Cereal, Mimosas & Cartoons - Video

Wake up and smell the mimosas and cereal at the monthly Saturday Morning Cartoon screenings from Cinefamily Jr. that's compiled and presented by Simon Oré and James Fino. Just check out my video below to see all the delicious details, that include a Cereal and Mimosa Bar in the patio out back - and yes, you can bring your full bowl of cereal into the movie theater and watch cartoons!

Cereal & Cartoons at Cinefamily Jr. - Video

 Play it here. Video runs 4 minutes, 56 seconds.

Located in Los Angeles right across from the Fairfax High School parking lot, the refurbished Silent Movie Theater presents the most prolific and varied cinema experience in town (click here to check out the movie schedule for this month.) And you can get your fill of cereal goodness and cartoons the first Saturday of every month at 11am.

But be sure to get to their back patio early to satiate your sweet tooth. Just passing the one year mark, this cartoon fest has been slowly building their audience by selecting primo cartoons -- from roaring 1920's flapper Betty Boop, to the present day surreal Adventure Time cartoon characters. There's never a dull moment on the big screen. The next show this Saturday is themed Space and Science, so expect Dexter's Lab and hopefully Looney Tune spaceman Marvin the Martian.

I go for the cartoons, but a mid-morning Mimosa from the back patio bar sets the mood perfectly. And for the kids (or the young at heart) you can get your fill of sugary cereal from the Cereal Bar table, that features a special cartoon themed Mix of the Day.

Cereal Bar

In April the cartoon theme was Rabbit Season in keeping with the Easter Holiday. Called The Cotton Tail, the Cinefamily Jr. Cerealogoist creation consisted of "a deliciously hippitty hoppitty blend of Fruity Flavored Trix Cereal playfully tossed with golden, bunny tail-esque, corn Pops." Whew, that's a mouthful!

It's an indulgence I know, and not for the faint of palate, but I try to stick to a buttery croissant or two, or a bland cereal with plain soy or almond milk...yea, right, a chocolate donut has been known to end up on my paper plate. Did I mention the Cereal Bar is gratis? You do have to purchase a movie ticket and the Mimosa Bar accepts donations. But the price is still right for this Cheap$kate Cinefile.

Under the banner of Animation Breakdown, the cartoon programmers Simon Oré and James Fino are animation veterans, co-founding Starburns Industries. Just click here to see their bios, that include the stop motion feature Anomalisa. Their animation programming runs the gamut and I have not had a disappointing Saturday matinee yet (click here to see all the fun times you've missed.)

Simon Oré and James Fino

My own animation background is mainly in stop motion. Just check out many of my recipe videos on YouTube to see what I'm up to. And like any red-blooded Baby Boomer, I grew up pinned to the boob tube during the Golden Era of Saturday morning cartoons. Favorites included: Bugs Bunny, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Mr. Magoo, Felix the Cat, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Johnny Quest, and on and on.  

So if you're a local, rub the sleep from your eyes this Saturday morning and don't even change out of your PJ's. Just grab a blankie or your fav stuffed animal and head right to Cinefamily Jr's. cartoon fest to fill up on vitamins C and M, that is, Cereal, Cartoons and Mimosas!

Cinefamily (The Silent Movie Theater)
611 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, Ca. 90036

611 N Fairfax Avenue // Los Angeles // 90036

611 N Fairfax Avenue // Los Angeles // 90036

Events calendar: www.cinefamily.org

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.

Hindsight
A couple of notes on my video above. The audio clips under the patio footage are from old television cereal commercials, mainly from the 1960's.

Since the Saturday Morning Cartoon show happens once a month, my footage of  Simon Oré and James Fino is culled from several of their intros, so their pj's may change from shot to shot. I tried to get an overall feeling, so footage appears mismatched, but what they have to say is more important than shot continuity.

Movies & Jambalaya Animating Weekend

I went to Jerry Beck's October Spooktacular animation festival Saturday afternoon at the Cinefamily theater - great as usual. Mainly, comically scary black and white cartoons from the Silent movie days, through the Technicolor 1950's. Here's the trailer:


SPECTREFEST: Jerry Beck's Animated Spooktacular (trailer) from Cinefamily on Vimeo.

These are cartoons made way before the computer generated style came into favor. Jerry Beck, who put together the show, is the most knowledgeable cartoon scholar around (yeah, imagine that - what a talent, huh?) Here's his website called Cartoon Research, and click here to read a bit about him. He's asked to put together cartoon screenings all the time around LA and I try to see them all.

