Juliette Binoche hates guacamole ... but we still love her

Can you feel nostalgic for something that, at the time, you dreaded? Watching the video accompanying my colleague Todd Martens’ story about the last remaining Chuck E. Cheese animatronic band in the world — road trip to Northridge! — I was haunted by countless Saturday mornings spent fishing my kids out of ball pits, eating bad pizza (still pretty good because ... pizza!) and listening to a robotic rodent tell me that it’s all about FUN!

Who knows where the time goes? Probably that creepy animatronic rat does, but he’s not telling. He just wants my money. I’ll have to find the answers elsewhere. I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope’s Friday newsletter and the guy who knows where he’s going for his next birthday party. Let’s look at the week’s news ...

Juliette Binoche heals her own past with ‘The Taste of Things’

Right now, if you’ve heard of Tran Anh Hung’s sumptuous romantic drama “The Taste of Things,” it’s probably for one of two reasons. Maybe you remember that Hung won the best director prize when the movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. (Back then it was titled “The Pot-au-Feu,” the name of a savory French beef stew prominently featured in the story.)

Or you might recall that, a couple of months ago, France chose “The Taste of Things” as its entry for the international feature Oscar, selecting it over the highly regarded courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall,” a movie that took the Cannes festival’s top honor, the Palme d’Or.

The two movies haven’t been widely seen outside of film festivals, so you’ll have to trust me when I tell you that France’s selection committee faced a difficult decision. And yet, sitting across from Juliette Binoche in a small booth at a quiet West Hollywood hotel restaurant, it’s hard to see how they could have made any other choice.

Consider this: The film’s delicate love story between Dodin, a renowned chef (played by Benoît Magimel), and Binoche’s Eugenie, Dodin’s cook, muse, life (and, if he had his way, wife), contained everything audiences associate with France.

“You have food,” I tell Binoche ... and she takes the baton. “You have love,” she says. “And,” I continue, “you have Juliette Binoche.” She laughs. “What’s more ...” and she finishes the thought, “French than that?”

“The funny thing,” Binoche tells me, “is that in France I’m considered more international. But everywhere else in the world, I’m France. I used to fight it. But now I think I have to accept where I come from and embrace it. That’s my culture. Still,” she pauses, considering. “I feel that my heart doesn’t have any borders.”

Binoche exposes her heart in “The Taste of Things” — more so than I realized before we met. We got into that and much more, including a brief exchange about the merits of food here in California, during a recent lunch interview.

“It’s always the same — avocado, avocado, avocado,” she says, laughing. Did I argue the point? Did I ask her if she’s ever been to Chuck E. Cheese? You’ll have to read the story to find out.

Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel in “The Taste of Things.”

(Stephanie Branchu / IFC Films)

Is it Christopher Nolan’s year?

Christopher Nolan took the stage not long ago at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood, clad in his usual uniform — navy blazer, khakis, button-down shirt, vest — to preach the gospel of physical media at an event heralding the release of the 4K UltraHD + Blu-ray multi-disc version of “Oppenheimer.”

You can buy the movie and bring it home and put it on the shelf, “so no evil streaming service can come and steal it from you,” Nolan said, getting a big laugh, which is not necessarily something you expect at a Christopher Nolan event.

But Nolan has every reason to be of good cheer these days, what with “Oppenheimer” grossing nearly $1 billion worldwide and that home video package selling so quickly that it was — for a time, anyway — unavailable from many sellers. So, to recap: a victory for movie theaters, a win for film nerds who still like to collect (hoard) shiny plastic discs and a triumph, of course, for Nolan himself, the rare (let’s not be morbid and use the term “dying breed”) filmmaker who consistently puts people in seats with smart, challenging projects.

Really, there’s just one thing left for him to win — the Oscar. Over the years, Nolan has earned one nomination as a director (“Dunkirk”), two as a writer (“Memento” and “Inception”) and two as a producer (“Inception” and “Dunkirk”).

He has never won.

For “Oppenheimer,” Nolan could win three — as a producer, director and writer. That trifecta seems improbable, almost as unlikely as Nolan coming away empty-handed.

It feels strange to say that Nolan is due to win as a director. After all, he has been nominated just once, whereas contemporaries Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino have earned three nominations without prevailing. But given the sizable footprint Nolan has left on 21st century filmmaking, it sure feels like it’s his time to shine, particularly since “Oppenheimer” stands as, arguably, his masterpiece.

But with the Oscars still three months away, there’s plenty of time to debate the final outcome. For now, let’s simply agree that Nolan is a shoo-in to be nominated. And he’s not the only one certain to be tabbed by the academy’s directors branch voters. In fact, as you’ll see in this recent column I wrote, there might be only one spot up for grabs. Check it out to see what movies you need to watch over the upcoming holidays.

Christopher Nolan has five Oscar nominations, with no wins.

(Photo illustration by Susana Sanchez / L.A. Times; images by Joe Pugliese / For The Times, AP and Universal Pictures )

‘You are the film, the film is you’

“Have you heard the one where Bradley Cooper does impressions of both Clint Eastwood and Sienna Miller?”

No, I haven’t, Times film writer Mark Olsen, go on ...

Mark recently moderated a panel of six directors — Blitz Bazawule (“The Color Purple”), Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), Michael Mann (“Ferrari”), Alexander Payne (“The Holdovers”), Justine Triet (“Anatomy of a Fall”) and Celine Song (“Past Lives”) — to talk about their lives and their work, which, not surprisingly, are pretty much inextricable.

“You are the film, the film is you,” Mann says. “You’re living every part of it, every component of it.”

An air of warm collegiality, friendly sharing and mutual understanding marked the conversation. At the end, Mark writes, Payne exclaimed what a surprising treat it had been.

“I gotta say, it is so fun to hang out with other filmmakers,” he said. “I mean, I know we have this, ‘Oh, promote our movie’ thing going on. But forget that, because we don’t meet one another other than that. Directors live in our individual fiefdoms. So it’s in these periods that we get to meet each other. That’s a real gift.”

Well ... that and the mini-frisbee you get for 10,000 tickets at Chuck E. Cheese.

2023 Envelope Directors Roundtable: Alexander Payne, Justine Triet, Celine Song, Bradley Cooper, Blitz Bazawule and Michael Mann.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)