Word: collards
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...Philadelphia were never exactly sister cities, except maybe to Benjamin Franklin. In current movie terms, and when the incendiary issue of AIDS is raised, the towns couldn't be further apart. The hit film Philadelphia treats its subject gingerly, making its hero a saint and a near monogamist. Cyril Collard's French film Savage Nights is defiantly incorrect, even reckless, in its political agenda. Its hero is a fellow who is HIV positive but continues to have unprotected sex. C'est la vie. C'est la mort. No big difference...
Writer-director Collard plays Jean, a bisexual filmmaker determined to keep searching for truth -- and partying hard -- in the face of death. He * vacillates between Samy (Carlos Lopez), a rough-trade Spaniard, and Laura (Romane Bohringer, recently seen illuminating The Accompanist), a would-be actress. Jean wants to have safe sex with Laura, but she will let no condom come between them. Ever the gent, Jean obliges...
...would like to embrace Savage Nights. Its dour attitude and grungy visual style are an antidote to Hollywood's reductive take on AIDS stories. Collard, who died of aids last year, a few days before his film was awarded a Cesar (France's Oscar) for Best Picture, comes across as a director showing real skill with his young cast, and as a skulkily seductive actor...
...same token, supper takes us touncharted gastronomic territory. When I thinkabout the food I miss from home; I recall imagesof my daily suppers at Aunt Bessie's house. Ifonly in my mind, I can see the hot cornbread or"mixed" bread, rice and gravy, greens of all kinds(usually collard, mustard or turnip), friedchicken and, yes, chitlins...
...should stay for the day in Harlem, beginning with a saunter down Seventh Avenue to the Mount Morris Park historical district. Girding the rocky park, today named for Marcus Garvey, are rows of beguiling Victorian houses. Head north on Fifth Avenue for an unpretentious lunch of pork chops and collard greens at La Famille...