California Dreaming

I pick up the most interesting things on my daily walk.

Like today on Leigh Street, I spotted Magpie's chef Owen on the phone in front of this restaurant.

By the time I made it down the block, he was finished and we chatted - about Charleston, about firkins, about multi-chef dinners- but as I walked away, two things stuck with me.

He'd just cut up a pig, so there's a lot of pig in Magpie's future.

And tonight he was doing a new medium plate of flash fried sweetbreads with sesame seeds, asparagus and leeks.

That was a tip worth remembering.

Let's just say six hours after he told me about them, I was the first customer in Magpie.

The door was propped open to the warm evening air and Pandora was set to Frank Black, a change from the usual '80s.

When asked if I wanted the "Feast" (Semeli "Feast" Moschofilero) I'd had before, I took advantage of the unseasonable warmth to drink white for the first time in a while.

I wasted no time in ordering the sweetbreads, hoping Owen had meant what he'd said this morning.

He had and the tender sweetbreads in sesame sauce were terrific, a unique take on a favorite of mine.

I followed that with oyster mushroom and bone marrow spread on crostini with red onion marmalade.

The earthy taste of the marrow and mushrooms had just a hint of salt to balance the sweetness of the marmalade, making for total taste satisfaction in every bite.

And all because I walked down Leigh Street this morning.

After two rich dishes, dessert wasn't an option and since I had limited time, more wine wasn't a possibility, either.

I was eager to get to the Grace Street Theater for "Fish Tank," part of VCU's Cinematheque series and a Cannes jury prize winner.

The place was crowded with other film lovers and the ubiquitous students, but I found a good seat and a familiar face with no problem.

The teacher introducing the film warned us that "It's not as bad as in "Trainspotting," but the slang is tough at times."

I'm sure more than a few people would have liked subtitles, despite it being in English.

He told the group that the female-directed film had a great soundtrack, "With rap for you and James Brown for me."

Part of Britain's social realism school of filmmaking, the story followed a terrible mother and her two daughters living in the projects of Essex.

The focus was on 15-year old Mia, who'd been kicked out of school and spent her days getting drunk and into trouble.

When a girl challenges her, Mia head-butts the girl, establishing her boundaries.

Her little sister was a trash-talking, cigarette-smoking pest who had a way with words.

To an adult she says, "I like you. I'll kill you last."

Into this mess comes a new boyfriend to further upset the rotten apple cart.

He's supportive of Mia's talent for dance and tries to give the girls new experiences.

When he takes the family for a ride in the country, he insists on playing his favorite song, Bobby Womack's cover of "California Dreaming."

As they speed along with the song blasting and the windows down, the girls, who are rarely in cars, much less out in the country, seem to be having a moment.

You know, that transformative experience of a road trip with the perfect music playing when all things seem possible.

I know it well.

But it's one of the few moments in the gritty film where it seems like good things could happen.

The rest of the time, it's Mia trying to save an underfed horse and failing. Mia being terrorized by two guys for trying to free the horse. The mother's boyfriend having sex with Mia while the mother is passed out upstairs. Her mother talking to her in a way that no mother should ever speak to a child.

Britain's strong tradition of social realism is alive and well, it would seem.

But as downbeat as the story was, the movie was at its heart, a well-told coming of age story of a girl with no clear path out of an hellacious life.

The claustrophobic framing of the shots (life in a tenement), the camera's point-of-view often that of Mia herself, and the non-stop barrage of obscenities (a  family who tosses around "f*ck off" and "I hate you" like others say "good morning") caused more than a few uncomfortable titters in the audience.

It was interesting; at the start of the film, before the students had figured out where this movie was going, they was full-on laughter at the swearing, at the teen-aged girls fighting, at the sex.

But once it became clear that this was a depiction of a relentless, sordid kind of life, they got quiet and just took it in.

We're not in Hollywood anymore, kids.

During the post-film discussion, we learned that the film had been shot chronologically, with the actors not seeing any more of the script than what was being shot that week.

Which means that none of them really knew what their characters were capable of until it happened.

I could see where that method had lent a lot of authenticity to their portrayals of these flawed people.

As usually happens, the discussion afterwards was a compelling mashup of the older film lovers in the audience and enthusiastic film students, making for wildly divergent takes on what we'd seen.

One girl mentioned how interesting it was that men were objectified in "Fish Tank" but women were not.

Until it was pointed out, it hadn't occurred to her that a female director might prefer to linger over Michael Fassbinder's sculpted body and put the female lead in sweatpants and sweatshirts.

I certainly understood where she was coming from.

But that's part of the beauty of seeing a foreign film as part of the Cinematheque series.

It's like a lesson in how another generation thinks when you go to one of these films.

I'm telling you, it's fascinating the things you can pick up.