Dinner
and a Movie
Wild
Game Festival in the Forest
By
Steve Herte
Fitting
in plans for my Dinner and aMovie was actually challenging. The
restaurant doesn’t accept reservations except for large parties and
I wanted to ensure I had a table. That meant finding a movie under
two hours long nearby. The restaurant is in Brooklyn Heights. Whoops!
The nearest theater, the Heights Theater is closed. I ended up at the
Court Street megaplex, which I dread because most of the others there
talk to and shout at the movie.
I
chose a horror flick mainly because I thought everyone would be at
the new Leonardo Di Caprio Western. Bad guess. This was opening night
and the theater was almost full. As the movie progressed, the girl on
my right was gradually creeping into my arms in fright. Normally this
would be OK, but I was actually interested in seeing where the movie
was going. Yes, people talked to the screen, but the movie deserved
it. The whole experience was comparable to a night with Mystery
Science Theater 3000. Some comments were very funny.
I’ll
still be cautious when going there. Enjoy.
The
Forest (Gramercy Pictures, 2016) – Director:
Jason Zada. Writers: Nick Antosca, Sarah Cornwell, & Ben Keetal.
Stars: Natalie Dormer, Eoin Macken, Stephanie Vogt, Osamu Tanpopo,
Yasuo Tobishima, Ibuki Kaneda, Akiko Iwase, Kikuo Ichikawa, Noriko
Sakuura, James Owen, Jozef Aoki, Yuho Yamashita, Taylor Kinney, Gen
Sato, Yukiyoshi Ozawa, Terry Diab, & Nadja Mazalica. Color,
Rated PG-13, 95 minutes.
“Let’s
hide in the basement! No, let’s hide in the attic! Why don’t we
just drive away in the running car! Are you crazy? Let’s hide
behind the chainsaws! – Face it. When you’re the star of a horror
movie, you make bad choices.” No truer words were ever written into
a commercial. Remember Nightmare
on Elm Street, Halloween, and Friday
the 13th?
All the characters that ended up dead in those movies made incredibly
bad decisions. Worst one of all was venturing alone into a
potentially dangerous place.
Sara
Price (Dormer) is the practical sister who is always bailing out her
twin, Jess (also Dormer) when she gets into trouble. But now, Jess
has gone to Japan and Sara has nightmares of her running through a
forest screaming for help. She and Jess both admit to “feeling”
or “sensing” what the other is experiencing and Sara is so
troubled by what she’s perceiving, she decides to travel to Tokyo
to find her sister. Even her fiancé Peter (Owen) cannot dissuade her
from going.
Sara
learns that Jess was seen entering Aokigahara Forest at the foot of
Mount Fuji, a place known for the many suicides committed there and
where the sick and disabled were left to die in olden times. Everyone
she speaks to about it is horrified at the thought of her going there
and a young schoolgirl named Mei (Kaneda) shrinks from her because
she thinks she’s a ghost. Mei has met her sister previously.
Nevertheless,
Sara takes the train to the gloomy, out of the way station and has to
walk to her hotel. Along the way she stops at a Visitor Center/Morgue
and asks the woman who answers the door if she has seen her sister.
“Oh yes!” says Mayumi (Sakura). “We have her!” Shocked, Sara
follows her (reluctantly) into the basement where three sheet-covered
bodies lie on metal tables. Mayumi indicates the one that might be
Jess, but is called away by business. Whoops! One of the bodies looks
like it’s breathing. Sara edges toward it slowly until she can pull
back the sheet covering it. It’s horrifically decayed, the audience
screams, but it’s not Jess.
Again,
she’s warned not to enter Aokigahara and, if she does, should not
stray from the path. She pooh-poohs it as superstition and heads for
her hotel, a two-story affair with a bar downstairs, faulty
fluorescent lighting and traditional paper walls. After a scare in
the hallway, Sara retreats to the bar where she meets Aidan (Kinney),
a reporter from Australia who is obviously interested in her. He
echoes all the warnings she’s received so far but eventually admits
that he accompanies a guide named Michi (Ozawa) on his suicide watch
forays into the forest. If they find a body, they note the location
and inform the authorities.
