When a married New York DA (Amy Ryan) finds herself in a sticky situation – a dead hook-up in a penthouse suite – she calls the number of a man whose function is clean-up jobs. As the body of the boy she’s picked up in the lobby lies among shattered glass after bedroom hijinks, the voice on the line assures her he’ll take care of her problem.
Enter George Clooney’s nameless lone wolf, an anonymous man with a body bag and a grumpy demeanour. ‘Nobody can do what I do,’ he insists. As he sets about his task, there’s a knock at the penthouse door: Brad Pitt’s fixer has also arrived. Dressed similarly and touting the same skill set, it seems Clooney’s not the only hitman in town – and now both of them are mixed up in a mess that reaches further than the luggage trolley of a high end hotel.
The whys and wherefores of plot are immaterial in a film that understands the main attraction is seeing real-life buddies zing off each other as two grouchy middle-aged mystery men forced to work together when a standard job takes an unexpected turn. Suffice to say, drugs, cartels, shootouts, gangster weddings and a dopey business student (Euphoria’s Austin Abrams) are involved as the duo try to unravel a conspiracy overnight and in the process discover a grudging respect for each other.
Written and directed by Jon Watts as an amiable Ocean’s II, the appeal of Wolfs is the built-in chemistry between Pitt and Clooney as they banter and bitch through Chinatown foot and car chases, Croatian dance routines, and an interrogation in a hideous rent-by-the-hour hotel room. Their overlapping chatter plays like jazz, the result of years of off-screen friendship and the experience to inhabit these roles effortlessly. Both actors have fun with their age, leaning into gags about bones cracking, needing Advil after some strenuous gunslinging and struggling to read pager messages without their glasses. Clooney’s car playlist is also a nice boomer dig; he listens to Sade’s Smooth Operator as he drives to a job.
It’s a tough gig for Abrams to steal any focus as the third wheel, a daffy teen who fancies a bit danger and ends up with the equivalent of a two killer dads (who might ice him but will also tell him to eat with his mouth closed), but he makes a lively impression – not least in a practical effect when he leaps over a moving car in tighty-whities and tube socks.
Clooney and Pitt clearly had a hoot making the film and the door is left open for more of the same if audiences also have a laugh. Abandon plot logic and Wolfs is daft fun with a rat pack vibe..
Words by JANE CROWTHER Wolfs releases in cinemas 20 Sept before transferring to Apple TV+
Justin Kurzel adds to his cinematic rebel poems with another gorgeously-lensed look at a real-life disruptor and his skewed ideals. After tackling outliers in The True History Of The Kelly Gang and Nitrum, the director turns his attention to Bob Mathews, an eighties white power leader whose rhetoric in Reagan-era America threatened to metastasize to civil unrest and polarisation. Like his previous historical films, Kurtzel’s latest boasts a disquieting pertinence to current events and cultural leaders…
Focusing on Mathews (Nicholas Hoult) as he tries to build a white supremacy army in 1983-4 via bank robberies, bombings and assassinations as well as the broken FBI agent, Terry Husk (Jude Law) tracking him, The Order shows two men who are only divided by the law in their obsessions. The radical offspring of a hate-preacher, Mathews is charismatic, unfaithful and blinkered in his pursuit of an Aryan America as he recruits and seduces. His wife and mistress are secondary to the excitement he feels carrying out his six-step to domination, his bank robberies (thrillingly executed in nail-biting interludes) a high. Husk is damaged goods – a chain-smoking, gum chewing blunt instrument with a drink problem, he’s survived an incident in New York and has transferred to the quiet of Idaho in the hopes of ‘putting back the pieces’. His wife and children are secondary to his quarry, silently admonishing via unanswered phone calls he makes as he digs into white power in the state. When the local nous of a deputy sheriff (Tye Sheridan) links a couple of leads, Husk realises he has a bigger case on his hands and brings in a bureau former colleague to start a manhunt. As the film toggles between Mathews and Husk, it becomes a cat-and-mouse thriller – with Mathews getting sloppy and Husk getting (literally) messy as old injuries plague him.
It’s a retro presentation; the eighties production design, costumes and lensing recalling numerous previous examples of the genre. And that’s no bad thing. Law’s Husk is straight from the Popeye Doyle school of big swings and delicious to watch, even his constant gum-chewing informs his characterisation. Sheridan is the heart of the picture providing an emotional moment that hurts, and Hoult nails the blue-eyed fanaticism of a man who may tell his mates to stop burning crosses but can’t see the inevitability of his actions. Jed Kurzel’s thrumming score soars as high as the camera, swooping above stunning Idaho and Washington state vistas to show the beauty of the country Mathews is fighting so hard to control.
End credit notes tell us that the text used by Mathews has been utilised repeatedly since by far-right groups as a blueprint for their activities – including the most recent storming of the Capitol. It’s a stark reminder that though this picture plays like a slice of vintage filmmaking, the beliefs at the centre of the story are very much still relevant. As an audience, Kurzel asks us which side of the ideological line we choose to stand on. Powerful stuff.
