ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Mischa Redfern I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Paul Allaer "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.

aharmas Still not sure what the director or writer was going after here, except for a clever play on words that goes nowhere since we are quite frustrated by the end of the film. L.A. still remains a scattered mess with no design or purpose, and Gold's influence on the local scene looks at least, limited. Worse, it's hard to see the connections between his upbringing and the type of person he became.It's hard to appreciate a place like Los Angeles, with his scattered design, plenty of roads that go nowhere, freeways that shine for their lack of mobility, and poor public transportation. One struggles to go from place to another, but if you know where you're going and what you want, you might be rewarded. The documentary focuses on specific areas in the city, and for what we see, there might be four five types of cuisine in L.A., and it becomes pretty clear which one he favors. One of the pluses of living in a big urban setting is that you can find many types of offerings simply by crossing the street. According to the movie, there are only two countries in Latin America, one in Africa, and Asian cuisine is represented by three choices in Los Angeles.It is clear he loves to eat, and his followers are desperate to hear about the latest trend. Apparently, food trucks are one of the best signs of food offerings we can find. How would anyone like to wait in lines and love to stand up while eating goes beyond any comprehension. When we are lucky to actually see the inside of a restaurant, things are simplified to the point that we hear a family story, but this could have happened in any setting, and his presence would have been superfluous. The only time he shows much interest is when he's around Mexican fast food, and the culinary descriptions are minimal at best. He makes a big deal about spicy food, but we have no reference as to what makes the dish special or about its ingredients.Instead, the film indulges in his musical background??? Not sure how classical music is related to his appreciation for his favorite Latin American food, and I wonder if his rebellious procrastination originates from his punk music days. Truly, all this time I was wondering about the rest of Central American offerings, South America must have disappeared in the last ice age, and other than Ethiopia, you would think Africa doesn't exist. Worse is ignoring the varied and delicious Asian restaurants one can find all over the city. It's not like you blink you miss. I was confused.Ang Lee manages to show his love of food in his films, and one can look around cable shows to see how food critics travel all over the world and bring back a social experience where food is the star, and we understand its origins and its influence on society. "Gold" whatever its intentions might have been never succeeds at any of that.

Rachael lblake Laura did a great job on the documentary that Cornicles Jonathan's journey of many years that takes him though Los Angeles and surrounding suburbs. I see lots of documentaries and I think this is one of the most interesting and enjoyable ones that I have seen: and it's not that I am bias as he is my son in-law. I actually found out things that I did not know about his early life.If anything, City of Gold could use a dash more Jonathan Gold. Only toward the end does it reveal he grew up in South Central, where his earliest memories were tanks growling down the streets during the Watts riots. At twelve, he was a cello prodigy. At twenty he was grinding the cello in a punk band, and soon met his wife, Laurie Ochoa, at the LA Weekly when she was an intern and he a proofreader. Twenty-five years of marriage later, she's still his favorite taco truck date. And despite the last decade of accolades, he remains punk at heart, staggering at a Vietnamese joint named Pho Kim.One of the film's funniest scenes is of Gold's brother Mark, an environmentalist, taking him to task for supporting sushi restaurants that sell blue-fin tuna. "Jonathan is eating everything I'm trying to save," he sighs, though Mark is grateful his brother decried shark fin soup. Yet City of Gold's most resonant moment is Gold walking through an art museum with his son and daughter, passing on his father's love of culture to the next generation. When his boy asks why a figurine doesn't have eyes, Gold explains that sometimes the facts of a portrait aren't the priority — a philosophy his reviews serve up with every plate.Source: http://www.megashare-viooz.net/city-gold-2015.html

Matthew Miller 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).