On
their first trip into Aokigahara, they find a yellow tent belonging
to Jess. Sara is overjoyed, because she was told that if someone sets
up a tent, they are not serious about suicide (we learn later that
Jess has attempted suicide twice before – both with pills, thinking
it romantic). She insists on staying at the tent to wait for her
sister to return. Michi is horrified. Aidan agrees to stay with her.
Michi thinks he’s crazy. And the fun begins. Aokigahara is brooding
by day and sinister by night. Something tries to grab Sara through
the tent surface and causes her to venture out into the night. She
sees the schoolgirl Mei again and chases her through the forest.
Remember, this is the practical sister. Fortunately, Aidan finds her
and brings her back to the tent.
In
the morning, they decide to return to the hotel and use the river as
their guide. Sara sees a body floating down the river. Aidan warns
her not to get too close to the edge and leads her back the way they
came. When she protests, he explains that they are following the
river. She looks again at the river and it has changed course.
Although
warned not to believe anything bad she sees in the forest, Sara
believes she can hear Jess’ voice and is tricked into stabbing and
killing Aidan in a dingy shack they find in the forest. Throughout
the film, we see misshapen and monstrous beings at a distance that
zoom up close in an instant. Sara demonstrates her loss of
practicality when she falls into an underground cave, sees Mei again,
and follows her into the darkness. Seriously, would you do that? I
wouldn’t.
Overall, The
Forest is an amalgam of a Guillermo Del Toro film and Blair
Witch Trials complete with a hand-held camera filming Sara
running through the trees and bouncing all over the place. Instead of
creepy little wooden stick creations hanging like kindergarten dream
catchers everywhere, there are colorful tapes and ropes strung up in
the forest, supposedly put there by people who wanted to find their
way out and not get lost.
Natalie
Dormer plays her part so well you believe she’s gone totally out of
her mind with concern for her sister, who, though played by her, just
barely looks like her twin. Taylor Kinney is good, but he’s just
along for the ride. Ibuki Kaneda however, is scary. She can look
innocent and frightened in one moment, vulpine and predatory the
next: The best performance in the movie.
Surprisingly,
for a horror/thriller there is a minimum of blood, but the gross-out
effect is used profusely. Parents, be advised. There were children in
the audience, but it was the adults who were screaming. It was the
second most crowded theater I’ve been to since Star
Wars last month. If sending chills up your spine was the
goal of this film, it accomplished that several times. But the bad
decision-making of the main character got to be so tiresome and
predictable that the audience applauded when hands reached up from
the ground and pulled her under.
And
what of Jess? Spoiler alert: She survives the ordeal and is returned
to her husband, Rob (Macken). To quote the woman sitting next to me:
“This is the stupidest film of all time!”
Rating:
3 out of 5 Martini glasses.
Henry’s
End
44
Henry St. (between Cranberry and Middagh), Brooklyn, NY
Aside
from the New York Aquarium (not scheduled to be fully recovered from
Super-storm Sandy until 2017), Henry’s End is the main reason for
my repeat visits to Brooklyn. Starting the new dining year there has
become a tradition. Admittedly, it doesn’t look like that much on
the outside – a simple brick and block-glass façade facing the
street with the name in hot pink neon in the window. In fact, it has
all the appearance of a small bar. Inside, it’s more gentrified.
Once you make it past the velvet curtain over the second door (to
keep the warm in and the cold out), all is welcoming. Owner/Chef Marc
Lahm will greet you himself, as he did when I appeared at the door.
Some
say it’s cramped – there’s barely room for the staff to fit
between the two rows of tables going length-wise to the window in
back (my favorite table). But I would say it’s just right. The
regular customers are sophisticated, but lively, both young and
mature, Brooklynites and out-of-towners. The air is always full of
enticing aromas from the open kitchen and interesting conversations.