Halina Reijn’s erotic drama has caused a stir at Venice thanks to its frank, female-gaze portrayal of desire and the nuances of power. Though it shares some similarities with Secretary, Fatal Attraction and even Fifty Shades Of Grey, Babygirl is buzzy because it unflinchingly explores the ‘orgasm gap’ between men and women, and paints a picture of a complex, contradictory middle-aged woman’s lust without anyone’s bunny being boiled.
Nicole Kidman stars as tech CEO Romy who has it all together: a loving theatre director husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas), two lovely daughters, two sprawling houses (a Manhattan apartment and a country mansion), the respect of her colleagues and pots of money. A glass ceiling breaker and ballbuster, Romy has no problem asking for what she wants in boardrooms or cosmetic clinics but struggles to do so in bed. Opening on her climaxing astride her spouse, Romy sneaks off to another room post-copulation to masturbate over Daddy kink porn. There, in the darkness, on the floor, her feral orgasm is different and real compared to the performance she has put on for her partner. What Romy presents to her family and the world is very different to what she wants, and even then she’s not entirely sure what that is. Which is why new intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson) intrigues and shocks her when he seems to instinctively sense exactly what she might need. A bold, self-assured young man who can control a raging dog in the street and tells her ‘I think you like to be told what to do’, Samuel whispers ‘good girl’ to her in a restaurant when she glugs a full glass of milk that he sends over to her table.
Romy is a strong, powerful woman who loves her husband, but she’s also a product of her commune upbringing, horny and looking for validation of some of her darker fantasies. Both personas coexist, the spectrum of sexual need explored as the CEO and the intern embark on a push-pull affair tinged with BDSM but is also vulnerable, protective, needy, greedy, bashful and silly. Romy may kneel to lick a sweet from Samuel’s hand or milk from a saucer at his feet, but she will also cling to him as they sway to George Michael’s Father Figure and cuddle like family in a hotel suite bed. When he gives her her first non-masturbatory orgasm the growl she lets out into a grubby carpet is one of liberation and discovery.
The traditional assumption in this kind of cinematic trajectory is that someone will lose their life (literally or figuratively), that danger is associated with such unfettered hunger. But Reijn confounds expectation by metering out no punishment. Rather the protagonists discover something of themselves and use their individual power to move forward – whether that’s the ambitious exec assistant Esme (Talk To Me’s Sophie Wilde), a collaborative Jacob or Romy herself. The only person getting shafted in this tale is a predatory exec who tries to leverage his power for sex. As Samuel says at one point to another character; ‘that’s an outdated view of sexuality’.
Modern, sex-positive and optimistic, Babygirl is sure to prompt post-credit discussion and possibly even small revolutions in marital beds.
Alfonso Cuarón’s dark seven-part thriller exploring victim blaming, the madonna/whore complex and the toxicity of trauma gives audiences a warning straight off the bat that they should question what they see. As feted documentarian Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett) receives another award to add to her collection, the host of the ceremony touches on narrative and form and warns that they can be used for manipulation. Narrative and form are certainly used to skewed and smart effect in this elegant adap of Renée Knight’s 2015 bestseller as three stories are interwoven across decades.
In one strand we follow Catherine Ravenscroft as she receives a parcel from an unknown source containing a book that seems to unravel carefully held secrets from her past. The story at the heart of the novel sends her spiralling, impacting her marriage to stuffy lawyer Robert (Sasha Baron Cohen) and estranging her even more from her 25-year-old wastrel son, Nick (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Meanwhile Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline pulling off a perfect befuddled Englishman in the vein of Jim Broadbent) is mourning the loss of his son two decades previously, as well as his wife Nancy (Lesley Manville) more recently. Bereft, Stephen has nothing to live for but embittered revenge. And in a third story, horny inter-railing teen Jonathan (Louis Partridge) can’t keep his eyes off a beautiful young mother (Leila George) on an Italian beach. Grief, betrayal and brutality are bound for all the characters – but the how and why is disquietingly spun across the episodes to a gut-punch denouement that will make audiences question their own assumptions, gender bias and acceptance of narrative. The truth at the heart of this bleak tale is something that is lost repeatedly in the retelling of it, depending on who is crafting the story and what information (or lack of it) they are working with.
It would be churlish to provide any more narrative detail – the pleasure really is in the unpackaging of it – but this onion-layered story of perspective is delivered beautifully by Cuarón as writer/director, and his cast. Blanchett is a known powerhouse but she is immense here; by turns frantic, self-absorbed, rageful and ultimately incandescent as a woman being judged. George as a younger version of Catherine is a revelation in a star-making turn as both a vamp and a victim. She and Partridge generate serious heat in explicit scenes that cleverly make viewers complicit in judgement, while Kline and Manville create a blindsiding and heartbreaking portrait of grief that is hard to see past. Each of their narratives twist and turn to a barnstorming final episode that will likely prompt audience introspection about personal and public perception, society and social media’s hurry to punish without due diligence and the way we castigate women for being sexual beings. Knowing what we know at the end might also inform repeat viewing to understand the clues that were there for us to see – if only we weren’t so blinkered. A masterful binge watch that asks pertinent and uncomfortable questions.
