Chef

Chef - Dir. Jon Favreau (2014)

Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) is the head chef of a trendy bistro in Venice Beach and things are looking up for him. He's about unveil a brand new menu to herald the arrival of renowned food critic Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt, whose brother, Adam, is a food critic for New York magazine), the blogger who raved about Casper's work a decade ago. Alas, the restaurant's owner Riva (Dustin Hoffman) demands Casper stick to the regular menu, which includes caviar-topped egg and a chocolate lava cake. It backfires as Michel lambasts the stale food and manages to insult Casper's weight, "…he must be eating all the food sent back to the kitchen."

Casper storms into the restaurant when Michel returns and launches into a heated tirade that is captured by numerous cell phones and uploaded to YouTube. He becomes persona non grata in the LA food scene just as he becomes an internet sensation. Looking for a fresh start, Casper reluctantly accompanies his ex-wife, Inez (Sofia Vergara), and son, Percy (EmJay Anthony), on a trip to Miami. Once there, he purchases a decrepit food truck and turns it into the snazzy El Jefe, serving up cubanos and arroz con pollo. This new venture reinvigorates Chef Casper's passion for cooking as well as repairing his strained relationship with Percy as they make the cross-country trip back to the west coast.

The plot of Chef draws immediate parallels to Jon Favreau's own career as a filmmaker. He made a splash as the writer and producer of Swingers before following it up with his directorial debut Made. Since then, his profile in commercial films has grown with Elf and the runaway success of Iron Man, which set the foundation for Marvel's cinematic universe. However, it was clear Favreau was not the primary decision maker anymore for Iron Man 2 and Cowboys & Aliens met with tepid reactions from audiences and critics alike. With Chef, Favreau has returned to his indie roots and created a comedy/drama driven by rich characters rather than expensive CGI.

At the heart of Chef is the relationship between father and son, the latter of whom is played without a hint of precociousness by EmJay Anthony. To Favreau's credit, he doesn't go the easy route by painting Casper as an insensitive prick. He's just a workaholic and a little oblivious from time to time. Watching the two together is just one of the joys of Chef, along with Casper's interactions with other characters, such as Bobby Cannavale and John Leguizamo as two of his kitchen comrades or Scarlett Johansson in a small role as a comely hostess. Sofia Vergera gives a more natural performance as compared to the over-the-top antics we usually see from her on Modern Family. Favreau also made sure to call in Iron Man for assistance as Robert Downey Jr. pops in for a cameo as Inez's eccentric ex-husband. He makes everyone who visits his office wear surgical booties over their shoes, including his leggy assistant's six-inch stilettos. Amy Sedaris should not be overlooked for her cameo as an overly tanned publicist trying to get Casper to sign on to a cheesy reality show ala Gordon Ramsay.

Of course, what would any self-respecting chef movie be without mouth-watering cuisine? Chef is food porn cinema right up there with Eat Drink Man Woman, Tampopo, and Big Night. Chef Roy Choi of Kogi BBQ fame not only served as a consultant, but tutored Favreau in gastronomical ways. The director lovingly preps, cooks, and plates numerous delicacies and these sequences are intricately shot and cut, even for something as simple as a grilled cheese sandwich. You'll want to toss those stale movie theater concessions to the sticky floor when you watch Favreau slice into a juicy, rare steak or curl pasta around his fork. Chef brings the local flavor by shooting on location in Miami, New Orleans, and Austin with El Jefe tailoring their menu to each city. You'll get fresh beignets in the French Quarter and beef brisket for you fanatics of Texas barbecue.

Dustin Hoffman makes an excellent point when he tells Casper that people would riot at a Rolling Stones concert if Mick Jagger didn't sing "Satisfaction." While Favreau clearly enjoyed the freedom of independent film, he never lambastes the idea of playing it safe or sticking to the hits. Chef is comfort food, a pleasant, lightweight comedy. There are no high stakes and very little conflict, which isn't a bad thing though the ending is too pat and hews too closely to Ratatouille.

Rating: *** (*****)

X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class - Dir. Matthew Vaughn (2011)

X = $

It’s a simple formula that has worked out for Marvel Comics for decades. Put the letter ‘X’ in the title and you’re almost guaranteed high sales figures. Development began in 1989 for a feature film based on Marvel’s biggest franchise, but it wouldn’t be until 2000 that an X-Men picture would finally see the light of day. X-Men came at the cusp of a new age where comic book movies are now a staple of the Hollywood machine. Its sequel, X2: X-Men United, was even better and widely considered to be one of the best comic book adaptations. The franchise lost steam with the third installment, X-Men: The Last Stand, and spin-off, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The behind-the-scenes drama seemed more interesting than either of the later films.

