Dean, Monroe… and the list goes on.

Narrated by Christopher Plummer, the series features commentary by a host of film experts, historians and critics, including Peter Bogdonovich, Sidney Lumet, Leonard Maltin, Molly Haskell, David Thomson, Gore Vidal and (naturally) TCM host Robert Osborne. Also on hand to provide personal reminiscences are several descendants of the great movie moguls of the past, such as Richard Zanuck and Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.

Each new episode of Moguls & Movie Stars will air Mondays through December 13, with encore presentations the following Wednesday.  A brief panel discussion, hosted by Osborne, will be presented after each of the Wednesday repeats as well.

In conjunction with Moguls & Movie Stars, TCM will also screen several hard to see classic films each Monday night throughout the run of the series. Rare titles scheduled to air include Traffic in Souls, Within Our Gates, The Poor Little Rich Girl, The Squaw Man, Sunrise, Four Horseman of the Apocalypse and Show People, as well as collections of short film from the likes of Thomas Edison, D.W. Griffith and Georges Méliès.

UPDATE: Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood is now available on DVD from Amazon.com.

Reverend's Reviews: B Movie

From the land of Eva Peron, Argentina, comes the satisfyingly unpredictable Plan B (available on DVD today courtesy of Wolfe Video and Oh My Gomez! Films). When Bruno (Manuel Vignau) finds himself unceremoniously dumped by his girlfriend, Laura (Mercedes Quinteros), he begins to plot his revenge. He befriends her new boyfriend, Pablo (Lucas Ferraro, who looks like a buffer version of Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal from Y Tu Mamá También), with the intention of hooking him up with another woman. However, when Bruno is informed by a mutual friend (erroneously, it turns out) that the oblivious Pablo has had sex with a man, Bruno decides to break him and his ex up by seducing Pablo himself.

Since they work out together at the same gym, Bruno is able to approach Pablo easily. They bond over the Lost-esque, fictional TV series Blind and quickly discover other mutual interests. Soon, they are sleeping over at each other's apartments. "You are like my 12-year old friend," Pablo tells Bruno, "and I don't want to share you."

Things only get more complicated from there. Marco Berger, the director of Plan B, and his cast have a great sense of timing and pacing. Berger also allows the camera to linger frequently and lovingly over Bruno's and Pablo's sleeping bodies, clad only in briefs. Despite both men's professed heterosexuality, they become more attracted to and emotionally involved with each other. The two start out rather off-puttingly grungy, needing shaves and haircuts. By the film's end, however, each has undergone a metrosexual transformation.

Plan B is the latest entry in a growing number of films from Latin America (From Beginning to End and Undertow (Contracorriente) being other recent examples) that challenge assumptions regarding male relationships. I, for one, appreciate these filmmakers' willingness to explore the shades of grey that can color friendships and even sibling relations. As one of the central characters in Plan B tells the other, "Whatever you do won't change what should be"; if only all men were so enlightened.

Reverend's Rating: A-

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

short hair blond hair cuts

This is a very settle kind of hairstyle, good for the super straight and fine ,healthy hairs. layers have been involved in this cut for that dramatic look soft and funky. After a cut a nice setting is being needed in this kind of hairstyle with some hot iron for straightening and hair gel for fixing the hairs.

Keira is wearing a layered bob haircut . Notice that nearly all of the layering on the top of the head is long. Long side-swept bangs make this a great hair style for anyone with a high forehead.

short hair photos

Actress and celebrity Keira Knightley, football player, bounty hunter, duchess and pirate consort, has short, straight hair in a tousled style with a fringe, or bangs. Her hair color is brown.

Short hair can look real pretty if worn correctly. There are a variety of short haircuts to choose from. These can change the way you look for a lifetime.

Many girls find medium hairstyles very appealing. This may be because these hairstyles can be as versatile as long hairstyles, and can be as easy to manage as short ones. With a length ranging from the chin down to the shoulders, medium hairstyles can certainly adapt to your every mood, preference, and style. You can opt to wear it down simply, bundle it up or just pin it back.