Words by JANE CROWTHER Disclaimerpremieres on Apple TV+ on 11 October
Pablo Larraín’s latest portrait of a woman struggling under a media lens (completing the triptych with Jackie and Spencer) is his most linear and conventional approach to teasing out the pain, trauma and self doubt intrinsic to being a famous female figure in the 20th century – but it’s also his most emotionally resonant. That’s perhaps because Angelina Jolie, as opera diva Maria Callas, brings her own life experience of press obsession to the role in a performance that will certainly be in the awards conversation.
Written by Spencer scribe Steven Knight, Maria follows a 53-year-old Callas in the last week of her life in 1977 Paris, wrestling her artistic and romantic demons as her diet-ravaged body fails. An imperious, self-confessed ‘tiger’ who has weathered scandal (her affair with Aristotle Onassis), and criticism (from her mother and the media), Callas pops pills and sees visions from her life as her faithful butler (Pierfrancesco Favino) and housekeeper (Alba Rohrwacher) watch on. Split into four distinct acts, Callas explores the guilt, shame, pride, triumph and sadness that has coloured her career from being a shy girl in Athens singing for German officers for cash to the feted beauty ‘La Callas’ who has lost her magnificent voice. Hooked on sedatives, Maria invites a film crew into her life to document her last interview led by Kodi Smit-McPhee (pulling double duty at the Venice Film Festival on this and Disclaimer). ‘Is the film crew real?’ Maria’s butler asks doubtfully, gently, as he dutifully heaves her grand piano around her apartment on her daily whim. Maria is, at this stage, a glacial, imposing primadonna experiencing hallucinations who claims that ‘there is no life away from the stage’ yet tells a fan of the pain – both mental and physical – of performing. Taking her last bow, she crafts an emotional autobiography of sorts, a ‘human song’ of her life.
Knight carefully plots a path that allows opera buffs to enjoy parallels between Callas’ life and her roles while also informing the uninitiated of the key beats of the star’s career – taking in other famous faces including Onassis, Marilyn Monroe and JFK. In a pleasing full-circle moment with Jackie, Callas and Kennedy have a breakfast table conversation about love that elegantly illustrates the commodifying of famous women and Maria’s sharp wit that netted her a reputation as ‘difficult’.
Beautifully filmed and costumed, Maria is as operatic as any of the arias sung during the runtime and the supporting artists are a delight (Valeria Golino shines in a key moment as Callas’ sister who suggests that her sibling closes the door on the pain of letting music so destructively into her life), but the main event in every way is Jolie. The way she inhabits any space, moves with the elegance of a cat and talks in Callas’ precise, cool diction is mesmerising. And when she sings – the older Maria moments are mostly her own voice while the younger Callas is the diva’s real vocal – the emotion, drama and effort she brings to the music is genuinely impressive. Jolie trained for months to inhabit Callas and the results recall the lived-in performance of Cate Blanchett in Tar – a Volpi cup winner at the festival and gong magnet throughout the year. Jolie will likely be on the same trajectory.
In 1944, director Billy Wilder released the quintessential film noir before the term even existed. Double Indemnity bears all the hallmarks of the genre: wiseass repartee; crisp black-and-white cinematography; a manipulative femme fatale twisting a lust-fuelled sap around her finger; shards of light pouring through venetian blinds casting prison-bar shadows across the faces of our amoral protagonists as they hurtle towards a doomed comeuppance.
This is no spoiler. The movie opens at night (it’s noir, of course it’s night) with a wounded man driving his coupe through downtown LA, staggering to his office, and dictating a confession to his colleague: ‘Hold tight to that cheap cigar of yours, Keyes. I killed Dietrichson. Me, Walter Neff, insurance agent, 35 years old, unmarried, no visible scars… until a little while ago, that is. Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money – and a woman – and I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman.’
From here, flashbacks show Neff (Fred MacMurray) falling for the glamorous but unhappily married Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck). Together they concoct a devilishly clever plan to bump off Phyllis’ husband for his accident insurance money, only to come under the suspicious gaze of Neff’s friend and colleague, insurance investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson).
Double Indemnity is an early example of a ‘whydunnit’, telling us the killer’s identity upfront (a narrative technique popularised 30 years later by TV’s Columbo), but is it the first thriller to make us root for a bad guy driven by greed and sex? Unclear, but certainly that opening narration sets the blackly comic tone that pervades the film, in which brief early scenes of sunny LA give way to ever more darkening shadows as our conniving pair descend into murder and betrayal.
The movie was based on a novella by hardboiled crime writer James M. Cain, who as a journalist had attended the trial of a woman and her lover convicted of a similar murder in the 1920s.
Wilder’s regular screenwriting collaborator Charles Brackett declined to adapt the book, regarding it as too scandalous and immoral, so Wilder famously hired master crime author Raymond Chandler, creator of the archetypal gumshoe Philip Marlowe. Chandler assumed that writing a film would be quick and easy, taking maybe three weeks. When he was told his weekly rate was $750, he thought he could stretch it out to four. As described by Maurice Zolotow in his biography Billy Wilder in Hollywood: ‘[Chandler] schlepped it in five weeks later. Billy read it at once while Chandler watched. Then he threw it – yes, hurled it – right at Chandler. It hit him in the chest and fell on his lap. “This is shit, Mr. Chandler,” he said amiably. He suggested that Chandler use it as a doorstop.’