Director Bryan Singer defected to Warner Brothers to helm the disappointing Superman Returns. Fox rushed production on Last Stand with Matthew Vaughn as director. However, Vaughn would drop out a month before principal photography and Brett Ratner replaced him. Singer and Vaughn have returned with X-Men: First Class, a prequel/reboot that ties into the first two films while ignoring the events of Last Stand and Wolverine. The screenplay passed through numerous hands with the original draft by Josh Schwartz, the creator of teen-centric TV dramas like The OC and Gossip Girl. Elements from a proposed X-Men Origins: Magneto project by Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air) was merged with a new draft by Jamie Moss (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), which was rewritten by the Thor duo of Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz and again by Vaughn & Jane Goldman.

First Class takes us back to the opening sequence of the first X-Men with a young Erik Lehnsherr utilizing his magnetic powers for the first time as a concentration camp prisoner. Meanwhile, in affluent Westchester County, a very young Charles Xavier meets a shapeshifting girl named Raven, who he adopts as a sister. Years pass and an adult Xavier (James McAvoy) attends Oxford to study genetic mutations while Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) works as a waitress. While Xavier uses his telepathic powers to pick up women, Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) hunts down fugitive Nazis. At the top of his hit list is the sadistic camp doctor who murdered his mother. That doctor has reinvented himself as Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), a millionaire playboy with the power to absorb and channel energy. Shaw is manipulating the Americans and the Russians in order to trigger a nuclear holocaust that will wipe out mankind and allow mutants to rule the Earth. Xavier and Lehnsherr eventually join forces with CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) to stop Shaw from igniting World War III.

Shaw has assembled a group of powerful mutants to aid in his quest for genetic supremacy. They include: Emma Frost (January Jones), a telepath who can transform into diamond; Riptide (Alez Gonzalez), who is able to summon powerful winds; and Azazel (Jason Flemyng), a demonic looking teleporter who comic fans will know as the father of Nightcrawler.

The good guys enlist their own band of young recruits including: Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), who can emit sonic screams; Havok (Lucas Till), who is able to fire plasma beams from his chest; Dr. Henry McCoy aka Beast (Nicholas Hoult), a scientist with prehensile feet; Angel Salvadore (Zoe Kravitz), a go-go dancer with insect-like wings; and Darwin (Edi Gathegi), who has the power of reactive evolution.

As you can tell that's quite the roster of characters for a movie a little over two hours long. Don't forget Oliver Platt as an unnamed Man in Black and various military personnel played by veteran character actors like Michael Ironside, James Remar, Glenn Morshower, and Rade Serbedzija. Fox has a penchant for overstuffing their comic book movies with more characters and subplots than they can handle and First Class is an unfortunate victim of that philosophy. Characters like Angel and Darwin are hardly given any chance to develop or even matter to the overall story. Riptide doesn't even have a single line of dialogue in the movie; he's just there to be the silent and menacing henchman. Despite dropping Marvel's merry mutants hip deep into the Cuban Missile Crisis, First Class doesn't fully utilize its unique 60's setting aside from giving Kevin Bacon the excuse to grow some awesome sideburns. Xavier and Magneto have been compared many times to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in their differing philosophies. Yet, civil rights barely factors into the film. Ironically, the only mutants of color are either killed or turned evil.

Notoriously picky fanboys won't be pleased with the way First Class takes liberties with the source material. These aren't the original X-Men from the comics. Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, and the other Angel (Warren Worthington III) are nowhere to be found. The movie Havok isn't intended to be Cyclops's brother though changing his beams from white to red is likely meant to be some sort of concession. Moira McTaggert has gone from Scottish scientist to American secret agent. As a life-long comic book reader, I had little issue with the changes made in First Class. The X-Men books were known for their convoluted mythology as storylines were lost and found on the whim of an ever-changing line-up of creative teams. First Class isn't set in the world of the comic books, but the one created for the movies.

Fans of the entire series may be confused as First Class doesn't completely gel with events depicted in the previous films. When it does, it feels as if Fox wasn't sure a sequel would be possible, so they felt obliged to throw in as many recognizable elements as they could. We find out the origins of their codenames, the creation of Cerebro, and how Professor X winds up in a wheelchair. The movie inevitably feels rushed with the Xavier-Magneto relationship put in fast forward. The filmmakers do throw in a few references and in-jokes for the hardcores. There are also a couple clever cameos, including one from a familiar face who is the best there is at what he does.

