Chef Review

Jon Favreau initially started as an indie film favorite actor and director. He moved on to bigger and better things, but recently came back to doing independent films. His most recent endeavor was Chef (2014). This was a lot of fun on its own, but if you know what to look for, you can view it as a tongue-in-cheek autobiography of sorts. That aspect aside, Chef is a good solid film that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) is an acclaimed chef with a family life that seems as decaying as his artistic freedom. Those frustrations boil over into a raucous viral-videoed public confrontation against a restaurant critic (Oliver Platt) who panned his cooking of food that his boss (Dustin Hoffman) ordered him to make against his instincts. Now with his career ruined, Carl's ex-wife, Inez (Sofía Vergara) offers an unorthodox solution in Miami: refit an old food truck to offer quality cooking on his own terms. Now with his young son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), and old colleague, Martin (John Leguizamo), helping, Carl takes a working trip across America with that truck to rediscover his gastronomic passion. With Percy's social media tech savvy and Martin's enthusiasm, Carl finds that he is creating a traveling sensation on the way home. In doing so, Carl discovers he is serving up more than simply food, but also a deeper connection with his life and his family that is truly delicious in its own way.

We have Jon Favreau to thank for getting the Marvel Cinematic Universe rolling. He directed the first two Iron Man movies. If that first Iron Man movie hadn't as amazing as it was, there wouldn't have been additional Marvel movies and we never would have got to The Avengers and other fantastic films. As I'd suggested in my Age of Ultron review, Marvel seems to be constraining and limiting its directors. In the case of Favreau, he was flat out replaced as the director for the third Iron Man movie. I don't know if that was specifically why he didn't direct the third movie, but I'm inclined to think so. It was an influence, at least.

At any rate, Favreau got a big thing going but stopped to return to indie films where he would have more flexibility and creativity with less influence from studio executives controlling his creative process. This was similar to Carl stepping down from a nice restaurant to work in a food truck. Favreau said he also worked comparisons to Carl and himself, such as being a father while having a busy career and coming from a broken home. I get the impression that Chef was a kind of therapeutic means of self expression for Favreau; and I wish more celebrity therapy would result in excellent films like this.

The cast was fantastic in this movie. You can tell that Favreau, himself, threw his whole heart into the role and into the production. Leguizamo was a lot of fun as well, playing an optimist who was both laid back and a hard worker at the same time. This is the first time I've seen child actor Emjay Anthony on screen. His is quite talented for a kid actor; only once or twice did his acting falter, but only by a little bit. Some of Favreau's other actor friends were involved in small roles. For example, this was the second time Favreau, Robert Downy, Jr. and Scarlet Johansson all worked together on a project directed by Favreau. The cast was simply outstanding, and created some highly relatable and likable characters.

The food in Chef was just as important as the characters themselves. And it was positively gorgeous to look at. Watching things simmer, melt, sear, roast, and cook was delightful. Then seeing the succulent meats sliced, and exceedingly fancy dishes prepared was titillating. The food photography was every bit as tantalizing and fascinating as it was in The Hundred-Foot Journey and Julie & Julia. You will probably be famished by the time you're done watching this movie. Even if you aren't intrigued by the main plot, you won't be able to take your eyes away from the amazing food on the screen.

Chef is rated R for language. There are very few characters who don't work in the kitchen at one point or another during the movie. And having worked in a kitchen myself, I know how stressful, frantic, and fast-paced everything often is. Profanity abounds as part of the job. Having said that, the profanity seems perfectly at home in the scenes where it is used. Currently, a PG-13 movie can get away with no more than two F-bombs. Truly the only reason Chef has an R rating is because there are more than two F-bombs. I think it's reasonably applied to the situations and characters, so I don't view it as being bad. It's just maybe not something you would want to play in the presence of impressionable children.