Their relationship went downhill from there, with Chandler battling alcoholism and Wilder every step of the way. Nevertheless, their Oscar- nominated screenplay is a triumph, cleverly refining and reworking the novella while injecting Chandler’s trademark wit and smart-alec crosstalk. Take Phyllis and Walter’s flirty first encounter, fizzing with innuendo to dodge the censor’s red pencil:
PHYLLIS: There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.
NEFF: How fast was I going, officer?
PHYLLIS: I’d say about ninety.
NEFF: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket. PHYLLIS: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
NEFF: Suppose it doesn’t take. PHYLLIS: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
NEFF: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder. PHYLLIS: Suppose you try putting it on my husband’s shoulder.
As a film and TV writer, I know full well that good dialogue is only as good as the actors delivering it, and Stanwyck and MacMurray are faultless, loading every line with just the right amount of sexy snark, Fred grinning an insouciant smirk, Barbara fighting the urge to do the same.
Years later, movies like Basic Instinct would make these seduction scenes explicit, but in 1940s Hollywood every erotic beat had to be carefully calibrated to sneak past America’s moral guardians. It was racy enough that Stanwyck first appears at the top of a staircase in a towel; moments later, Wilder’s camera fixates on her anklet as she descends in what were scripted as ‘pom-pom slippers’ – signifiers that despite her nice suburban home, Phyllis (in Wilder’s words) is showy and trashy. It’s the reason the director made Stanwyck wear a cheap blonde wig, which is constantly distracting once you realise it’s a piece. As one studio executive who hated the wig apparently stated: “We hire Barbara Stanwyck and we get George Washington.’
For a city that seems to have little reverence for its historical buildings, I take great pleasure in discovering (via Google maps) that the exterior of the Dietrichson residence, a Spanish Colonial Revival-style house in the Hollywood hills, has changed very little since it starred in the movie almost 80 years ago. If Double Indemnity is a thoroughbred film noir, it’s also a Los Angeles movie to its core, partly thanks to its locations – including the Hollywood & Western Building and the Hollywood Bowl – but also because every frame seems soaked in the sweat and humidity, cynicism and paranoia, of the big city.
Neff’s North Kingsley Drive apartment block is still standing too, the setting for one of the finest suspense scenes in any movie. Neff receives a late-night visit from Keyes, whose ‘little man’ in his stomach keeps telling him something is amiss with the Dietrichson insurance claim. Oblivious, Phyllis is on her way up to the apartment, but if she encounters Keyes, the murder conspiracy will be blown wide open. She is about to enter Neff’s apartment as Keyes is leaving, but at the last moment ducks behind Neff’s apartment door, which inexplicably opens outwards into the corridor. No apartment door has ever done this in the history of construction, but it’s testament to the movie’s immersive, slow-burning suspense that you don’t even register it on first, second or fiftieth watch.
At the 17th Academy Awards, Double Indemnity was rightly nominated for seven Oscars but wrongly won none. Wilder was apparently so furious about losing Best Director to Leo McCarey for the mawkish Going My Way that as McCarey walked to the stage, Wilder tripped him up. It’s the perfect coda for a movie that not only trips up but snaps the neck of the polite mores and suburban civilities that America was trying to sell itself in the 1940s; a movie that only an émigré like Wilder, having escaped the horrors of the Nazis, could so gleefully use to expose the dark, irredeemable recesses of human behaviour; a movie that in 2024, an election year in which politicians would have us believe there was once a golden age in which America was happy and bright, reminds us the country has always been merrily, deliciously dark.
Photographs by SAM SHAW Words by GISELE SCHMIDT & GARY OLDMAN
The love of Sam Shaw’s photographs begins with Gary’s admiration for the films of John Cassavetes, the grandfather of independent American cinéma vérité. Gary is a self-described Cassavetes junkie. Having had little exposure to Cassavetes’ work prior to the start of our relationship, Gary immediately introduced me to several of his films. But what was it about Cassavetes that Gary found so undeniably fascinating? His style. Cassavetes dared to capture what other filmmakers would overlook: raw humanity and the chaotic nature of life. Cassavetes broke the rules of traditional filmmaking and his unconventional storytelling refused to tie up loose ends for the sake of providing the audience with a happy ending. Cassavetes took one look at Hollywood’s formula and threw it all away! Cassavetes’ influence is abundantly evident when one views Gary’s masterpiece, Nil by Mouth. Much like Cassavetes, Gary wrote, directed, financed and produced his film to depict a messy but emotionally honest story, not compromising his artistic vision for commercial appeal. But how does all of this bring us back to Sam Shaw?
Well, Cassavetes and Sam were best friends, colleagues, and collaborators. Shaw was an advisor on Cassavetes’ first film, Shadows (1959), and later went on to produce many of Cassavetes’ films including Husbands (1970), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), Opening Night (1977) and Gloria (1980). A producer, sometimes production designer, publicity and advertising campaign contributor, and later a filmmaker in his own right, Sam never gave up his first love of photography and remained the specials photographer on set.
Gary’s favourite Cassavetes film is Husbands, so naturally, the second photograph he had me track down for his collection was of Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara and John Cassavetes during its filming. We are so grateful to the Shaw Family Archives, who so graciously opened their vault of Sam’s personal prints and allowed Gary to acquire a sequence of five photographs, culminating in the image at the top of this page, which was used for publicity on the release of the film.