Despite a few flaws, X-Men: First Class stands as the second best entry in the franchise with X2 ranking as number one. The primary reason for the prequel's success is the casting of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as the friends turned enemies. In the past, McAvoy has played reactive characters. As Xavier, he's more aggressive, growing from a cocky prat to a responsible mentor. However, it is Fassbender's Magneto who truly anchors the film. The solo Magneto movie was largely cancelled because Fox didn't believe he could carry a picture alone. After First Class, I would love to see a Magneto: Nazi Hunter starring Fassbender. No pun intended, but the actor is absolutely magnetic in the role of the tortured villain. One of the film's best moments is a Boys From Brazil-esque scene with Lehnsherr tracking two former SS officers to a tiny bar in South America.

Jennifer Lawrence is equally phenomenal as the young Mystique, making her more than just the naked blue chick. She becomes a vulnerable girl desperately searching for her place in a society that finds her ugly. Kevin Bacon is also great and it makes you wonder why it took so long for someone to cast him as a supervillain. Bacon is deliciously over-the-top in the beginning of First Class as the mad scientist looking to exploit a teenaged Lehnsherr's burgeoning powers. The same cannot be said for January Jones as Emma Frost, a sexy and manipulative femme fatale in the comics. Her diamond form is poorly realized and when she's not made of jewels, she's made of wood. Jones is practically robotic in the role. Is this the same Betty Draper we've come to know and love?

Kick-Ass proved that Vaughn could handle high-octane action sequences and First Class has plenty of cool set pieces. The film's climax juggles multiple battles without descending into a jumbled mess of special effects. There are also several unique displays of power such as Azazel's gruesome method of dispatching humans. A telepathic battle involving rotating rooms was cut when Inception beat them to the punch. Vaughn was heavily influenced by classic James Bond films while making First Class and it shows. Sebastian Shaw is the archetypal Bond villain with his secret headquarters and tricked out submarine. The prequel is a globetrotting adventure with higher stakes than any other X-film. The first act is hardly over and the audience has already been taken to Poland, Switzerland, New York, England, Las Vegas, and a Kubrickian war room underneath the Pentagon. It's also fantastic that they put the X-Men in their classic blue and yellow uniforms.

X-Men: First Class gives the X-Men franchise the vital jumpstart it needed and heals the damage done by the awful Last Stand and Wolverine. With a fresh, new cast in place, the X-Men are opened to new possibilities such as a film set in the 70's based on Giant-Size X-Men #1, a redux of the Dark Phoenix Saga, or Days of Future Past.

Rating: *** ½ (*****)

Love and Other Drugs

Love and Other Drugs - Dir. Edward Zwick (2010)

Sometimes I just don't understand the strange decisions made by Hollywood executives. Love and Other Drugs had all the makings of an interesting film centered on a very timely concept. The film was based on the non-fiction book, Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, written by Jamie Reidy, a former pharmaceutical salesman. With health care being a hot button topic, it seems like the perfect time for an inside look at the pharmaceutical industry. Instead, the studio plays it safe and whitewashes the story into yet another banal romantic comedy.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jamie Randall, a med school dropout who has just been fired from his job in retail electronics after boning the boss's girlfriend in the stock room. Jamie quickly gets a job shilling medication with the corporate juggernaut known as Pfizer. In the pharmaceutical game, medical knowledge is hardly a necessity, but good looks and a winning personality are everything. A dizzying montage shows candidates memorizing sales pitches and dancing the Macarena at a garish orientation. Jamie aspires for the bigger market of Chicago, but gets the accounts in Iowa instead. There, he's to push Zoloft, an anti-depressant that is a distant second in sales to the more renowned Prozac. He shamelessly flirts with the receptionists to get his foot in the door and offers bribes to various doctors. Fortunes rise (pun slightly intended) with the creation of Viagra and Jamie leaps at the opportunity, "Who can sell a dick drug better than me?"

While pretending to be an intern, he meets Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), a patient suffering from stage one Parkinson's disease. Jamie inadvertently glimpses her breast and gets pummeled in the parking lot when Maggie finds out he's a drug rep. Only in the movies does this ignite a star-crossed romance. At first, both parties are only interested in empty sex, but true feelings develop to complicate their relationship. Jamie worries about how he'll care for Maggie when her condition inevitably deteriorates while Maggie is concerned about holding Jamie's career back.

