St. Louis Eats and Drinks With Joe and Ann Pollack

Truffles

When Truffles opened, just over a decade ago, within earshot of the venerable Busch's Grove, it looked to many people that Charles Cella and his daughter were tossing a red challenge flag at the fading jewel next door. Well, they won. The space to the east, now a grocery store, can be described as Busch's Grave and Truffles stands alone as Ladue's top restaurant. That may be slightly hyperbolic; Truffles' excellence spreads far beyond the tony suburb, and is a tribute to John Cain, its long-time general manager, and a series of first-rate chefs.

At the moment, John Griffiths, formerly the executive chef to Larry Forgione at An American Place, is settling in as the head man in the kitchen, with some menu jiggery-pokery in process. Cain has an excellent eye for talent (he probably would have made Sam Bradford a No. 1) and for trends. Truffles began as a steak house, added French touches here and there. When Hurricane Katrina sent Mark Serice in search of work, Cain hired him and the menu shifted into New Orleans mode. Now, Griffiths is turning it slightly toward Italian, but the bouillabaisse, which we raved about nine years ago in "Beyond Gooey Butter Cake," remains brilliant.

We ate very well there the other night, enjoying the changed focus and the fact that Griffiths has added a few Italian-inspired dishes that we have not seen on local menus. (Please don't expect perfection from us, we haven't seen every menu.)

The Italian version of steak tartare, carne cruda, is a sure winner. Excellent raw beef, without egg yolk, is seasoned with a little chopped, roasted chile pepper, giving flavor, but little if any discernible fire. What lifts it to the unusual is the sprinkling of roasted hazelnuts, adding a woodsy note and a delightful textural lift to the meat. Served alongside is a little arugula and slivers of red onion, a fine combination wearing such a light slick of olive oil that they could dance in a club on the East Side. Burrata also is new to us on a St. Louis menu; it's a fresh cheese, made in-house, a pouch about the size of half a baseball. The exterior is mozzarella, its soft interior a combination of mozzarella and cream. Simple but rich and sophisticated, it comes with grilled bread on which to spread it or merely as a mop to pursue any cheese that escapes the fork. An apple-fennel slaw gives some crunch and flavor contrast, but it, too, is understated.

And then there were the agnolotti, little pillows of pasta filled with pumpkin. Yes, pumpkin, a traditional filling around Mantua, Italy, although we're not sure if the ones there are sauced with a little prosciutto, as Griffith's was. Light, so light, the pumpkin savory--maybe a little sage in there?--a revelation. 

Not all the menu is Italian, and we suspect/hope it never will be. Bouillabaisse arrived with a fine aroma, the outstanding, garlicky, rusty-colored broth holding scallops, shrimp, mussels and a white-fleshed fish. Topped off with a couple of the traditional toasted slices of bread, each wearing the garlic mayonnaise known as aioli, it was succulent. Our only quibble was that the fish, unlike their shellfish cousins, was quite overcooked.

 

It's the time of year for game, and the idea of pappardelle with a boar ragu was alluring. Pappardelle, the wide noodle, is traditional with game sauces; Truffles' pappardelle is fresh rather than dried. For those who haven't tried it, fresh pasta is a whole different beast than dried, the texture quite different, a little chewier without the graininess that can mark dried pasta when cooked al dente. And the ragu wasn't the tomato sauce that the commercial name has made a whole generation expect. Rather, this was smallish chunks of the meat cooked to fall-apart, fork-tender with aromatic root vegetables plus onion and celery, a little grated orange peel and some wine. The resulting liquid, mainly the meat juices, sauced the pasta to perfection. Despite the seeming simplicity, this is deeply flavorful, clearly a reward for venturing out in the increasingly cold weather.

Bananas Foster is something we seldom succumb to, as much as we like it. The dish is a house favorite, with Cain delighting in the service. The kitchen also is making its own gelato, giving us another--and sufficient--excuse to splurge on dessert. Rather than the usual vanilla, we opted for pina colada sorbet and capuccino gelato. The pina colada was extremely good, first the pineapple hitting the mouth and then a lingering coconut, but to our surprise, it was completely overwhelmed by the banana-brown sugar-ness of the Foster. But the capuccino stood up nicely, adding its own delicious notes.