Sam’s photographs embrace independence and encourage spontaneity. Shaw wasn’t looking for the traditional ‘perfect’ shot. Shaw’s images can be raw, have blurred focus, with skewed perspectives, but they are undoubtedly beautiful, innovative and real. They capture the perfect but fleeting moment that only a click of the shutter can provide. How can one not laugh at Brando pulling a face? Or be charmed by Marilyn waving hello? Or be transfixed by the angle of the shot of Loren snoozing under the hair dryer with Shaw’s self-portrait reflected in a mirror in the bottom corner? With his artistic composition and his journalistic instinct, Shaw’s images are uncharacteristically Hollywood; what Cassavetes did for film is what Shaw did for stills photography. What a legacy!
Shaw’s career spanned six decades and there was never a day that his two beaten-up Nikon cameras weren’t at the ready dangling from his neck. His photographs graced the covers of LIFE, Look, Paris Match, the Daily Mail, Der Stern, Harper’s Bazaar and countless other publications. He captured images of everyone from those mentioned above to Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin, Frank Sinatra… The list goes on and on and on. His photographic archive covers a variety of his interests: cinema, music, theatre, literature and the arts, as well as social and political activism, and it is preserved and promoted today by his children and grandchildren through the Shaw Family Archives.
If you drive north from San Francisco on the 101, the impressive engineering feat of the Golden Gate Bridge is a postcard view that wows. But further north, nestling among the rolling countryside and a carpet of trees, lies another architectural feast for the eyes – one that seems plucked straight from a sci-fi movie. With its cerulean domes, scalloped roof, textured spire and clean lines, Marin County Civic Center in San Raphael recalls the architecture of Jabba’s Palace in Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi and the roofline of Naboo in The Phantom Menace. As large as any palace and situated in the dip between golden hills, you could almost believe that this mid-century complex housing the county’s hall of justice, library, post office and administration buildings might be expecting a visit from C-3PO and R2-D2, or hosting a celebration parade presided over by Padmé Amidala.
Marin County Civic Center in San Raphael recalls the architecture of Jabba’s Palace in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and the roofline of Naboo in The Phantom Menace
That’s no coincidence – long-time Marin resident George Lucas conceived and filmed his Star Wars films in the surrounding area (the Ewoks made their home in the redwood forest north of the site), and his creative hub, Skywalker Ranch, sprawls nearby. But his first brush with the centre came in 1970, when the fledgling filmmaker created a future dystopia in THX-1138 and used the municipal buildings as interior and exterior locations for his debut feature film. Self-described as a ‘frustrated architect’, Lucas may not have been good enough at maths to create bricks-and-mortar designs, but as a celluloid world-builder his vision shaped cinema and popular culture. Perhaps his shoot in Frank Lloyd Wright’s truly visionary space was more influential than merely kicking off an interstellar career.
Lucas isn’t the only filmmaker to be struck by the futuristic splendour of the building. When scouting for a place to represent the near-future headquarters of Gattaca for the 1997 film of the same name, director Andrew Niccol chose the roof and the library of the centre to convey the sense of order, precision and sterility of eugenics. Many visitors now recreate the arrival to work for Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman as they enter the hushed building and take the escalator up through the oval rotunda. And perhaps one of sci-fi’s leading lights, Philip K Dick, was inspired by the symmetry and style of the place – he visited the police department in 1971 to report a robbery at his house, fearing the CIA had ransacked his safe. The Marin County Civic Center would not be out of place in one of his bestselling books.
It would have likely pleased Wright to know his work caught the imagination of those looking to the stars – he conceived his building to withstand the test of time but also mature into the environment, planning trees that would not reach their full potential until long after he was gone, and designing structures that would require materials not yet available to him while he sketched. In this way, Wright was something of a time traveller himself – projecting into the future as he conceived the structure in 1958.
Despite his fame and reputation, Wright had not been the first choice to create the campus in San Raphael when the original courthouse burned down and needed replacing. Land was bought in 1956 and a selection committee looked at the submitted work of 26 architects (Wright refused to compete). Wright had featured on the 1957 New Year’s Day cover of House Beautiful magazine and committee member Vera Schultz and planning department head Mary Summers campaigned to offer the job to him without a submitted plan. In March 1957, he was lecturing at nearby Berkeley and was convinced to visit the proposed site. Gazing across the view from a jeep parked on the highest hill, he apparently could envisage a design immediately and took the commission. He was 90 years old and still inspired. ‘In Marin County you have one of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen,’ he said. ‘Here is a crucial opportunity to open the eyes not of Marin County alone, but of the entire country, to what officials gathering together might themselves do to broaden and beautify human lives.’
He certainly brought beauty to the valley – designing a 580 ft-long administrative building connected to an 880 ft-long Hall Of Justice and lozenge-shaped library, juxtaposed in classic Wright vernacular by a 172 ft-tall spire (that he erroneously told officials was a vital radio mast in order to get around height laws). His domes were intended to be gold to reflect the surrounding grassland; his interiors boasted his trademark ‘Cherokee red’ in lacquered doors and walls lining circular atriums; his floors custom tiles and terrazzo. His designs were organic rather than stoic and he incorporated literal organic architecture, planning a line of pine trees surrounding the site that would naturally die off to reveal slower growing native oaks over decades. And he predicted our reliance on the car, conceiving three arches in the building so that citizens could drive through the heart of county matters.
