In the distant past of April 2020, Chris and I dove deep into an episode of our podcast Cinema Dual on the films of French filmmaker Agnès Varda. Though technically not my first experience with Varda, that week of watching Varda’s movies was eye-opening, to such an extent that when Criterion announced they were going to release a Blu Ray box set of her complete filmography, I jumped at the chance to catch up on everything I had missed. Each post will cover 1 of the 15 discs in the set.

In 2010, Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal released a documentary called Exporting Raymond, which chronicled his adventures in Russia trying to break through cultural barriers while adapting his show for a new country. Though its success largely depended on you being in any way invested in the original source material, in the margins of the movie were little scenes of Phil trying out local food, showcasing Rosenthal’s harmless goofball nature. Years later someone would make the call that sending that goofball to different food spots around the world would make for generally pleasant televison, and they were right. Somebody Feed Phil (and its predecessor I’ll Have What Phil’s Having) is a gentle, comforting show featuring good food and Phil cracking terrible dad jokes. In the year of our Lord 2021, what more could you want?

Continue reading “Varda by Jon – Part 14: Here and There”