Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase takes a look at a documentary about a 20th century egalitarian restaurant and the latest season of the fictionalized account of a certain royal family.
The documentary is The Automat, directed and produced by Lisa Hurwitz and written by Michael Levine and features narration and an original song by Mel Brooks.
Founded in 1888, Horn & Hardart operated the first food service automats in Philadelphia and New York City. Automats featured ornate bronze boxes inset into the wall, each box with a glass window that allowed the customer to view and select individual selections of food. For a nickel, you might get a slice of meatloaf or a chicken pot pie or a side of mac & cheese or a slice of apple pie.
Behind the wall was a fully staffed kitchen that kept the boxes filled with freshly made food.
Also for a nickel, you could get a hot cup of Horn & Hardart's special blended coffee that was dispensed from specially designed dispensers shaped like dolphins.
In addition to fresh quality food served at a low price, Horn & Hardart also paid attention to the dining environment with polished marble floors. Whether a diner was flush with nickels or scraping together what spare nickels they could find, everyone was treated to the same quality food to be consumed in the same clean, classy dining area.
Unfortunately, the egalitarian nature of the Automat took a hit when the interstate highway system made it easier for rich and middle class to leave the inner city. Over time, the Automat went from a place where everyone would eat to being a refuge for the poor and the homeless.
The last New York Horn & Hardart Automat closed in April 1991.
Director Lisa Hurwitz has created a documentary that goes beyond mere talking heads. Although some of those talking heads are rather noteworthy. Just before their respective deaths, she got reflections on the Automat from Gen. Colin Powell and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The documentary has lots of photos and old film footage of the Automat in it's heyday, sleek and clean and filled with all sorts of people. Hurwitz employs a neat special effect of emblazoning the Automat sign in black & white photographs in gold color.
Mel Brooks provides a special perspective of being a kid out in Brooklyn hopping trains and subways to Manhattan to dine at the Automat and later while serving as a writer for Sid Ceasor's TV show, how the Automat kept them fed.
Automats may have employed automation in the food delivery but it was not fast food. While lots of commentators extol just how inexpensive it was to dine at the Automat, they have higher praise for the quality of food you got for your nickel.
Slowly, the warm Art Deco stylings of the Automat gives way to the sleek, homogenous modernity of fast foods.
The last Automat is now a Burger King.
The Automat is a bittersweet look a piece of American history that will sadly never come again, where the ideals of the American vision of equality were made real over a cup of coffee that cost a nickel.
From egalitarian to the royal elite,we now turn our attention to the fifth season of The Crown.
Andrea wanted to watch this damn thing in the beginning because Matt Smith was in it. But as the characters age, the actors cycle out and Matt Smith hasn't been in this damn thing in almost 5 years.
Andrea and I considered perhaps giving the fifth season of this damn thing a miss. We had other things on Netflix to watch. (We've finished season 3 of Lucifer. Cloe finally knows things! More on that in a later post.)
But we figured we've watch this damn thing for 6 years so why stop now.
Oh my God! We've been watching this damn thing for 6 years?
Apparently, I am renaming The Crown as This Damn Thing.
As of the 5th season of This Damn Thing, Imelda Staunton has taken over as Queen Elizabeth II. Staunton has been in a bunch of stuff but is perhaps best known as super bitch Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films. Staunton's Queen seems to have aged out of the relatively warmth we got from Claire Foy and Olivia Colman.
A lot of the heavy lifting in the 5th season of This Damn Thing goes to Elizabeth Debicki as Diana, Princess of Wales. Prince Charles is not even pretending to try to not be a total dick. He's chomping hard at the bit to repace dear old mummy on the throne and to spend more time with his precious Camilla and away from what he views as the insipid Diana. Diana's responses to these insults ranges from obvious sadness to a sharp witted snark to anyone who will listen.
Her first encounter with Mohamed Al-Fayed in episode 3 is a perfect distillation of how Diana faced the dull weight of her royal burden with charm and humor.
Episode 3 is a strange episode in that very little time is spent with the Queen or the Windsor family. It focuses on the rise of Mohamed Al-Fayed from a young street vendor in Egypt to a man of such wealth and influence, he buys Harrods of London just so he can get to sit next to the Queen at a horse race. Queen Elizabeth weasels out of sitting next Al-Fayed and allows Diana to have that honor instead.
It sews the seeds for what will be the greatest challenge to face the royal family and also begins the path that will lead to Diana's tragic end.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Apparently series writer and creator Peter Morgan is holding off Diana's death in 1997 to season 6 of The Crown, I mean This Damn Thing.
And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.
Next week, I will cover the series finale of Stargirl.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
No comments:
Post a Comment