Wright died in 1959 before ground was broken in 1960, but his vision was brought to life in his absence and in accordance with his dream of a community environment that reflected the natural world around it. Interior woodwork and furniture designed by Wright and Aaron Green was fabricated locally at the San Quentin and Soledad Penitentiary wood shops. The gold dome was given a sustainable life with a switch to a material that would not tarnish, the blue of it (chosen by Wright’s widow, Olgivanna) reflecting the skies above. Future additions (such as the jail completed in 1994 from Wright’s designs) also reflect his theme of circular spaces, orbs, spheres, arcs and arches. All very celestial, contributing to the sense of entering a beautiful spaceship or intergalactic palace when crossing the threshold.
The civic buildings are always open to the public and would-be Naboo and Gungans wanting to admire the calming campus can do so on a weekly guided tour (Fridays at 10.30am) or self tour via the campus’ app. Perhaps the next-generation’s sci-fi disruptor will be inspired to dream of new worlds gazing through its domed skylights or ascending the escalator through the rich, red concentric circles of the atrium.
Photographs and video by MARK READ Marin County Civic Center. 3501 Civic Center Drive, San Rafael, CA 94903, United States.www.marincounty.org
Few cities come wrapped in as fine a cloak of glamour as Italy’s lady of the lagoon. Venice is a place of remarkable beauty and splendour, alive with a history that is openly apparent in its canals and churches, museums and monuments. But for the best part of a fortnight at the end of every summer, this European aristocrat becomes even more chic – via the Venice Film Festival, which brings many of cinema’s biggest actors and filmmakers to its door. The fun and games take place all over the city and its islands – but, most notably, in the grand hotels where the A-list comes to stay and play…
1. THE CIPRIANI If you are looking for a hotel that encapsulates the sophistication of Venice, you need only cast your eye across the water from central San Marco to the nearby island of Giudecca. There, it will alight on the Cipriani – the gorgeous daydream of a hideaway that may be the city’s most exclusive. It has always been a perfect creation – conceived in 1958 as an escape from it all by the chef and hotelier Giuseppe Cipriani. He knew what he was doing, crafting an accommodation masterpiece that was – and still is – an oasis removed from both the tourists who crowd into Venice, and the general commotion of the film festival. But it is not so far removed as to be aloof or impractical. There it rests, at the eastern corner of Giudecca, peering across the lagoon at the belltower of St Mark’s Basilica, just a five-minute ride away by water taxi.
It’s also exceedingly luxurious – both inside, where its chandeliers of Murano glass all but make for an art museum of themselves, and out. The Palladio Suite is the jewel of the 79 sumptuous rooms, a space with 180-degree views of the lagoon, a private dock entrance, a terrace with a plunge pool, and scurrying clouds painted across its ceiling. It is not the only grand space. Somehow, in a city so busy, Cipriani found room to install an Olympic-sized salt-water swimming pool and tennis court. Both have been enjoyed over the years by a cavalcade of talent: Sophia Loren, Yves Saint Laurent, Cary Grant, Burt Reynolds and Catherine Deneuve, to name just a few. Those premiering films on the Lido often make the ‘Cip’ their home, bobbing across the water in Venice’s trademark polished-wood water taxis, or eating shellfish at Il Porticciolo, an oyster bar at the water’s edge. The hotel’s Cip Club, a wooden terrace with breathtaking views of Saint Mark’s, is a delightful place to wind down and make deals. And there are opportunities for relaxation too, at the house spa, which sits within the Casanova Gardens – so-named because the great Venetian lover used to stroll and woo within them.
Cocktails are a firm tradition in the Cipriani’s world. Giuseppe was also the brains behind the famous Harry’s Bar (see opposite page), while George Clooney, a regular guest, helped to create the Buona Notte (a mix of vodka, lime, fresh ginger, cane sugar, bitters and cranberry juice) and the Nina’s Special (a combination of elderflower and passionfruit, named in honour of his mother) on prior stays. Hollywood Authentic’s founder also has a drink named after him; ‘The Greg’ is a bowl glass filled with ice and prosecco. Saluti!
2. THE HOTEL EXCELSIOR One hotel has always stood at the epicentre of the Venice Film Festival – acting as its official venue since the inaugural event in 1932. But then, the Excelsior can trace its tale back even further than that. It formally opened its doors in 1908, amid the optimism of the Belle Époque – the period of good times that preceded the First World War.
It does not sit among the bridges and palaces of fabled San Marco – instead, it waits on that long barrier island, the Lido, facing the Adriatic. Its location has always served the festival well, softening the cut and thrust of the event with sea breezes, golden beachfront views and a landing jetty slap-bang next to the festival’s premiere cinema. This formula has worked since 6 August 1932, when the original festival began with a screening, out on the terrace, of the horror classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with Fredric March in the dual title role. There have been plenty more star guests in the subsequent decades – such as Winston Churchill, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who slumbered in its spacious rooms. Appropriately, there have been plenty of visits by Hollywood royalty as well – Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, James Cagney and Joan Crawford all enjoyed scarcely needed beauty sleep under the Excelsior’s cupola-dotted roof. Nowadays, many of the festival’s contemporary artists enjoy the Moorish-design balconies during stays and junkets.
