Small, personality-driven documentaries sometimes make me think the scale can only get smaller: say, making a film for your sister to explain your brother to himself. Food and foodie documentaries are a thing now, and “Deli Man” is a steam table’s worth of diversion. Third-generation delicatessen owner Ziggy Gruber, owner of Houston’s Kenny & Ziggy’s, is the subject of Erik Greenberg Anjou’s lively, likable “Deli Man.” Corned beef sandwiches and corniness abound; the food is heavy but the japes are light. What could have been small beer instead makes the viewer hungry and hungrier. The role of the deli in Jewish culture is also capably evoked: “You can taste the diaspora!” Ziggy exults. With Fyvush Finkel, Jerry Stiller, Larry King. 91m. (Ray Pride)
“Deli Man” opens Friday, March 13 at Landmark Renaissance Place and other theaters.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
Sharp-Dressed Man: A Review Of Orson Welles' Restored The Trial Josef K. is an office man, an ambitious junior bureaucrat, long and thin as a blade in knife-sharp suits and he is involved in quite the nightmare, finding himself accused of crimes that he has not committed.