Service is always first-rate here, unobtrusive and knowledgeable. And the wine list, as we said, is deep and wide--Hallelujah!--thanks to Cain. We drank an excellent, nicely priced (about $40) Spanish grenache blend, which did particularly well with the carne cruda, but was sufficiently balanced that it handled both the boar ragu and the bouillabaisse.

Please note that the web site menu is not up to date.

 

Truffles

9202 Clayton Rd., Ladue

314-567-9100

www.trufflesinladue.com

Lunch Mon.-Fri., Dinner Mon.-Sat.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: Yes

Entrees: $18-$30

Steve Ross

Steve Ross exemplifies style and grace like few other people, and he displayed it before a full house last night at the Kranzberg Arts Center. He will repeat tonight (Saturday). The apparently ageless cabaret singer is in an "out-of-town" run with his new show, "Rhythm and Romance," which is scheduled to open at the Algonquin in New York in mid-January.

So it was opening night, with some new material and some that was reworked from his earlier cabaret shows. There were a few missed notes and a few missed lyrics, but it was, in the Ross tradition, an satisfying evening of entertainment. Most of the songs came from a couple of Ross favorites, Noel Coward and Cole Porter, a pair of writers who wove risque lyrics into their songs with the greatest of ease. Coward's "Bar on the Piccolo Marina" and "Have Some Madeira, M'Dear," are delightful examples.

Ross' exemplary diction and phrasing, singing with a raised eyebrow, as it were, are perfectly suited to Coward, who viewed the world with a jaundiced eye. "And Her Mother Came, Too," is a perfect example, and on a more serious note, "Sail Away" could almost be an autobiographical song of loneliness.

Porter was well-represented by "It's De-Lovely" and "Just One of Those Things," and Ross also scored with the Porter ballads, "Down in the Depths (on the 90th Floor)" and "I Am in Love."

As always, Ross, definitely dapper in his dark green dinner jacket, worked his own touches into music and lyrics, and he offered one number, not normally considered a cabaret song but a lovely, winsome tale of memory and loss, "Mira," in which a young woman mourns the fact she left the small town where "everybody knew my name." It's from a 1961 musical, "Carnival!" written by Bob Merrill and sung by Anna Maria Alberghetti; the show is also noteworthy because it was Jerry Orbach's first major Broadway role.

Ross closed with a piano piece that offered a medley of songs made famous by Edith Piaf, returned with an encore, an effective version of "For All We Know."

-Joe

This Week's Wine, November 27, 2010

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving.

And now that the niceties are out of the way, we can get down to the serious business of fun and frolic during the holiday season.

I was filling out a questionnaire the other day, sent by a wine p.r. person to wine writers, and she asked, "What aspect(s) of wine do you most enjoy covering?"

The immediate response is, "Drinking it!" but that was a little too simple, even if truthful.

"Drinking it in the company of a winemaker," was next. I've known many winemakers over the years, and have had outstanding experiences. Whether we're drinking their wine or someone else's, I learn something. More important, I enjoy the conversation. Most winemakers love their work and are proud of what they do, but are not pretentious about it. After all, most begin as growers (i.e., farmers) or lab rats (i.e., chemists or biologists).
Greg Harrington came from a different direction. A New Yorker, and a graduate of the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, he came to winemaking from wine-selling. He was a Master Sommelier and director of wine programs for Emeril Lagasse in New Orleans and Las Vegas, then became wine director for the Spago restaurants.

He was neither a farmer nor a chemist, but he knew wine, what it should taste like and look like. He tasted some Washington State wines from the Walla Walla area, and he and his wife, Pam, left the Big Apple and crossed the continent in search of the little grape. They founded Gramercy Cellars (a little nod to Gramercy Park, a lovely, peaceful enclave in Manhattan) and started making wine with a touch of the Rhone.

We sat at the bar at Robust recently, tasting a little sparkling wine from another maker, and talking of this and that, primarily about wine. Greg was in town to display some of his wines--two Syrahs, a Tempranillo, a Cabernet Sauvignon--and perhaps to sell a few, too. His love of big wines, and talent for creating them, was on display in his voice and in the bottle, and his affection for the quieter, lower-key lifestyle of southeastern Washington.

