Watch List Weekly Recap 8/12/22

This is the Friday recap of Ty Burr’s Watch List postings for the week. If you’d like to receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “Weekly Digest.” If you’d prefer to not receive it at all, uncheck just “Weekly Digest.”

A quiet week in the theaters and on streaming platforms, which is fine, since there’s enough drama going on in Washington at the moment. On Tuesday, I had a fine chat with Boston celebrity chef Ana Sortun about the hit FX/Hulu series “The Bear” (co-starring Ayo Edebiri, above), the greatest food movie ever, and the things that movies and TV shows get right (and wrong) about the world behind the serving counter.

The Watchcast: Food on Film with Ana Sortun

Listen now (42 min) | For the sixth edition of Ty Burr’s [occasional] Watchcast, I’m delighted to sit down with Ana Sortun, award-winning chef, owner and executive director of three of the best restaurants in the Boston area (Oleana, Sofra, and Sarma), and the author of “

Ty Burr's Watch List

Paid subscribers got a bonus with their Watchcast: An appreciation of the 1987 foodie classic “Babette’s Feast.”  — “It’s immensely generous but with an underlying sadness, and it’s aware of how a meal, properly prepared, can absolve all human follies before sending us out into the night.”

Dessert: On "Babette's Feast" and the Cinema of Cuisine

Talking about the classic 1987 Oscar winner “Babette’s Feast” with chef Ana Sortun (see the Watchcast that went up earlier today) gives me an occasion to revisit an ode to the movie I wrote several years ago, for a cookbook project that never came to fruition. The piece still sums up my feelings about a film that grows richer and more mysteriously complex the more times you sample it. I offer it to paid subscribers as an after-dinner amusement.

Ty Burr's Watch List

New Release Friday celebrates legendary and/or lethal ladies, including the young Sioux actress Amber Midthunder (above) starring in “Prey” on Hulu, Diane Keaton in the limp comedy “Mack & Rita,” Aubrey Plaza bringing her dark-cloud energy to “Emily the Criminal,” and “The Princess,” a fascinating HBO documentary about Diana, Princess of Wales, that relies solely on archival news footage.

Weekend Watch: The Ladies Who Lunge

Catching up with a streaming premiere from last week, “Prey” (Hulu, ***1/2 stars out of ****) is a lean, smart, satisfying creature feature – a B-plus movie. It’s the fourth sequel to the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi action film “Predator” (provided you don’t count the two “Alien vs. Predator” spinoffs, which you shouldn’t), and for my money it’s t…

Ty Burr's Watch List

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