Short Hairstyle Picture

If you feel like you have a lot of forehead or deep forehead lines to cover — this may be the short cut for you. You can choose a long sweeping bang or pick an edgy blunt bang that accentuates beautiful facial features-especially eyes.

The boy cut can be a drastic move, but a striking one-think pixie or high energy woman. Not everyone can wear this cut because it is so short, but with the right features it is bold and daring.

Short Hairstyles For Mature Women

Actress and celebrity Jean Smart, a veteran of television shows like Designing Women, Frasier, Kim Possible, Samantha Who? and 24, has short, wavy hair in a pixie style. Her hair color is blonde and light brown over a dark base, with platinum blonde highlights.

A short hairstyle that rounds and narrows the forehead and exposes the lower face.

Short cool prom hairstyles for women 2010

The most important part of any girl's prom night is the prom hairstyles she wears.The most popular prom hairstyles are subject to change each year. This year feminine, wavy styles are popular, but edgy styles will also fit the bill.

In 2010 the most popular prom hairstyles are luscious curls or waves. Trendy and ideal for a women to look great and classy is layers around the face, fresh curls, and shoulder length hair. Soft twists combine those curls with styles that are half up / half down. For short prom haircuts you can use also large bangs or sultry bangs swept to one side.

Reverend's Reviews: Who's the Pimp?

Few topics remain as potentially incendiary as the historical, second-class role of African-Americans in US society... except, of course, discussion of the continuing secondary (though rapidly evolving) place that GLBT Americans hold. However, the smart if sometimes overbearing GhettoPhysics, which opened in Los Angeles this past weekend and will expand nationally, posits that the citizens of the world are overwhelmingly, often unconsciously at the beck and call of powerful corporations and other institutions that use our dependence and productivity to cement their status and success.

GhettoPhysics — which is subtitled Will the Real Pimps and Hos Please Stand Up? — is the brainchild of professor and author E. Raymond Brown and William Arntz, who was a co-director of the similarly provocative but well-received 2004 film What the Bleep Do We Know!? Like that earlier exploration of metaphysics, the new movie uses a combination of on-screen lecture, dramatized and animated sequences, and interviews with professionals in such fields as race, sociology, entertainment and religion to expose "the truth" and motivate viewers toward change.

"Everyone is making someone else's pocket fatter," according to one interviewee in the film. While it may be easy for us to picture an immediate employer or business for whom we work on a day-to-day basis and think of this statement as accurate, the filmmakers argue that each of us is more often than not a "ho" in the time-honored tradition of servitude to a protective but demanding "pimp" on a much grander scale. As another speaker says, "Pimps and hos are the simplest, rawest dynamic that is reflected everywhere" in modern life.

These archetypes ultimately exist beyond the black and prostitute communities to encompass every human being. Examples of "pimps" cited in the film include truth-spinning/-denying US presidents from Nixon on; Queen Elizabeth II; various popes including Benedict XVI; and credit card, oil, insurance and drug companies. To illustrate the latter, GhettoPhysics contains a hilarious faux commercial for "Clarodolotex," an all-purpose medication with such frightening potential side effects as foul back odor and gremlins! Also amusing and effective is a "World Pimp Awards" device that nails former Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Praised educator-writer Cornel West and legendary TV producer Norman Lear offer great insights into "The Game," the power struggle between life's pimps and hos in which we all participate as one or the other. While acknowledging that "we all start out as hos," one can become a pimp the more one understands and plays The Game." You get pimped if you're naïve," West states, while another commentator concludes "We all have a pimp and a ho within us."

GhettoPhysics is frequently fascinating in content and execution, but some of the techniques employed by Arntz and Brown are grating. The classroom over which Brown presides is filled with obvious non-students, and a secondary story about one student having her scholarship taken away unjustly is excessive and amateurishly acted. There is also an embarrassingly incongruous, borderline-racist scene in which Brown appears on a fictional TV talk show and essentially humiliates the host, an Asian woman who speaks broken English.