Whatever you do, don't go see Chef on an empty stomach. It's a feel-good foodie film that will have you salivating within minutes. Whether it is an artistic statement or self-justification of film craft, Chef confirms the core talent of Jon Favreau. It's comfort-food-meets-comfort-movie. Favreau wrote, directed, and starred in this excellent film on a smaller scale than his previous films, but this is by no means a film of a poorer quality. The story is a modern telling of a familiar feel-good formula, but it's an excellent example of that formula. As of writing this, it is available to watch streaming on Netflix and I highly recommend seeing it, just not on an empty stomach. I liked Chef well enough to want a copy on my movie shelves.

Can you think of another simi-autobiographical movie like Chef where the movie makes indirect comparison to its writer/director? Comment below and tell me about it!

The Hundred-Foot Journey

In light of recent major blockbuster action movies some other movies have been eclipsed by things like Guardians of theGalaxy, The Giver, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and others. Smaller, less bombastically advertised movies were overlooked. When I told friends I was seeing The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) no one had heard of it. But since it's a foodie movie, the trailer piqued my interest and I'm glad I caught it in theaters.

Coming from a family of talented cooks, Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) has a life filled with both culinary delights and profound loss. Drifting through Europe after fleeing political violence in India that killed the family restaurant business and their mother, the Kadams arrive in France. Once there, a chance auto accident and the kindness of a young woman, Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), in the village of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val inspires Papa Kadam (Om Puri) to set up an Indian restaurant there. Unfortunately, this puts the Kadams in direct competition with the snobbish Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren) and her acclaimed haute cuisine establishment across the street where Marguerite also works as a sous-chef. The resulting rivalry eventually escalates in personal intensity until it goes too far.

The Hundred-Foot Journey practically demands that you take it seriously. It's cram-packed full of feel good themes and multicultural understanding, as if to stress "this is something important!" It even comes with the official stamp of approval from media proprietor Oprah Winfrey and legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg, both of whom are producers for the movie. The Hundred-Foot Journey clearly has artistic ambitions and is probably trying to pander to the Oscar judges. While the movie is certainly well crafted, well acted, and undoubtedly enjoyable, it is also conventional and predictable. The movie is about opening up your senses and sampling exotic tastes, but this comic drama plays everything a bit too safe to the point that it's a bit bland at times.

One of the best parts of the movie is the interplay between Helen Mirren and Om Puri as battling restaurant owners operating across the street from each other - one hundred feet away from each other to be exact, a short but fraught trip that various characters take for various reasons. Watching these veteran actors stoop to sabotage each other provides a constant source of laughs and a few shocking moments; I gasped more than a few times at the audacity each character demonstrates and the undermining stunts they pull. Mme. Mallory is all sharp angles, piercing looks, and biting quips; Papa is all round joviality, boisterous blasts, and warmhearted optimism. Their constant squabbling is the only tension in this soft and gooey dish, until the third act when the film goes all soft and gooey.

Hassan enjoys a flirtatious relationship with Marguerite which is cute but bland and fairly predictable. They do look lovely together and share a light but enjoyable chemistry. Hassan and Marguerite's storyline eventually takes the helm and steers the story in an unexpected direction that feels out of place with most everything that came before it. It all fits back together again by the end and results in a happy little movie that most anyone could enjoy.

This was a beautifully filmed movie. We get many shots of the rural French countryside which is stunningly gorgeous to say the least, and the camera work captures as much of it as possible. So many of the shots are picturesque and would look splendid if framed on your wall. Even the sets have this beautiful rustic texture that makes everything seem organic, natural, and has an antique quality to it.

As was the case in Julie & Julia, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a foodie movie. As such, food plays a prominent role in the film. We get to see some elegant looking French cuisine as well as some delectable Indian fare. We see everything from purchasing the food from local markets, to preparing the food, to cooking with tedious accuracy, arranging it in an attractive manner on the plate, and presenting it to the dining guest. Every step of the cooking process is shown over and over in different scenes but is no less interesting to watch. It is at least as interesting to watch as any program on The Food Channel. The movie made my mouth water; it was a feast for the eyes and made me crave Indian food.

