As part of the TRAVELS and TRAVAILS series:

Roadrunner -- The Life of Anthony Bourdain

(2022) 113 minutes

If ever there was a restless soul, it was Anthony Bourdain.

At turns a provocateur and a voice of reason, he paid his dues in the kitchens of New York, overcoming addictions and finding his voice with the breakthrough memoir Kitchen Confidential. As a media sensation, Bourdain was able to travel the world with his television shows, first with A Cook’s Tour for the Food Network and then No Reservations for the Travel Channel. The programs allowed Bourdain to dive deep into the cuisines and cultures of some of the most desperate parts of the planet––fueling his intensities with a work schedule so rigorous that it wrecked his two marriages. Bourdain’s demise is well known, and Morgan Neville’s documentary is not without its own controversies as it attempts to sort out what happened through numerous clips as well as interviews with Bourdain’s most intimate collaborators. At turns heady, inspiring and utterly frustrating, this is not a film for the faint of heart.

Please Note--This film is RATED R with drinking, profanity, drug-use, sexuality, infidelity, urban violence, scenes of animals being butchered, and a questionable use of AI in readings of Bourdain’s e-mails.