The movie provides considerable food for thought and while it doesn't address GLBT concerns specifically, it is important for GLBT viewers to think of the implications for ourselves and our community. How are we perhaps hos to the pimps that alcohol companies and lube and condom manufacturers can be, especially at Gay Pride time, or to films and TV series that continue to make GLBT characters peripheral or comedy relief?

See GhettoPhysics and emerge a ho no mo'!

Reverend's Rating: B

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Reviews: DVD Tricks & Treats

Halloween is here, and it isn't just the domain of confectionaries and costume designers any more. Rather, GLBT filmmakers and production companies have gotten into the act with movies and home video releases. Some of their current or upcoming DVDs are thematically-appropriate to the season, while others are just trying to beat the end-of-the-year holiday rush. Predictably, not all of them are of equal quality, with a few the cinematic equivalent of finding a razor blade in one's caramel apple.

I had high hopes for Stuck!, out on DVD November 9 from Ariztical Entertainment. With a cast that includes Karen Black, Mink Stole and The Go-Gos' Jane Wiedlin, this send up of 1950's women-in-prison movies just screams potential camp classic, at least on paper. In execution, it is a rarely humorous affair. Young, naïve Daisy (Starina Johnson) is wrongfully accused of murdering her mother thanks to her histrionic, nearly blind neighbor (Black, the best and funniest thing in the film). Sentenced to hang, Daisy meets a variety of unusual women on death row, some all too eager to make her nubile, virginal acquaintance.

The movie, directed by Steve Balderson, gets a lot of the physical period details right in the costumes, hairstyles and sets. Unfortunately, Stuck! is more serious than funny and goes on too long, by and large wasting the talented cast in the process.

Also out on DVD November 9 and even more worthy of criticism is David's Birthday (Wolfe Video). This Italian melodrama by the director of 2003's superior Adored: Diary of a Porn Star has pretensions of operatic tragedy with its story of a conflicted married man attracted to his best friends' college-age son. The film ends up being conflicted itself and the result is a far-from-gay-affirming tale.

With its opening scenes from a performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde that the principal characters are watching, we know that one or more of the love stories in David's Birthday is going to end badly. As one of the operagoers remarks, "It's about a love so absolute, so devastating; who wouldn't want that?" It turns out that Matteo (played by Massimo Poggio) does, and he wants it with David, the gorgeous young man of the film's title (played by the appropriately gorgeous Thyago Alves). Matteo is seemingly happily married to Francesca (the great Maria de Medeiros, who played the bisexual writer Anaïs Nin in 1990's Henry & June). But when Matteo and Francesca visit David's parents at their summer rental on the Italian seashore, the stage is set for romance, infidelity and disaster.

David's Birthday is a beautifully shot and well-acted movie (although Poggio doesn't pull off a drunk scene convincingly), but to call the character of Matteo and the screenplay in general overwrought would be an understatement. By the time Matteo finally acts on his excessively-suppressed infatuation with David, with predictably devastating consequences, you'll likely be ready to throw yourself into the Mediterranean.

But don't despair! Now that I've gone through your trick-or-treat bag and pointed out the bad stuff, there are a few home video goodies left over. The best is Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives from Breaking Glass Pictures, which is playing at Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theatre in Los Angeles starting today prior to its November 9 DVD release.

Although GLAAD denounced the film as "transphobic" and protested its premiere this summer at the Tribeca Film Festival, I can attest that Ticked-Off Trannies is hardly offensive to anyone in the Trans, Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual community who has a sense of humor. GLAAD's reaction to the movie also confirms for me why I've been reluctant to donate lately to this historically commendable but, more recently, somewhat schizophrenic organization. Why is GLAAD attacking a well-intentioned and talented member of our community — in this case, openly gay writer-director Israel Luna — rather than non-GLBT filmmakers who so often make us look bad?

