Guzzle & Nosh | Flickr

Michael Voltaggio serving sandwiches

Not only will the LA Film Festival feature prominent cinematographers, directors and movies, but the annual week-long string of events will celebrate other art forms -- like food. To that end, Los Angeles chef Michael Voltaggio (Ink, Ink.sack) has been chosen to be an Artist in Residence for this year's festivalT.

On June 20 at 7:50 p.m., Voltaggio will present a screening and discussion of Dinner Rush (2000), an independent film directed by Bob Giraldi that follows one evening of a New York restaurant whose staff works both in the kitchen and with the mob. Voltaggio will discuss how films like Dinner Rush inspired his work as a chef.

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Mezza MG

The Shawarma Initiative

Remember that scene in E.T. with the Reese's Pieces? It reportedly boosted sales of the candy so high in 1982 that Hershey Corp. was forced to keep a factory open minting the candies 24/7. The moral of the story? Feature a food in a popular movie and people with not so subliminally find themselves craving it.

This weekend another record-breaking blockbuster, The Avengers, is producing a similar effect on hungry moviegoers. If you haven't seen it, here is the "shawarma scene," in which a battered Iron Man tells Captain America about his craving for a shawarma wrap from the place down the street. (Of course, the odds of a guy who was cryogenically frozen during the 1940s knowing what shawarma is might be a long shot.) Later, after the end credits, the entire superhero crew is shown sitting around a table contentedly wolfing down shawarma. Even the Hulk looks like he enjoyed it.

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Garofalo pasta

There are movies where food has a starring role. And then there are times when eating is just another extra in the background. But when detail-minded Woody Allen shot his newest film, To Rome With Love, no morsel was left to chance.

As with any Italian-based film, eating looms large (that's what people do there, right?) So when the characters played by Jesse Eisenberg and Ellen Page decide to cook up something together, they head to the supermarket to shop for the main star of their meal: pasta.

What do they grab? Eschewing the industrially produced boxes of Barilla or Buitoni, they grab a big bag of Pasta Garofalo. Good choice.

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Magnolia Pictures

The film Jiro Dreams of Sushi follows sushi master Jiro Ono, whose Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant located in a Tokyo subway station, is the first of its kind to earn three Michelin stars. For his unparalleled skill and relentless perfectionism, he's considered by many to be the best sushi chef in the world, though at 86 years old people are beginning to wonder how long he can continue to work.

The first documentary feature from 28-year-old director David Gelb, Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a portrait of true craftsmanship, as well as love and legacy. It relishes in sweeping shots around the kitchen and tight portraits of fish, the kinetic energy of preparation and the beautiful if momentary stillness of the finished product. The art and philosophy of a perfect bite.

A little more than a week in advance of his Los Angeles opening -- March 16 at the Nuart -- Gelb took some time to talk with Squid Ink about the mechanics of making eel dissection look elegant, the importance of rice and how he talked his way into a tuna auction.

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La Petite Reine

The Artist

Playing host and home to the Academy Awards, this town vibrates with excitement (Editor's note: Or something, depending on your thoughts re 9/11 and Hawaiian shirts, Harvey Weinstein and whether or not you, too, wanted a refund after seeing The Artist, as did some folks in Liverpool) by the end of February. We all fancy an escape into the pictures. Maybe you're Peppy, enjoying a glamorous rise to fame, or Minny, sticking it to your employers, or you're whiling the night away with Zelda Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein.

The closest you may get to your favorite characters is through their stomachs. Check out these restaurants, bars, and clubs to get a flavor of this year's Best Picture nominations. (In alphabetical order, if you're wondering.) Some were directly inspired by food in the film, others capture the ambiance of the set. Take a bite. Drink up. Get lost. And don't forget to thank the Academy.

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Amy Seimetz as Francine in The Off Hours

Lost souls at all-night diners have been explored on the big screen before. But from the opening montage of The Off Hours, with its quietly melancholic images of customerless four-tops, upended coffee cups and a scraper sitting on a worn-out greasy griddle, it's clear that Seattle-based writer-director Megan Griffiths knows how to capture the isolating loneliness of a restaurant when the city is sleeping.

Called "the reverse angle of a road movie" by Variety, this low-budget, dreamily paced drama about a loose community of sad-eyed waitresses, rumpled truck drivers, shuffling regulars and a burnt-out fry cook is now available on VOD and on The Off Hours' official website. In November, it was announced that The Off Hours' godhead director of photography, Benjamin Kasulke, received a nomination for Best Cinematography from the 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards (to be presented Feb. 25 in a big, white beachfront tent in Santa Monica).

Recently, Griffiths spoke to Squid Ink about her quest to find the perfect diner location, how leatherette booths can migrate and why raw food is on her agenda when visiting Los Angeles.

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Mac/Twitter

"Getting ready for Super Bowl Sunday"

In Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, Matthew McConaughey's character, David Wooderson, is an aging post-grad who still hangs with the high school kids. He likes girls, reefer and football, though not necessarily in that order. A Texan and a football flick veteran, the real McConaughey isn't a long snap from the Wooderson character. Taking in this picture the actor posted on his Twitter yesterday, we can almost smell the half-time bong rips.

Robed and topped with a toque, Mac is garnishing a brace of burgers, staring through them with the kind of hollow-eyed intent that tends to arrive about two minutes after the smoke has cleared. If we could pick four people with whom to watch the Super Bowl, we would clone McConaughey and pick him four times. The burgers don't look bad, either. Mac's passion for beef was well-documented in that radio spot he did five years ago.

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Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara

tuna tartare from the Four Seasons' Film Feast menu

Santa Barbara's International Film Festival (SBIFF) echoes Cannes' famed film festival -- both are held in lovely seaside towns betwixt mountains and the ocean, stars come out in force and there is ample fresh local seafood. But unlike the French Riviera version, SBIFF prix fixe menus are deals: For the second year, area restaurants are offering specially priced Film Feast dining menus intended to complement the 29th annual film festival, which runs Thursday, January 26 through Sunday, February 5.

Most of the festival films screen in downtown Santa Barbara in theaters on or just off State Street. Festival award presentations at the Arlington Theatre to those who are in the run for an Academy Award, make this festival particularly crowd pleasing. (Martin Scorsese gets the American Riviera award on Monday night Jan. 30.)

So where to dig in before checking out opening night's Darling Companion from director Lawrence Kasdan, or revival screenings of A Clockwork Orange or one of the documentaries in the festival's Screen Cuisine section? Film Feast presents a program of wine flights to tasting menus.

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Courtesy of Chayka Sofia

A food fight of epic proportions is portrayed in Zergut.

Food has come to the foreground in cinema as of late. What started with films like Food Inc. and Fast Food Nation has evolved into entire festivals dedicated to the craft, like the recent New York and Chicago Food Film Fests. Although those festivals didn't travel to Los Angeles, the AFI Film Festival (Nov. 3-10) has plenty of culinary-related programming on the docket. The best part? There's no need to forge press passes or crash screenings; the AFI flicks are free.

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Toast

In our conversation with Katherine Tidy, the food stylist on BBC Film's coming-of-age food comedy Toast, we spoke of a lemon meringue pie that presented Tidy with one of her biggest challenges on the shoot. "It was pivotal," says Tidy, "so I did lots of samples of it and took pictures of it and e-mailed them to the director [to make sure I had] the right color and height. [Director S.J. Clarkson] really wanted a very deep dish lemon meringue pie with A LOT of meringue on top." The final product, even by Tidy's own assessment, looked "kind of mad" but was "tasty." For the recipe, turn the page.

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