"I've probably tasted more wines than I can count," he said, "from great bottles from great vineyards and vintages to stuff I could barely swallow, but when I tasted some of these, I felt at home. The wines from Walla Walla all are from old vines; we never got phylloxera up where we are; maybe that has something to do with it. But they have a richness, and a clean flavor, that I knew I wanted to try making them."

Greg brought a double-handful of wines to try, many from Wines of Substance, a creation in a partnership with Jason Huntley and Jamie Brown of Waters Winery in Walla Walla. The wines have delightful labels, designed in bold black and white to look like symbols from the table of elements, so that Sy equals Syrah and Pg is Pinot Gris. The wines range in price from $16 to $21.50 and are fine values. The '09 Riesling, for example, showed a touch of sugar, enough to make it a fine companion to Asian cuisine (see more Rieslings, below) and a pleasing aperitif.

Like his Gramercy wines, Harrington is strong on the grapes that grow along France's Rhone River, like Roussanne, Grenache, Viognier, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, even the rare Counoise. By the way, Roussanne and Viognier are white grapes, the others red, the Counoise dark enough to be almost black.

He had two 2008 versions of Syrah from the Columbia River Valley, one very good, the other just short of great, both at about $45 a bottle. The good one was 100 percent Syrah, dark and rich, with a touch of leather and tobacco and a warm, smooth finish that lasted much longer than expected. But the other, dubbed Lagniappe Syrah, just blew me away. "Lagniappe" is a tribute to Harrington's years in New Orleans, where a "lagniappe" is a bonus, like a couple of extra oysters on your platter. Harrington's "lagniappe" is the effect of 7 percent Viognier blended with the Syrah. The wine seems brighter in the nose and on the palate, the flavors of berries sharper. It was a superb drinking experience.

The '08 Tempranillo ($44) was another winner, its round, dark richness making it a glorious accompaniment to some dark chocolate. And an '07 Cabernet Sauvignon ($44) also was terrific, among the best Washington Cabs I've tasted.

And speaking of Walla Walla, I must dip into a couple of moments from long, long ago. When I was a boy, in the 1930s, a comedian named Danny Kaye sang a novelty song called "Triplets," by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, about three identical siblings who hated one another, but in one of the nonsense lyrics, Kaye sang, "Every summer we go away to Baden, Baden, Baden; every winter we come back home to Walla, Walla, Walla." I laughed, learned all the lyrics. Some 25 years later, in 1953, here came a wonderful movie, "The Band Wagon," with Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Jack Buchanan and Nanette Fabray. Lots of great song and dance, and then, Astaire, Buchanan and Fabray, sitting in high chairs and wearing identical toddler outfits, sang "Triplets."

 

* * * *

RUN AMUCK WITH RIESLINGS: Besides the Wines of Substance Riesling mentioned above, I sampled, a pair of tasty, inexpensive samples recently in a discussion and some tastings with Asian food. As noted above, the slight sweetness and crisp minerality of the Riesling grape is excellent with spicy Indian, Thai or Chinese cooking. The touch of sweetness rounds off the spicy tang of chiles or lemon grass; a swallow of the wine emphasizes, and yet controls the flavor from the ingredients.

J. Lohr Bay Mist White Riesling from Monterey County (2009, $10) has excellent balance, the sweetness arriving on the late palate, and good mineral qualities, with grapefruit flavors and hints of citrus in the aroma.

Clos du Bois California Riesling (2009, $12), in an jinteresting contrast to the Lohr, hits with the sweetness early, balanced by some citrus and melon, then slides nicely into good balance, like a child adjusting his position on a teeter-totter. Quite tasty, with a nice finish.

--Joe

127 Hours

The all-time, absolutely perfect, first-date movie opens here today. I can hear the dialogue now:

Boy: Hi, would you like to go to the movies tonight?

Girl: Sure. Where shall we go?

Boy: It's a new movie. It's called "127 Hours."

Girl: Sounds awfully long. What's it about?

Boy: It's about a guy who cuts his own arm off.