Ticked-Off Trannies is a lovingly crafted homage to/critique of the women's exploitation movies of the 1970's, in which abused women would eventually exact revenge on the men who raped or beat them or killed their female friend(s). Luna wittily revives the grainy film stock, over-exposed shots, jumpy editing and fast zoom shoots of the era, not unlike Quentin Tarantino did a few years back with his tribute, Grindhouse. Here, though, the women are transgender and the film's pop cultural sensibility is decidedly modern. To wit, one character exclaims "Jesus Christ Meryl Streep, girl!" while another tells the film's rapist-murderer (named "Boner"), "If I saw you on Facebook, I'd ignore you and report you!"

The girls are understandably upset when Boner and his henchmen kill one member of their gang and leave another for dead. Suitably, the survivors plot and execute nasty, excessively violent vengeance against the men who did them wrong. A Kung Fu-esque martial arts training sequence (!) in the film's mid-section provides the women with the extra advantage they'll need to take out their misogynist, homophobic adversaries.

With names like Emma Grashun, Rachel Slurr and Tipper Sommore, neither the "trannies" nor the film's plot are to be taken too seriously. It's unfortunate that GLAAD apparently did so. Don't let their misguided condemnation of this movie keep you from having a hilarious, trans-glorifyingly good time.

BearCity, out on DVD November 16 from TLA, isn't quite as good but is still enjoyable, especially if you are a member of the bear/cub/wolf subculture (sub-species?) within the gay community. Not being a part of the scene, this film served as an interesting exploration for me.

Young, thin actor Tyler (Joe Conti) has a secret he hasn't even shared with his twink best friend, Simon (cute Alex DiDio): he's attracted to bigger, hairier men. Tyler rents a room from a bear-cub couple, unaware that they are looking to spice up their relationship with a potential threesome. He also makes the acquaintance of another couple, Michael and Carlos. Michael (played by Gregory Gunter) is a larger, older man who wants to undergo the "lap band" procedure to lose weight. His younger, in-shape partner, Carlos (James Martinez), likes him just the way he is (Carlos lovingly refers to Michael as "Gordito") and is horrified by Michael's decision.

Michael and Carlos's situation adds a deeper, unexpectedly touching dimension to the mostly comedic or sexual shenanigans in BearCity. The script, by Doug Langway and Lawrence Ferber, features nice, authentic repartee among the guys but can't quite decide whether to show the bear lifestyle as wholesome or debauched. That discrepancy and some truly awful original songs keep me from rating BearCity too highly, but one can do a lot worse at Halloween or any other time of year.

While I wasn't as high on it as many GLBT viewers have been since its theatrical release in July, The Kids Are All Right will make its Blu-Ray and DVD debut on November 16, just in time for Thanksgiving. The film, which boasts excellent performances by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a lesbian couple raising two teenagers, may serve as ideal, post-meal viewing for you and yours.

Reverend's Ratings:
Stuck!: C-
David's Birthday: D
Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives: B+
BearCity: C+
The Kids Are All Right: B-

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Toon Talk: The Big Blue

Continuing in the grand tradition of such superlative nature documentaries as the True-Life Adventures and last year’s Earth, DisneyNature’s Oceans (available on Disney DVD and Blu-ray this week) takes viewers on a breathtaking, eye-opening adventure to the bottom of the sea and back.

As directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud (makers of the Oscar nominated Winged Migration), Oceans introduces you to a wide variety of creatures both in and out of the water. The cast of thousands include ghost-like jellyfish, darting and spinning dolphins, piggybacking sea turtles, sunbathing walruses and the endlessly fascinating denizens of a coral reef, among many, many others.

Actor Pierce Brosnan narrates soothingly, frequently stepping back to let the stunning visuals have their say. And what stunning visuals you’ll see, from a feeding frenzy punctuated by torpedoing gulls, to a cyclone of fish morphing before your eyes into a living, pulsating globe, to a pair of humpback whales peacefully sleeping, nose down. You’ll even witness the unlikely sight of a spider crab “gang war”.

Click here to continue reading my Toon Talk review of the Oceans Blu-ray at LaughingPlace.com.