I genuinely enjoyed The Hundred-Foot Journey even though it was predictable and tame. The story was good, the characters were fun, the romantic subplot was cute but very bland, the camera work and scenery was incredible, and the food was luscious to behold. This is a nice, clean movie and rests safely in the PG realm, though it probably won't hold the attention of younger viewers. I think this is worth catching in theaters if you can still find it. I enjoyed it enough that I might get myself a copy when it hits Blu-Ray.

Every culture has its own culinary traditions. What kind of food would you like to see used in a foodie movie sometime? Comment below and tell me why!

The Ramen Girl Movie Review

I enjoy foodie movies. They show a deep passion for food and cooking. My favorite is probably Julie & Julia.  I discovered The Ramen Girl (2008) while browsing around NetFlix. The thought of a movie about someone learning to make a traditional dish that was not from her own country interested me a great deal. But the actual movie fell short of its potential.

Abby (Brittany Murphy), four years out of college, an aimless child of privilege, follows her boyfriend to Tokyo, who then promptly leaves Abby and heads to Osaka for another job prospect. In hopes that her ex-boyfriend will return to Tokyo, Abby decides to stay. While there, she is miserable; she speaks little Japanese and has a dull job as a law-firm gopher. One evening she stumbles into the neighborhood ramen shop operated by the aging master chef Maezumi (Toshiyuki Nishida) and his wife Reiko (Kimiko Yo). His soup cheers Abby, so she decides to apprentice herself to him. He’s uninterested, but she is insistent. So he shouts at her and gives her all the cleaning to do. Weeks go by, and still she persists, not knowing if he will ever actually teach her to cook, or if she will ever have the requisite spirit for the job.

Brittany Murphy gained acting notoriety in one of her early films, Clueless, where she played the target in a teen girl make over movie. She’s also known for voicing Luanne Platter in the King of the Hill prime time animated sitcom. It seems she primarily played dim-witted young ladies for most of her career. Abby in The Ramen Girl wasn’t much different. She’s depicted as an air head, but the problems Abby is faced with aren’t all that eccentric given her situation. I’m sure anyone would react with such composure when stuck in a large city in the middle of a foreign country where they don’t speak the language. I felt like I was supposed to think Abby was simpleton, but I found her more relatable than the target stupid blond jokes.

The Ramen Girl was pretty tame. It felt about as bold and realistic as a Disney Channel original movie featuring Ashley Tisdale or Miley Cyrus; pretty, spoiled blond girl who has never worked a day in her life suddenly has to try to prove herself rather than sit around looking pretty. Unlike Disney’s TV-cinema abominations, The Ramen Girl does a half decent job with this story trope. Maybe I’m biased since I like foodie movies so much. I’ve seen plenty of other movies about self-actualization and personal fulfillment convey the theme a whole lot better, but this wasn’t bad. Julie & Julia did the same thing through cooking, but was so well done and inspiring that it prompted me to start this blog. I didn’t really feel like I needed to go live my dreams by the end of The Ramen Girl.

There’s also the classic master/student dynamic between Abby and Maezumi. The Ramen Girl is to ramen what The Karate Kid is to martial arts. The wise master puts the student through grueling training to teach them how to perfect a skill. One would not suppose that making soup would be all that grueling, but The Japanese are very proud of their traditional ramen dish, or at least they are depicted so in this movie. There are lots of scenes that accentuate the difference between American and Japanese culture, but none were very impressive. Lost in Translation did the same thing so much better.