I worked with animators a lot and have picked up a few tricks, as you can see by my stop motion animated recipe videos. Even some big name film directors have come from animation, like Frank Tashlin, who directed some early Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin films, and Tashlin even mentored Jerry Lewis on how to direct movies during their multi-film collaboration.(Presently, there's Pixar's Brad Bird with Ratatouille and The Incredibles under his belt, who directed Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol.)

As you can see I like the offbeat movie experience. I don't see many new ones, but fortunately Los Angeles has a handful of movie screens that show my type of film. If there is a Film Noir double bill, I'm there. I like a 1920's creepy flick with Lon Chaney, or even the original Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr. I could go on and on listing my type of flick - just click on the following theater names to see their film listings: The Bing Theater at LACMA, Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, American Cinematheque at the Aero and the Egyptian, and perhaps my favorite and certainly the most eclectically programmed, Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater.

On Sunday I started a stop motion version of my Mom's Jambalaya recipe. I got most of it shot and am now making all the video clips for final assembly. You can click here to see the original video that features my Mom. She's turning 80 in a couple of weeks - and she's still cooking!

Right after I finished animating the food, I went to the New Beverly theater (schedule here) in Hollywood. It was taken over a few years ago by always controversial movie Director Quentin Tarantino. The theater runs older films, everything from 1940's Screwball comedies by Preston Sturges to Stanley Kubrick films, and classic French New Wave to Grindhouse exploitation.

While Tarantino ownes the theater, he hasn't programmed the film schedule, until this month. I wanted to see what he would come up with so I've gone a couple of times so far. And I haven't been disappointed.

Quentin is quite the film scholar who's taste runs the gamut. And because he worked in a video rental store, his taste is high to lowbrow, from Kung Fu flicks to old school cowboy Westerns, and to the most obscure Italian crime drama.

I've always enjoyed the New Beverly theater (here is an interesting historical timeline.) But a bit of controversy is surrounding the rechristening of the place since Quentin has taken over the programming. First he got rid of a new digital projector - only film will be show now. And there have been unfortunate personnel changes, read about some of it here.

But it should be an interesting next few months of film programs. Next up for me is the weekly Tuesday night Grindhouse with a Kung Fu double bill featuring a very young Jackie Chan: Snake in Monkey's Shadow and Snake in Eagle's Shadow.

Oh, and Mom's Jambalaya turned out great, and the stop motion animated footage I shot looks delicious.

Russ Meyer Lemon Chicken

The Chef went out Friday night to his new favorite cinema house, The Silent Movie Theatre, for the sold out double feature of "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!" and "Motor Psycho," which closed out their Russ Meyer film series. Some movies are only meant to be seen on the big screen, like "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!" (click on a title to see the movie trailer.)

While parking around the corner off Fairfax Avenue, the Chef noticed a lemon tree with its plump, ripened fruit dangling seductively within grasping distance, over the sidewalk. Go ahead and pick away, it is legal, according to the website "Fallen Fruit." It provides city map locations for all sorts of fruit trees that share our public spaces, throughout Los Angeles. See the website link on the right, under "Blogs for Foodies."

Chicken is the cheapest protein that costs way below 99 cents per pound.  You can slide lemon slices into leg quarters or whole chicken breast, too.

The Chef would like to share a simply delicious recipe based on the fruits of his labor:  Russ Meyer Lemon Roasted Chicken.

Ingredients

• 4 - 5 lemon lemon - slice one lemon to put under the chicken skin.  
• 1 whole chicken - okay to use leg quarters or whole chicken breast. 
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Directions
Juice 3-4 lemons and slice one lemon. Loosen skin of breast and thigh meat by inserting your finger under the skin. Be careful not to tear the skin too much. 

Brush lemon juice over and under the skin. Insert slices of lemon under the skin: four slices for the breast and two slices for each thigh (kind of tricky but work a slice around to the outer thigh and place one slice on the inner thigh.) Salt and pepper to taste. If you have time, let chicken marinate covered, for a few hours in the refrigerator.

Bake chicken at 350 degrees, basting with lemon juice a few times, for 1 1/2 to 2 hours; done when juices run clear by piercing the lower thigh meat with a fork. Cover the breast meat with a small piece of foil for the first hour to keep the breast from drying out. 

This recipe works well with packaged whole chicken breast or leg quarters, just cut cooking time in half (no foil).

"Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!" movie trailer:

This coming Tuesday, the Chef presents a new video, "My 99 Cent Dinner With Nuno," starring his neighbor Nuno Pinheira (co-star of "The 99 Cent Mojito" video.)