Love and Other Drugs feels like four or five different movies stitched together in a haphazard manner. The film starts off strong with an engaging first act that serves as a satire of the pharmaceutical industry. Once Maggie is introduced the story veers into the territory of a standard romantic comedy. When the Parkinson's subplot is emphasized, Other Drugs becomes a weepy melodrama similar to the all-time cheesy classic Love Story. The sentimental portion does provide one of the few genuine moments of the picture when Maggie leaves a medical convention for a support group for those afflicted with Parkinson's. Topping it all off is a heavy element of raunchiness straight out of the Apatow comedy playbook. The film's stars get naked frequently and there are the requisite boner jokes involving Viagra. They've also brought in Josh Gad, who acts like the love child of Jonah Hill and Jack Black, as Jamie's lazy brother. Every word out of his mouth is an annoying and horribly unfunny attempt at lowbrow humor. On the other hand, Gyllenhaal and his Brokeback Mountain beard Anne Hathaway are both good in the lead roles as is Gabriel Macht as a rival salesman. However, Judy Greer is underutilized as are George Segal and the late-Jill Clayburgh, who only appear in one scene as Jamie's parents.

Love and Other Drugs is a different kind of film from director Edward Zwick, who helmed Glory and The Last Samurai, but it fits right in with thirtysomething, the sappy and soapy television series he produced back in the early-90's. This is a completely disjointed affair that fails to find any semblance of balance between light comedy and heavy drama.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Please Give

Please Give - Dir. Nicole Holofcener (2010)

Independent filmmaker Nicole Holofcener crafts interesting, three-dimensional roles for women and has a strong ear for believable dialogue. This has been evident in her three previous films - Walking and Talking, Lovely & Amazing, and Friends with Money. If you were to find flaw in her work, it would be that Holofcener tends to focus on women of privilege who some may find hard to sympathize with. That's certainly the case with her newest film, Please Give, a story about bourgeois New Yorkers and the liberal guilt that comes with their lifestyle.

Please Give starts with an unconventional opening montage featuring a series of breasts being laid out for their mammograms. These aren't the firm, silicone enhanced type you'd find in Playboy. These breasts come in all shapes and sizes, big or small and young or saggy. Catherine Keener, a frequent star of Holofcener's, plays Cathy who runs a vintage furniture store with her husband, Alex (Oliver Platt). They purchase their inventory from the children of the recently deceased who are generally too distraught or ambivalent to care where their parents' things go. Cathy's teenage daughter, Abby (Sarah Steele), struggles with insecurities about her body image and the onset of acne.

Cathy and Alex live next door to the 91-year old Andra (Ann Morgan Guilbert), a crotchety grandmother who finds fault in everyone and everything. Cathy and Alex have already purchased her apartment and will annex it upon her death. Andra is cared for by granddaughter, Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), the mammogram technician handling the breasts seen earlier. She's dutiful in performing chores for her grandma. Rebecca fetches her medication, buys her groceries, and does all the laundry, even if Andra isn't very grateful. Rebecca's sister, Mary (Amanda Peet), is a well-tanned and irresponsible spa worker. She doesn't share the same tolerance for granny as Rebecca and is quite tactless about her forthcoming death.

Cathy feels guilty for profiting off the death of others. She attempts to assuage those feelings through volunteer work and giving money and leftovers to the homeless. Abby is appalled that her mom won't buy her those $200 designer jeans she wants while having on problem handing a twenty to the bum they always pass on the streets.

As a character study of upper-middle class New Yorkers, Please Give has a distinct Woody Allen feel to it. There's no driving plot to the film instead, Holofcener gives us a slice of life affair, dropping us right into their everyday routine. She also imbues her film with a restrained sense of humor. The acting is strong, especially from Keener and Guilbert. What holds back the movie is your level of empathy for its characters. It's hard to identify with whiny, insecure people when they are well off and their main problems involve how to decorate their big-ass apartment.

Rating: ** ½

2012

2012 - Dir. Roland Emmerich (2009)


Truly the most important things destroyed during 2012 are your brain cells.

Emmerich is the modern day Irwin Allen, the producer/director of The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, released during the 1970’s, the golden era for the disaster film. Allen’s name was synonymous with the genre which featured all-star casts and multiple storylines revolving around catastrophe. Emmerich has certainly topped Allen’s excess using the latest in special effects. He’s destroyed the world with aliens, giant lizards, and ice. Now, he’s done away with any kind of pretense at all. The world will end in 2012 and there’s no need to explain any further than that.

The film begins with geologist Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovering solar flares are causing the planet’s core to overheat which will lead to a series of unbelievable natural disasters. Usually, nobody listens to the scientist. Not this time. White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt) takes Helmsley’s reports seriously. Along with President Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover), they begin secretly constructing massive arks to safely house the world’s leaders as well as the most wealthy and influential people of the world. The average Joe? He’s pretty much screwed.

