Enjoyed Gurinder Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges first film on DVD, What's Cooking?(2000). An ensemble melodrama, set at Thanksgiving, the picture criss-crosses four family holiday get-togethers in the same Fairfax neighborhood in Los Angeles--one Mexican, one Vietnamese, one African-American, and one Jewish. Each one has its share of fights and tensions, and it is really a different look at Thanksgiving, which is refreshingly unsentimental. Yet the filmmakers have a heart. A tough balancing act, but they pull it off. It reminds me a little of film school, but there's some nice acting. You can see the seeds of Bend it Like Beckham, and Bride and Prejudice. The themes of multicultural family and multicultural romance are the same. They seem to be getting better and better...