Girl: Sorry, I'm going to wash the dishes and scrub the floor and do the laundry.

The story of Aron Ralston, trapped in a Utah canyon in 2003, is fascinating. Carried along by immense ego and belief in his own ability, he went hiking alone, without telling a soul where he was going, and fell into Blue John Canyon, dislodging just enough rocks to trap him by one arm. Eventually, realizing that the most drastic of action was vital if he were going to live, he amputated his arm below the elbow, using a knife that wasn't very sharp. In an amazing display of tenacity, he then climbed out of the canyon and walked until he found some other hikers and was rescued.

His book about the events, aptly and wryly titled, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," tells his story, and provided the material for Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy to write a screenplay.

Yes, it's the same Danny Boyle who directed "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Trainspotting," among other fine movies.

Many critics have heaped praise on the film, but I consider it an exercise in voyeurism, a titillating dramatic retelling of a horrible, stomach-turning event. The cinematography, by Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak, is remarkable, even as it shows the beauty of the Utah wild lands, contrasting with the pain--physical, mental and emotional--that Ralston lives with as he ponders his choices, remembers his family and friends, fights off hysteria. James Franco is excellent in the role, showing a wonderful, rollicking, Devil-may-care attitude as he goes deeper and deeper into the desert.

Early on, he meets a couple of young women, also hikers, and he offers directions and advice with joy that he has met people who may like the outdoors and the freedom it offers as much as he does. The actresses, each with with strong pedigrees (Amber Tamblyn is the daughter of actor Russ; Kate Mara is the grand-daughter of NFL owners Tim Mara and Art Rooney Jr.) and considerable acting style, though they don't have the opportunity to show much here.

But the movie itself gets as painful as afternoons in the desert heat. We all know what is going to happen, and that it's going to be bloody. The only tension is waiting for it to occur, and sometimes quashing the desire to speak to the screen. "Get on with it! It's getting very boring," is what you want to say.

127 Hours opens today on several screens

--Joe

Eclipse

We're great proponents of late-night dining, since both of us have spent many years in jobs that weren't 9-to-5, so when we walked into Eclipse a little before ten and found the joint jumping, it was a splendid feeling. While the bar of the handsome restaurant in the Moonrise Hotel was considerably busier than the dining room, people were indeed having dinner, and dining parties continued to arrive until midnight or later. We managed to get in on the full dinner menu, but after 10 p.m., there's still a lot of good stuff on the late-night menu, served until – whoa! – 2 a.m.

The menu has just gone to its fall iteration, which gave us the chance to kick things off with a cup of hearty venison stew, thick with ground meat, sweet potatoes and the expected onions and celery. A soft cloud of paper-thin prosciutto slices was mounded on toasted olive bread, savory and crunchy and a little chewy. But the appetizer star was deep-fried calamari, which sounds totally mundane but was remarkable. The batter was light-light-light, and somehow it remained crisp despite being tossed in a peppery, garlicky butter sauce. Slices of jalapeno garnished the dish to alert the unwary, which doesn't include us. We are very wary, and we thought it absolutely superior.

More venison was in the special, a meatloaf sauced with mushrooms and served with mashed potatoes. Very moist, not an easy trick with venison, and full of flavor, including a faint hint of the gaminess that sets venison apart. The accompanying mushrooms were just right, and the potatoes were fresh and the perfect accompaniment. The same potatoes rode shotgun with boneless short ribs braised in ale, the brew amping up their rich meatiness. Another side, along with some roasted potatoes and carrots, was a small Yorkshire pudding. Essentially, Yorkshire pudding is a bread; it's made with the same batter as popovers, and produces an airy, slightly chewy crust that is excellent for wiping up gravies and sauces.

A fine fat pork chop from a Berkshire hog was splendid, sitting on a tangle of delicious roast fennel and pearl onions and joined by first-rate apple chutney. Perfectly seared scallops smiled happily under a killer sauce of crab, cream and white wine, the sauce studded with orzo pasta.

