"The strange and improbable tale of a Barack Obama impersonator who tries to cash in on the 'look of a lifetime.'"

That's the description at Amazon for the movie "Kings of Pastry" (click to enlarge and clarify):



I went to put that on my streaming-video "wish list" as I was reading a review of the documentary "Somm" (which we watched last night):

Even those who view high-end oenophilia as an elitist waste of money will have to marvel at the dedication of the four wine freaks in Somm, men intent on entering an exclusive club of sommeliers that to date has only admitted around 200 experts to its ranks. Jason Wise's doc is reminiscent of 2009's Kings of Pastry, which focused on a similar test for pastry chefs; but this film has broader commercial appeal, and should attract its share of gourmet viewers at the arthouse.

"Arthouse" is one of my favorite words, by the way. Demonstrating why, here I am in Austin, Texas, in 2007:



The first comment at that old link asks: "Ann: You are so easily amused, would you consider yourself a low-maintenance date?"

Well, I was a low-maintenance date yesterday, as Meade and I ate Meade's special chili and streamed "Somm." It was a worth-watching documentary, and documentary is my favorite category of movie. As a person with almost no sense of smell, it's interesting/painful to encounter people engaged in the most difficult feats of smell. But it's not only the capacity to smell that these guys were tested on. Somehow they perceive — or imagine or purport to perceive — 10 or so smells in one glass of wine. They must also — quickly — translate the smells into words. It's a test of smell power and word power. And you need a vast background of real-world experience even to know what the things the wines smell like smell like — such as a grandmother's closet or a new and cut garden hose. Why would you cut your new hose? The answer seems to be: So you'll have one more point of comparison when you need to talk about how wine smells.

But, anyway, that's not going to work for me. I stopped to smell a magnolia flower yesterday and asked Meade, "Does it smell like anything?" I didn't mean did the magnolia smell like something else — a freshly opened can of tennis balls or whatever. I meant did it have any smell at all, because I smelled nothing. I assumed that if there was a smell, it was a magnolia smell, and I struggle to remember the particularity of flower smells.

I'm thinking "Kings of Pastry" will be better for me, because pastry has more of a textural component — creamy, crunchy, flaky, granular — and more of a visual component — which is kind of important in a movie:



Plus that movie was made by D.A. Pennebaker, who made 3 of my favorite movies "Don't Look Back," "Monterey Pop," and "The War Room."

And, come on Amazon, it's about pastry chefs taking a pastry-chef test, not about Barack Obama impersonator who tries to cash in. I'm thinking that's not somebody's idea of a joke, but just a misplaced description of an actual other documentary. Maybe it's "Bronx Obama"...



Ah, yes. Here's the long version at Amazon. I wonder how false Obama is doing now. And I wonder how the flowers smell, as the dawn breaks, and I'm up early and cracking the blog open one more time in Madison, Wisconsin.