City of Gold (2015) Reviews

• Engaging Documentary

  larrys32016-09-27

  Just thought this documentary, directed by Laura Gabbert, was enjoyable as well as informative. It centers on Jonathan Gold, acclaimed food critic for the L.A. Times, and winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for food criticism, in 2007. We follow Gold as he cruises through the streets of Los Angeles, describing or visiting the many multi-cultural restaurants, or street vendors, along the way. Gold specializes in reviewing the smaller ethnically oriented establishments, often surprisingly located in small mini malls or even based out of food trucks. Based on interviews with his colleagues, Gold has a reputation of being extremely fair and empathetic towards those that he critiques, with Gold stating himself that he'll visit an establishment a minimum of 4 to 5 times before he'll write a review. The movie is not all food, as we learn about Gold's remarkable history and upbringing, and we'll get to meet his family as well. They'll also be quite a lot of humor in the film, as well as some heartfelt interviews with several of the restaurant owners. Finally, for those concerned about such, there is explicit language laced throughout the doc. All in all, I thought this film was quite interesting, and one of the better documentaries I've seen in s while.

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• The food and doc are golden.

  jdesando2016-04-07

  "A hundred different dishes can be good in a hundred different ways." Jonathan Gold Although Los Angeles is many things to many people, most of us who know it more than in passing can agree its place for diverse ethnic food is about numero uno in the universe. It's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow those of us who long for Korean one day and American the next, one day Thai the next Mexican, and so it goes. The true LA Gold is Jonathan Gold, the food critic who elevated mom and pop to king and queen. Who'd have thought the home of film glamour was also the home of casual, strip mall dining elevated to Oscar worthy. The new documentary, City of Gold, follows Jonathan Gold around the city and its ethnic enclaves where he started his culinary journey to The LA Times. Did you ever stop at a Salvadoran stand on Pico Blvd. for a pupusas? Gold makes you wish you had. Are you aware that he made us aware of the greatness of Marisco Jalisco and Jitlada? Guelaguetza's barbacoa tacos live in glory because of Gold. This robust raconteur can write about a taco as if it were a truffle. Not because he embellishes but because he gets to the heart of the experience of social sharing found in the food's tasty essence. Although he never fully explains why certain food is worthy of his exaltation, his Odyssey around town, punctuated by shots inside his car while he passes little restaurants and comments on their merits, or rarely the lack thereof, is more about ethnic diversity than tasty dining. More often than not he is praising the food until you long for a moment of real truth that exposes it for the crap it might taste like. Perhaps he has reserved his negative criticism for passing comments about the effects of the infamous Watts riots. Maybe that's the point—this sunshiny critic saves his negativity for the one non-food disaster everyone can agree on. Only in that instance can you feel he is fully objective about this checkered city. In the end, City of Gold is a paean to a melting-pot town of such food glamour that you forget the monumental traffic and epic social clashes. It is a rousing depiction of one critic's ability to bring a city together around one table. Robust and inclusive, Gold doesn't so much deconstruct food as he infuses it with energy: "Taco should be a verb." Gold

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• Insightful documentary on today's Los Angeles (through the eyes of Jonathan Gold)

  paul-allaer2016-04-14

  "City of Gold" (2015 documentary; 96 min.) is a documentary about Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic for the LA Times. As the documentary opens, we see Gold sitting at his computer and looking at a blank screen. Then all of the sudden the words start to roll and the voice-over gives us Gold's 2014 review of Guerilla Tacos, a food truck, To tell you more would spoil your viewing pleasure, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out. Couple of comments: the documentary is written, produced and directed by Laura Gabbert, who previously brought us the equally delightful "No Impact Man". Here she profiles the well-known food critic (and erstwhile music critic) Jonathan Gold. I really didn't know much about this man before seeing this. Turns out he is a down-to-earth guy, driving around his Dodge pick-up truck, little ego to speak of yet obviously very smart. One thing that he is very passionate about is his love for LA (he grew up there), and the diversity of the food that is available there, due to the city being a melting pot of cultures (or as Gold coins it, "a great glittering mosaic"). It seems that he'd rather visit and review food trucks and authentic holes-in-the-walls as opposed to the fancy 5 star French restaurant. Just as Gold is using food only a pretext to write about the city, so also does Habbert only use Gold as a pretext to paint a portrait of LA. And along the way, we get the answer to questions such as "why do we need food critics when we have Yelp reviews?" If you are wondering whether you need to be a foodie yourself in order to enjoy this film, my answer is a clear "no" (I'm not a foodie either). Bottom line: this is an enjoyable and insightful documentary about a food critic and his interactions with the food scene in Los Angeles. "City of Gold" recently had a one-week run at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. As it happened, I caught the movie on its very last day of that run. Not surprisingly, I had a private screening, as in: I literally was the only person in the theater. Hopefully this is the kind of movie that will find a wider audience once it becomes available on VOD and eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. Meanwhile, if you like documentaries or if you are a foodie, "City of Gold" is certainly worth checking out.