Any item with a name like Twenty Dollar Burger is just asking folks like us to see if it lives up to the that promise. Eight ounces of beef, more of that paper-thin prosciutto, a fried egg, and foie gras butter on a brioche bun. And some field greens, although they came alongside, not on top. This is a sandwich far too tall for the human mouth, and we know some would worry about dripping egg yolk on a shirt while eating in the traditional way. Clearly a knife-and-fork job, although we suspect the burger was engineered to be eaten otherwise, with the foie gras butter and egg meant to add richness, and a stained shirt front be damned. However, it just doesn't bring the feeling of indulgence that spending a double-sawbuck should, offering nice enough material and flavor but lacking the necessary wow factor. The fries alongside also flopped, the potatoes tasting sweet, as though they had been too long in cold storage.

The wine list is modest--the crowd looks as if it leans to fancy cocktails--but has a fine variety, at good prices and with a selection that included a couple from Missouri vineyards. A sparkling rose, dry and delicious, delivered the perfect aperitif, especially with the calamari, and a Rhone from Guigal was just right with dinner, especially with the venison and the pork chop.

Apple bread pudding was an outstanding dessert, moist and fluffy, with generous chunks of Granny Smith apple giving tartness to offset the sweet elements. Definitely what the British would call moreish . The blondie sundae had dark, dark chocolate ice cream that we suspect came from Serendipity atop a blondie with coconut, chocolate chunks and nuts, caramel sauce ladled over all, plus the traditional whipped cream, of course. The combination was excellent; our only quibble is that the blondie by itself was dry, but perhaps that provides a reason for an otherwise cautious diner to spoon up more ice cream or whipped cream.

Crackerjack service, with a chap who clearly picked up our group's rhythm of eating and adjusted things accordingly. The restaurant, like its hotel home, is decorated with a bow to outer space, or space travel, or "Music From the Hearts of Space," but on display, here and there but never ostentatious, are some of Joe Edwards' baby dolls, toys and other ephemera from the first half of the 20th century. 

Eclipse

The Moonrise Hotel

6177 Delmar Blvd, University City

314-726-2222

www.eclipsestlouis.com

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and late-night, every day

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $14-$28

Yummy Architecture

To kick off the holiday season, we'd like to share a little architecture we recently inspected. We haven't been traveling; this is local. And it's different. We encourage the departments of architecture at the local universities to check out these houses and consider the possibilities.

Lydia's House, a St. Louis group that provides transitional housing for abused women and their children, is sponsoring its annual gingerbread house competition at Plaza Frontenac. For the past three years, we've been honored to serve as judges, a job that's both easy and difficult.

Entrants range from high school students to professional pastry chefs. There's always a great sense of whimsy about the entries, which must be entirely edible – no plastic reindeer. Some of the work is so delicate, it's hard to imagine it's not porcelain.

They're on display on the upper level around the atrium in front of Nieman-Marcus. Visitors can view the houses, buy raffle tickets to win one, or even purchase one to take home when the contest ends Dec. 5.

We think university architects--faculty and/or students--should consider entering; the next Norman Foster or Frank Gehry could have some great ideas for constructing in carbohydrates.

Enjoy the pictures.

They go from a whirl around the world

 

to a wintry day in Paris

 

and a stop to check the time in London

 

and then a visit to a village in South Africa.

 

 

 

Elise LaBarge

There was a most auspicious debut in St. Louis last night. Soprano Elise LaBarge, showing more of a feel for the world of cabaret than singers twice her age, offered her first program, about 75 minutes of Kurt Weill music delivered in an unassuming manner, but with great promise for the future. Young and attractive, with a smile that went from perky to sexy and back again without apparent effort, LaBarge sang, and chatted, and sang some more, charming a sellout crowd in the Kranzberg Arts Center.

There were a couple of rough spots, and early on some harshness in the high notes, but she caught every word to perfection and she sang with an understanding and command of a mature performer.

LaBarge, a St. Louisan educated at Washington University, has performed around town as an actress, and as a singer with the Union Avenue Opera Company. In fact, that company's conductor and artistic director, pianist Scott Schoonover, was her accompanist, and Victoria Bannon joined in on both violin and viola. Allyson Ditchey directed.