The everyman point of view here is from the perspective of Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a former sci-fi writer now working as a limo driver. His boss is obnoxious Russian millionaire Yuri Karpov (Zlatko Buric) who just happens to be one of the few to buy a ticket to salvation. Curtis is divorced from wife Kate (Amanda Peet) who now lives with plastic surgeon Dr. Gordon Silberman (Thomas McCarthy). Dr. Silberman just happens to have worked on Karpov’s mistress Tamara (Beatrice Rosen). Yes, this is one of those movies where out of billions upon billions of people, a select few run into each other over and over again.

On a chance camping trip, Curtis runs into Dr. Helmsley as well as Charlie Frost, a nutty conspiracy theorist played by the equally nutty Woody Harrelson. Frost informs Curtis of the Mayan’s predictions about the end of the world in 2012. Clued in, Curtis quickly gets to his family to miraculously escape just as L.A. crumbles into the Pacific.

2012 is disaster porn at its finest. Emmerich leaves no stone unturned. He blew up the White House in Independence Day, Upping the ante, he destroys the White House again along with all of D.C., Vatican City, Yellowstone, and the Eiffel Tower. Two cute kids and a dog are tossed in to really tug at your heartstrings. Don’t bother to inject any type of logic or deeper thought into the proceedings. 2012 is pure, dumb shlock, jam packed with cheap thrills. Well, not so cheap for Sony who coughed up over $200 million for the budget. 2012’s overinflated budget and excessive 2 and a half hour runtime are indicative of the bloated blockbusters being churned out by Hollywood.

Rating: *

Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon - Dir. Ron Howard (2008)


”I’m saying that if the President does it that means it’s not illegal.”

Just like Doubt, Frost/Nixon is an adaptation of a well-received stage play and much like W., the film takes a controversial president and breaks him down into a sympathetic figure overwhelmed by the power he fought so hard to gain. Writer Peter Morgan adapted his play for the big screen himself. Frost/Nixon focuses on the behind-the-scenes happenings that went on during the nearly 30 hour filming of an interview between Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) and television personality, David Frost (Michael Sheen).

What transpires is an intellectual battle for supremacy. Once a serious journalist, Frost is now relegated to doing little-seen, fluff pieces. Nixon, still shattered by the Watergate scandal, is looking for a way back into the political circles he had been ostracized from. Two men seeking a career resurrection that only one can achieve. Nixon and his camp see Frost as a pushover and agree to the interviews to the cool sum of $600,000 plus 10% of the profits. Meanwhile, Frost assembles his own team of researchers in order to ask the former president the hard questions. However, when the two finally sit down, Nixon runs circles around the interviewer. Frost has been spread thin by financial issues and the constant rejection by network execs and advertisers. Anytime the man tries to drop a bombshell (the Watergate tapes, Cambodia) on President Nixon, he evades the questions with long-winded, rambling stories that eat up huge chunks of time. It is only during the final interview session (after being drunk dialed by Nixon) that Frost hunkers down in an effort to finally nail Tricky Dick on Watergate and the subsequent cover-up.

Unlike Doubt, Ron Howard manages to expand on the source material into a fully realized cinematic experience and not just a talking heads picture. Howard, not exactly known as a visually stimulating director, faithfully recreates the look and color palette of the 70’s. He fills the frame with Nixon’s hulking, hunched-over body playing into his larger-than-life personality. At the same time, he’s pressed against the edges, uncomfortable in his own skin.

Langella is certainly getting the lion’s share of credit for his portrayal of our 37th president. His performance avoids the pratfalls of mere SNL impersonation. Langella conveys Nixon from raw rage to bittersweet confession (”"You have no idea how fortunate that makes you: liking people and being liked.”) while giving us a glimpse of a sly wit Nixon wasn’t readily known for. Both Langella and co-star Michael Sheen reprised their stage role. Sheen brings the same smug, self-assuredness that he did as Tony Blair in The Deal and The Queen, also written by Morgan. The supporting cast each get their own chance to shine for the brief moments they are on-screen. Of particular note are the always-entertaining Sam Rockwell as James Reston Jr., Frost’s lead researcher (and biggest anti-Nixon proponent); the beautiful Rebecca Hall as Frost’s glamorous girlfriend, Caroline Cushing; and Kevin Bacon as the straight-laced ex-Marine who acts as Nixon’s right-hand man and confidant. Not faring so well is Toby Jones, a fine actor who can’t seem to hit the right notes in recent bio-pics. He made a great Truman Capote in Infamous, but his Karl Rove in W. was lacking and his Swifty Lazar (the high-powered talent agent) here is hampered by an unconvincing accent.

Rating: *** 1/2