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• Wanted to like it...

  miller07436-18-4629952016-02-20

  You might approach this film in the same way that I did: with a deep respect for Gold's work and a general interest in so-called foodie culture. You might have even first encountered Gold's work in much the same way that I did--by stumbling upon a glowing review pasted near your table in some hole-in-the-wall eatery (in my case, the Chung King Restaurant in the Monterey Park location that now houses Huolala). Like me, you'll certainly find much to enjoy in this documentary such as the fascinating forays into some of his most liked restaurants (perhaps some of which you have even been to) and the bemusing insights into his personal life (as a "failed cellist"; as a man of voracious appetites for food, knowledge, culture, and so on). Unfortunately, these small vignettes amount to the entirety of the film's charm and there is little to elevate it to greater than the sum of its parts. City of Gold feels disjointed, fragmented, and altogether uncompleted to me. I don't necessarily feel that a documentary must ascribe some overarching meaning to its subject--a character study can often stand on its own--but even as a character study, the film fell flat. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to what is included and when it is included in the film. Instead, even some of the most fascinating points simply feel shoehorned in at awkward times. The final twenty or thirty minutes, for instance, use a KCRW guest DJ appearance by Gold as a sort of refrain. It is a cheap way to investigate his persona and it fails to link up with much of anything else in the documentary. My biggest gripe with City of Gold is how it failed in a way that ultimately separates good documentaries from mediocre ones: much of it felt like performance rather than unadulterated insight. In some scenes, he is at the LA Times offices and in meeting with his editors and others to discuss upcoming pieces. Any notion of unfiltered access is immediately dispelled: much of the conversation seems addressed to the camera (the viewer) and it feels both stilted and pretending. The film, as short as it is, feels at least twenty minutes too long. At the conclusion, it fails to make up for this. There is a great documentary somewhere inside of City of Gold. Had I turned it off after the first 30 minutes, my review would likely be 8 stars but, well, it just kept going (nowhere).

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• Taco anyone?

  ferguson-62016-03-12

  Greetings again from the darkness. "First we eat. Then we do everything else". Filmmaker Laura Gabbert's film kicks off with that quote from MFK Fisher, author of "The Art of Eating". If Ms. Fisher looked at eating as art, then Jonathan Gold views it as a crucial piece of society that brings diverse cultures together. As the subject of the film, Mr. Gold is a pretty interesting character. Sure, he is a food critic for the LA Times, an author and a Pulitzer Prize winner; but, more than that, he is a man of the streets of Los Angeles, and is described as providing a new vision of the city while also changing the food critic world. He spurns the traditional idea of anonymity that typically cloaks food critics, and mostly ignores the hoity-toity French restaurants for the Taco Trucks and mom & pop joints scattered around LA. The real core of the story and of Mr. Gold is the cultural diversity that exists within the boundaries of an area that most TV shows and movies would have us believe is sterile, white and rich. The reality is that LA is a conglomerate of cities filled with migrants who have brought their culture, talents and especially their diverse homeland cuisine. Gold relishes the chance to explore every "hole-in-the-wall" … taste their food and learn their story. He takes us through Boyle Heights, Hollywood, the San Gabriel Valley and the full 15 mile stretch of Pico Blvd. As a reporter, Gold struggles with structure and deadlines, but as a writer his words are as tasty as the food of which he writes. In a day where Yelp and Twitter allow everyone to pretend they are an expert, Gold reminds us of the value real critics bring to a topic … experience, knowledge and a descriptive way with words. The film gets a bit loose in the second half as director Gabbert tries to cram in all there is to know about Gold. His background with music: cello, classical, punk, blues and hip-hop probably get more time than is necessary. The contrast with his environmentalist brother is worth it for no other reason than hearing the line: "he is eating everything I'm trying to save". Gold's legacy will be the culinary map of the region he has created with his work. He encourages us not just to sample new cuisine, but also to better understand the people that make up one of the most diverse and fascinating metropolitan areas in the world. Now how about a taco?!?!

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