The hotel is so embedded in movie culture that it has appeared on camera pretending to be somewhere else. When Robert De Niro’s New York hoodlum eats out at a Long Island seafood restaurant in Once Upon A Time In America, he is, in fact, enjoying the pleasures of the Sala Stucchi – one of the Excelsior’s most feted dining spaces.
3. GRITTI PALACE Like the Cipriani and the Excelsior, the Gritti Palace’s location is both desirable and on the water – but, in this case, on the north edge of the Grand Canal, in the core of the medieval city. Formerly the Palazzo Pisani Gritti, a stately mansion originally constructed in the 14th century, it still bears the name of its most famous resident, Andrea Gritti, the nobleman who held court as the Doge (Prince) of Venice between 1523 and 1538. He is not the only power player to have slept here. In the near-130 years since the palazzo was converted into a hotel (in 1895), the likes of Grace Kelly, Humphrey Bogart and Charlie Chaplin have all checked into its ornately decorated rooms (82 in total, including 10 suites), as well as Ernest Hemingway – always a man with good taste in accommodation. And the hotel became a cinematic star in its own right in Woody Allen’s romantic caper Everyone Says I Love You – the actor-director’s typically anxious New Yorker attempting to woo Julia Roberts, who is staying in the Gritti’s Hemingway Suite.
More recently, the property became a safe haven for Tom Cruise, who was in Venice when the Covid pandemic struck in March 2020, while doing the groundwork for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. He made the wholly understandable decision to lock down in the city at the Gritti Palace. Why wouldn’t he, when the Riva Lounge, a grand terrace with one of the best views of the Grand Canal, awaits?
As writer W Somerset Maugham observed: ‘There are few things in life more pleasant than to sit on the terrace of the Gritti when the sun, about to set, bathes in lovely colour the Salute.’ Its green marble and antique mirrored interior makes for one of the most beautiful bars in Italy. Order the dry martini (Hemingway’s favourite tipple while staying) from the bespoke martini cart, and relax.
4. HOTEL DANIELI The regal Danieli has been a supremely distinguished spot on the Venetian map for more than 700 years. Set just around the corner from St Mark’s Square (with a rear facade that overlooks the quayside of Riva degli Schiavoni), its location is also superb. It encompasses another 14th-century mansion, the Palazzo Dandolo. And as with the Gritti, its name harks back to a genteel former resident – Giuseppe Dal Niel, a wealthy 19th-century local, who went by the nickname “Danieli”. It was he who purchased the property in 1824, restored it lavishly, and began its transformation into a hotel. It now houses the renowned Gritti Epicurean School and the Explorer’s Library, a sacred space for bookworms, with its collection of rare tomes.
Danieli would surely be thrilled that his passion project is still so revered exactly two centuries later. Charles Dickens, Peggy Guggenheim, Leonard Bernstein, Marcel Proust and Honoré de Balzac, as well as Steven Spielberg, have all crossed the threshold. It is a star location for The Tourist and the Venetian segment of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
It is also one of the sites to have helped to cement the alliance between Venice and James Bond – a union that began with From Russia With Love in 1963, and continued with 2006’s Casino Royale. However, it was neither Sean Connery nor Daniel Craig who strolled through the Danieli on celluloid. Its Suite del Doge (royal suite) housed a spot of horseplay between Roger Moore and Lois Chiles in 1979’s Moonraker.
If you can tear your eyes away from the fondant of a balustraded internal staircase in the lobby, check out the photos of another noted guest – Elizabeth Taylor and her Pekingese pups arriving for one of her many stays.
HARRY’S BAR A true Venetian icon, the bijou Harry’s Bar was opened in 1931 by Giuseppe Cipriani, 27 years before he dreamt up his hotel. He named it after an American tourist, Harry Pickering, to whom he lent money to while working as a bartender at the Hotel Europa. Pickering later returned to Venice with the repayment and more; enough cash for Cipriani to open his own establishment. It is a watering hole where two indulgent traditions were born. In 1934, Cipriani paired champagne and white peach juice to produce the Bellini, a refreshing delight of a drink that many festival-goers will be familiar with. And in 1963, Venetian countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo requested a light snack, adding that her doctors had instructed her not to eat processed meat. In a moment, Cipriani had invented beef carpaccio, complementing the thin slivers of pink flesh with lemon juice and salt.
To sip a Bellini, in trademark stemless glasses, at the wooden bar is to follow in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote and Maria Callas.
DA IVO RESTAURANT George Clooney held his stag do this at this cosy San Marco trattoria with cheery red tablecloths, specials chalked on a gilt-framed blackboard, and its own gondola stop. With good reason. The menu takes in oysters and delights such as duck pasta, octopus ragu, Granseola crab and the Venetian desert, Sgroppino – whipped lemon sorbet, prosecco and vodka with a dash of Calvados, designed to ‘untie a little knot’ after over-indulging. Which you surely will.