The Ramen Girl is a nice, cute feel good movie, but is pretty bland and predictable. You can see everything this movie tries to achieve done better in other movies. Unlike characters in the Disney Channel movies mentioned above, Abby is a young adult woman, not a 15 year old girl. We see her drinking and smoking pretty regularly. That may be a red flag for any viewers who want to watch this with their young kids. Abby looks so much like the Disney Channel teen girls that impressionable kids may get the wrong impression about appropriate drinking or smoking ages. I’m glad I saw The Ramen Girl. It wasn’t too bad a movie, and it made me want to learn how to make authentic ramen soup rather than that those fifteen cent packages you can get at any grocery store. The Ramen Girl might be worth renting to see it once, but certainly not worth the money to own a copy.

Do you have a favorite "foodie" movie? What is it and why do you like it so much? Comment below and let me know!

Movie Review: Julie & Julia

The 2009 film Julie & Julia (PG-13), directed by Nora Ephron, is unquestionably a foodie film. Meryl Streep and Amy Adams play two women in different time periods struggling with finding their personal identity and self fulfillment through cooking. As a foodie myself, this really resonated with me. The film could be considered a “chick flick.” However, the cliché tropes that chick flicks all seem to have in common are more of minor story elements on the sidelines rather than the whole story itself.

The movie has two stories being told simultaneously. Julia Child (Meryl Streep) is trying to find fulfillment in life instead of simply being a housewife in France. She discovers her love of cooking at the Cordon Bleu Academy in Paris, and proceeds to take on the insurmountable task of publishing a French cook book in English for Americans. Julia Powell (Amy Adams) is working in a cubicle at a stressful job she doesn’t like, and gets the idea to blog about cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s book within a year. Both women already enjoy cooking; Julia enjoys cooking for her husband and Julie uses cooking as a means of stress relief. Then they find a way to use this already existing talent they had not given much attention to before to attain greater fulfillment. It is fascinating how these women’s experiences are developed to have so many parallels. Julie has the occasional meltdown when the recipes fail or events in her life keep her from cooking the recipes. Julia has to face some sexism and discrimination for being American in a French cooking school as well as rejections from publishers. The drama comes in when each woman encounters bigger and bigger opposition but remain true to their commitments to themselves.

Of course you want both to succeed, but if Julia doesn’t succeed, then Julie will never get the book Julia is writing and still be trapped in her miserable situation. This creates an interesting dynamic in the story’s chronology. Of course you know that Julia Child will succeed in part because she is such a renowned figure in culinary arts and a television personality that you, the viewers, are probably familiar with. Also, Julie’s story could not be happening if Julia hadn’t eventually succeeded. That doesn’t keep you from sympathizing with Julia’s losses and letdowns and hoping she makes it through. Anyone who’s ever had a crappy job or had a dish they were putting a lot of time and effort into explode in their face can sympathize with Julie. Each of the characters’ personalities and problems are so believable and relatable that you can’t help but feel a connection to them. Julie and Julia characters are so well written and acted out that you can’t help but fall in love them. Also, Meryl Streep mimicking of Julia Child’s distinctive mannerisms and voice is uncanny and highly entertaining.

Another thing I was highly impressed with was the set designs. Much of Julia Child’s story takes place in France. Upon hearing the director’s commentary on the Blu-Ray, only a few parts were actually filmed in France, the rest were filmed in American locations (like New Jersey) that had French-like architecture. These sets were so seamlessly integrated with the actual French locations that you would never have known that some of the France scenes weren’t actually filmed in France.  Julie’s story takes place in Queens, New York City, and mostly in her apartment. Julie’s kitchen is prohibitively small and not the ideal place to cook fine French cuisine. The apartment is said to be 900 square feet, and it really feels that way. Most everything in the apartment feels cramped and confining; it really helps sell Julie’s desire to break free from her life constraining circumstances.

Julie & Julia was a good movie with endearing characters, great visuals, and a believable story that I think anyone could relate to. You don’t need to be a foodie or have a passion for cooking to enjoy it. I thought this was an inspiring story about getting out of the mundane doldrums of life, finding your passion, and embracing it with abandon. I recommend this movie to anyone in a similar situation, who likes a good dramatic movie, or who enjoys a good “foodie film.” Bon appétit!