Weill, a German composer who moved from Berlin to Paris in the 1930s, and then on to New York and Hollywood, had a superb sardonic touch, and a singer, Lotte Lenya, who had the same attribute. Weill and Lenya, by the way, married, divorced and married again. LaBarge chose music from each of his three homes. She came on stage with long, bright red gloves and sandals for "Mack the Knife," "Barbara's Song" and "Pirate Jenny," with Bertolt Brecht's lyrics from "A Threepenny Opera," along with a powerful rendition, in German, of the Marlene Dietrich favorite, "Falling in Love Again," but with a less husky voice. LaBarge then to Paris and exchanged the gloves for a beret for a good cover of the Edith Piaf standby, "La Vie en Rose," and a better one of Mistinguette's favorite, "My Man," later a trademark for Fanny Brice and then Barbra Streisand as Brice in "Funny Girl."

Arriving in this country in the mid-1930s, Weill created a number of Broadway musicals, beginning with "One Touch of Venus," whose lyricist was Ogden Nash, the creator of wonderfully humorous doggerel like "Candy is dandy/ But liquor is quicker." LaBarge really scored with "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," playing, in order, innocent, winsome and sexy.

A nod to three great American musical theater composers followed as LaBarge offered a fine rendition of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," from the show of the same name; Leonard Bernstein's "Little Bit in Love" from "Wonderful Town," and the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein II "Hello Young Lovers," from "The King and I." It would be terrific if LaBarge pronounced Bernstein's name correctly before she next sings one of his songs--it's Bern-STINE and not Bern-STEEN.

She closed, in delightfully witty style, with "The Saga of Jenny," singing Ira Gershwin's lyrics for the ground-breaking 1941 musical "Lady in the Dark," with Gertrude Lawrence as Jenny, who "would make up her mind."

Weill (1900-1950) was a talented composer, working with a variety of the lyricists. His music often was political, bitter and sardonic, an understandable attitude for a German Jew driven out of his own country by the Nazis.

LaBarge, with excellent stage presence, demonstrated it when she veered far away from one of her numbers, but stopped, explained briefly and scored high marks with it on the second try. She has a bright future ahead, given the rough road of show business, and will sing again tonight, but promoter Jim Dolan happily reported that it's already a sellout.

Elise LaBarge's cabaret performance opened Friday night at the Kranzberg Arts Centre and continues there on Saturday.

--Joe

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

They're getting a little old to remain as the Magical Three Mouseketeers, but Harry, Hermione and Ron are back again, continuing the transformation of the magical series from light, optimistic and beautiful fantasy to just another horror story, with almost-continual explosions to serve as punctuation. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I," opens today, offering pre-Thanksgiving indigestion with the realization that there's still another one to come.

Watching the three kids go through puberty has sparked some interest, and the fact that Daniel Radcliffe has played "Equus" on stage, and soon will be on Broadway as J. Pierrepont Finch in a revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," shows there is life beyond Hogwarts. And the many veterans who have found some good paydays with Potter are hanging around. People like Alan Rickman, John Hurt, Robbie Coltrane, Miranda Richardson, Bill Nighy, Helena Bonham Carter, Julie Walters, Richard Griffiths, Ralph Fiennes and Michael Gambon always are fun to watch. And the voices of Simon McBurney, as Kreature, and Toby Jones, as Dobby, are just right, even if they seem to have been pilfered from "The Lord of the Rings."

 I have two complaints, one with the movie, the other with the book that sparked it.

 At almost 2 1/2 hours, the movie is way too long. And J. K. Rowling's tone is too dark. The early volumes had a charming quality, with Rowling writing lines she knew we would laugh at, and us looking for them, finding them and chuckling. Everything has become heavy-handed and grim, though maybe that's the way the world has become.

 But on the plus side, this is a gorgeous movie, a treat for the eyes. Director David Yates, directing his third Potter film, has gathered a technical crew that has amazing skills. The cinematography is glorious, showing English countryside, its lights and darks, that make one want to immediately book a flight. Special effects also are imaginative and impressive, like the scene when a half-dozen Harrys suddenly appear is a delight. The story deals with friendship, loyalty, jealousy, the constant struggle between good and evil and lots of other things.