Photographs by RICK O’BRIEN Words by ABBIE CORNISH
My ongoing culinary explorations have led me to some of the finest Mexican restaurants, challenging the notion that the best Mexican food must be street food – simple, inexpensive and casual. While the vibrant flavours of a roadside taco stand are undisputed, there is a different kind of allure in the upscale dining experiences offered by places like Quetzal, located in Toronto, Canada, helmed by Chef Steven Molnar.
Upon entering Quetzal (named after the resplendent national bird of Guatemala, distinguished by its brightly coloured tail feathers), guests are enveloped in a warm sensory charm. Centred around an open fire, the whole kitchen vibrates with the energy of the flame.
Quetzal is cosy and inviting. The space is well designed and custom fit to perfectly handle the heat and smoke from the open fires that burn all evening. After service, the crew swiftly packs down and the remaining red-hot embers are placed into a large kiln. The same embers are used to light the next day’s fire. There’s something lovely about this. As practical as it may be, the process feels spiritual and ritualistic.
It’s comfortable here. The vibe is relaxed and friendly. Chef Molnar is centre stage, accompanied by an array of characters who are more than adept in the kitchen. The service is prompt, knowledgeable and attentive – and everyone is happy.
Quetzal celebrates regional Mexican cuisine, inspired by traditional flavours and cooking styles, all prepared over a 28 foot-long open wood fire. Traditional moles, salsas and little-known ingredients are infused with an abundance of local produce making for a one-of-a-kind, elevated dining experience. Since assuming the role of head chef in 2019, Steven Molnar has spent years honing the craft of wood-fire cooking. His exploration of Mexican cuisine, in conjunction with his unique culinary background, has helped solidify Quetzal’s reputation as one of the premier dining destinations in Toronto, earning it a deserved Michelin Star. And this year, the restaurant ranked #12 in the 2024 Canada’s 100 Best restaurant list.
Here you can enjoy a very affordable and delectable tasting menu or order à la carte. The tasting menu ($125 CAD) is of exceptional value. Each course was a celebration of refined craftsmanship, marrying traditional flavours with modern dining standards. The pièce de résistance of the evening was undoubtedly the whole fish (whole Sea Bream with salsa roja and salsa cruda), perfectly seasoned and served with petite, soft, handmade tortillas. This dish alone encapsulated the perfect balance that high-end Mexican cuisine strives for.
Some of my other favourites that evening were the ensalada verde, with baby gem lettuce, Cookstown radishes, sunflower seeds, toasted sesame, chayote, poblano kosho and trout roe. Simple but with a little Chef Molnar twist on it, a gentle touch of bitter and sweet, a combination that Molnar does well in a variety of dishes. A unique style that is a delight to the taste buds. I also loved the dry-aged amberjack aguachile, which is accompanied by pasilla and chickpea miso, rhubarb juice, jicama, amaranth, habanero, scallion oil and white soy. And the memela is absolutely delicious: a traditional masa, made with homemade corn dough using a cónico azul that comes from Puebla, stuck with cheese that is crafted in-house, called quesillo. The quesillo is long and pulled in strands, looking almost like a ball of yarn. On top is a salsa de chile morita, made from very small chillies that are both floral and smoky. And speaking of smoky, here we also have a smoked shiitake mushroom conserva, some mizuna, papa chicharron and grilled runner beans. So good! Another notable dish is the bone marrow and wild Argentinian shrimp. Such a great combination. I loved getting my hands dirty with this one!
The desserts are well worth indulging in. I particularly loved the coconut nicuatole. It’s the signature dessert here and has been on the menu since day one. Coconut milk and coconut cream are blended with leftover masa from the kitchen. After that, the combo is cooked down into a silken custard texture and whipped. It’s then served with pineapple compressed with hibiscus syrup, mezcal, meringue and mint. It’s memorable, that’s for sure.
With an extensive beverage menu, including an incredibly long wine list and many delicious handcrafted cocktails, Quetzal also makes for a great watering hole. Wine pairing is priced at $100 CAD per person. I thoroughly enjoyed the pairing, definitely worth it. Though I have to say the highlight for me was the ‘No Heather, It’s Heather’s Turn’ cocktail, also known as ‘The Green Heather’. This cocktail is made with agua santa mezcal, pisco, pineapple, green sauce, celery bitters and lime. It’s fresh yet savoury, a perfect cocktail in my opinion.
Critics often argue that Mexican cuisine should stick to its roots, emphasizing accessibility and straightforwardness. However, chefs at top-tier establishments like Quetzal are proving that Mexican food can also thrive in a fine-dining context. They reinterpret classic dishes using high-quality ingredients and sophisticated techniques, presented with artistic flair. This approach doesn’t just transform the ingredients; it elevates the entire dining experience, offering a new perspective on traditional Mexican flavours.
The culinary world is inherently about evolution and personal expression. Fine-dining Mexican establishments contribute to this diversity, allowing both chefs and diners to explore and appreciate the cuisine in novel ways. The journey through such meals is more than just eating; it’s an immersive experience that respects the past while boldly embracing the future.
Photographs by RICK O’BRIEN Words by ABBIE CORNISH Quetzal is located at: 419 College St, Toronto, ON M5T 1T1, Canada. The restaurant is open from Wednesday to Sunday, accepting reservations and walk-ins from 6:00pm to 10:00pm, and can be booked on Open Table. quetzaltoronto.com