I’ve learned to ignore the décor (or lack of it) and have stopped
bugging Marc about the tri-color ceiling tiles. The atmosphere has a
cozy, lived-in look that instantly calms you as if you’ve just
walked into your own front door after a long and tedious trip.
I
was full of anticipation this year and had my tastes set for a
particular dish. I asked Marc if there was room for one more hungry
person and he indicated that my favorite table was waiting. We wended
our way back and I got settled, thanking Helene for introducing me to
this place. Soon my server, Megan, arrived and asked if I wanted a
drink. Usually, I don’t have to describe my martini, because Marc
automatically asks and makes the perfect one. But Megan is new and I
gave her my preference, assuring her that Marc knows how.
The
menu has changed a little since the last time I visited. The usual
dishes were in their usual places but the font is simpler, larger and
more readable. There are Small Plates, Pastas, Fish Dishes, Chicken
Dishes, Duckling Dishes (these are all spectacular for a first-time
visit), Veal dishes, Lamb & Beef Dishes, a Prix Fixe menu for
tables of more than one, and my favorite, the Wild Game Festival.
This year is their 31st Annual Game Festival.
You
can imagine my delight when I saw listed the dish I came for; one I
had not seen for years. I made my decisions and told Megan what I had
chosen. I mentioned my ample time and slow eating habits and she
understood (and ensured that no dish arrived with the next). Another
server brought the breadbasket containing crusty sourdough as well as
a date-nut bread and sesame seeded bread sticks, along with a ramekin
of fresh butter.
The
first course was a hearty New Orleans turtle soup. Megan served it –
as usual, with a bottle of sherry (actually it was an Amontillado,
Carlos VII from Pedro Ximenez winery, Spain) – for enhancing the
flavor. The mildly spicy soup with finely chopped turtle meat and
vegetables was a rich reddish-brown and accepted the sherry I poured
into it. I’ve never met a person who’s tasted this soup and
wasn’t amazed.
Next
was a relatively new dish, the ostrich potstickers – light, tasty
dumplings filled with ground ostrich meat, garnished with Asian
vegetables and served with a soy dipping sauce. (I discovered ostrich
meat in Baltimore and have loved it ever since.) Some call it “the
other red meat,” fantastic in this reinvention of Chinese
dumplings.
The
main course was one I would have asked about if it had not been on
the menu: Danish venison stew. My photo does not do this dish
justice. The tender cubes of venison in their dark, almost black,
sweet and savory sauce were a delight to eat one by one, to make the
dish last longer. The garnish in this case is dill-mashed potatoes;
one of very few ways I like mashed potatoes. As with the turtle soup,
I used the bread to make sure every speck of this dish was finished.
Oh, and there was a side dish, spinach with garlic, simply done and
simply marvelous.
Henry’s
End is a great place to drink wines by the glass. Marc is a master of
fine wines and there’s always one you’ll love. I tried the
Chateau Gelineau Bordeaux with the turtle soup and switched to the
Turley “Juvenile” Zinfandel for the venison stew. Both were
excellent reds.
My
appetite (believe it or not) was still there for dessert. Again, it’s
been a long time since I had Henry’s End’s mudpie, a blend of
coffee and chocolate ice cream laced with Kahlua and espresso on an
Oreo cookie crust and topped with hot fudge espresso sauce. If it
sounds decadent, it is! I don’t have ice cream that often for
dessert but this one I enjoyed every bite. Gilding the lily a bit
with a cup of espresso was not beyond my hedonistic tendency.
On
the way out, I thanked Marc for everything and remarked how reliably
great all the food is. We shared sentiments over the closing of City
Hall restaurant in Manhattan and I told him of the photo we took with
Chef Meer. He also regarded it as the end of an era. I thanked him
again and headed for home happy and satisfied.
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