 Too many of the actors are way over the top, but that's obviously the way Yates's vision is, and in many respects, that's the way Rowling wrote it.

 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I, opens today on several screens.

--Joe

A Film Unfinished

The more that long-hidden evidence is revealed, the more horror is found. "A Film Unfinished," which opens today, is true to its title. It never was finished. But what there is shows scenes of unspeakable cruelty that took place in Warsaw, in May, 1942. It's a German film, shot in the Ghetto, whose purpose was to show then world what a nice life the Jews were living under German occupation.

     To that end, German cameraman were sent to Warsaw and ordered to stage scenes--scenes of parties, parades, concerts, theater pieces, even a lavish funeral.

     Ghetto residents, starving and fearing their ultimate end, were ordered to bring out their party clothes, ill-fitting as they were, and to participate in these events, often stepping over dead bodies in the street as they did.

     At the end of the war, three reels of film, labeled "Ghetto," was stored in a cave with thousands more reels of film. It was found and used as a research tool, and then a fourth reel was found and it began to make more sense. Men with cameras shoot a lot of film, and there's a lot of non-staged footage of people struggling to live, to eat, even to die. Dignity was stripped of these people, and watching scrawny, naked, dehumanized bodies pushed into a crude slide to end in a mass grave is unnerving.

     Rudiger Vogler, one of the cameraman, is interviewed by Alexander Beyer, and tells stories of the experience, admitting that it affected him for years afterward. Writer-director Yael Hersenski has done remarkable work in putting this raw footage together, sometimes showing all the takes that the cameramen shot. The film never was finished, though the pictures, and Vogler's stories, demonstrate this piece of propaganda in the making, given the lie by all the people in the ghetto who were dying every day.

     Not fun at all, but should be seen--and remembered.

     A Film Unfinished opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

-- Joe

Fair Game

While spies always are exactly what the title of "Fair Game" implies, they are entitled to better treatment by their employers than Valerie Plame got from the George W. Bush White House, which leaked her name to a newspaper columnist after her husband, Joe Wilson, found no evidence to support the Bush Administration's rush to war in Iraq. The movie, with excellent performances from Sean Penn and Naomi Watts as the embattled, but innocent couple, opens today.

Based on memoirs from both parties, whose marriage was strained during their ordeal, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth wrote an interesting screenplay, and director Doug Liman got powerful performances from both stars, in their third film together.

Plame obviously loved life as a CIA agent. The travel, the at-a-moment's-notice adventure, the high-pressure dealing were thrilling to her, and Watts's posture, her purposeful walk, her entire attitude shows that the job had rich sexual overtones for her, not that she was unfaithful to her husband, but that the lifestyle tingled throughout her body.

Wilson a long-time diplomat in Iraq and Africa, was minding his own business when the yellow-cake episode took place. The White House, looking for something--anything--to help take the U.S. to war, followed a rumor that Iraq was buying fissionable material in Niger, and sought proof. Wilson had been stationed there, knew government officials there. The CIA asked Plame for an endorsement, followed her recommendation and sent him to investigate. He found nothing, no evidence of fissionable material, no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, came home and reported it.

The White House ignored him, Condoleezza Rice talked of mushroom clouds, Dick Cheney railed about righteousness, and we went to war, trailing lies about weapons of mass destruction.

None were found.

Wilson was so angry that he wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times, accusing the administration of telling lies and leading the nation to war under false pretenses. The administration retaliated by revealing that Plame was a covert CIA agent, which happens to be a federal crime. Columnist Robert Novak received the information from Cheney's right-hand man, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Libby eventually was tried and convicted, but his prison sentence was commuted by Bush, though Libby did not receive a pardon.

Once outed, which came as a great surprise to the Wilson's friends in Washington, she still refrained from commenting at the time. Wilson let his anger out, and Penn is multi-layered and exciting in the role. Their problems put great strain on the marriage, though her father (a small but effective role by playwright-actor Sam Shepard) stood up for Wilson.

 It's a fascinating movie, and political thinking will be a factor in enjoyment, but this critic was filled with shock and awe in watching how the rewards for patriotism are handed out.

Fair Game opens today at Plaza Frontenac.

--Joe