{"id":16861,"date":"2014-12-30T11:01:21","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T01:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=16861"},"modified":"2014-12-30T11:01:21","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T01:01:21","slug":"chef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=16861","title":{"rendered":"Chef"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"chefposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director: \u00a0<\/strong>Jon Favreau
\nWriter: \u00a0<\/strong>Jon Favreau
\nCast: \u00a0<\/strong>Jon Favreau, Sofia Vergara, Scarlet Johansson, Bobby Cannavale<\/p>\n

W<\/span>ho doesn’t love a good food movie? \u00a0There’s nothing finer than watching something like\u00a0Jiro Dreams of Sushi<\/em> or\u00a0Eat, Drink, Man, Woman<\/em> which are fine films in their own right but they up the stakes by serving up sumptuous food porn at regular intervals. \u00a0The highlight in these films are when you get\u00a0a super close up shot of delicious food laid before you followed immediately by\u00a0the reaction shot of someone gorging themselves on it, closing their eyes in appreciation. \u00a0When done right, it should make your tummy rumble every time.<\/p>\n

Chef<\/em>\u00a0has a scene like that scene and it involves Scarlett Johansson lying down, semi-clothed and smashing down a pasta. \u00a0It’s maybe the most beautiful cinematic image of 2014.<\/p>\n

Chef<\/em> is a low budget food film created by Jon Favreau. \u00a0It tells the story of a once-promising fine dining chef named Carl Casper (played by Favreau himself) who has spent the last few years languishing in a creative rut, working for an unsympathetic restaurant owner Riva (Dustin Hoffman) who views the work as strictly business and is indifferent to Casper’s creative aspirations. \u00a0After a harsh review from an online food critic goes viral, Casper invites the critic back, hoping to win him over with a new menu. \u00a0When he is denied the chance to do so by Riva, he confronts the critic and has a meltdown which is captured on video and transforms him into a social media sensation. \u00a0He also gets fired for his outburst.<\/p>\n

Humiliated and out of work, Casper decides that to rebuild his life, he will start a passion project\u00a0working a food truck which allows him to make the food that he wants and the chance to reconnect with his ten year old son.<\/p>\n

That’s pretty much the movie.<\/p>\n

\"chefmovie\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

I really enjoyed Chef<\/em>. \u00a0The film is breathtaking in its simplicity and is to be applauded for avoiding a litany of cliches that are the staple of\u00a0Mid Life Crisis films. \u00a0There’s an ex-wife character (Sofia Vergara) but she isn’t a spiteful bitch and in fact she goes to great lengths to help Casper get back on his feet. \u00a0The estranged son doesn’t have any behavioural problems because of Casper’s long work hours. \u00a0He’s simply a nice kid who wants more time with his dad. \u00a0There isn’t a last minute plot twist that threatens to derail the food truck business. \u00a0It just goes well and Casper finds happiness. \u00a0This is a film that is designed to bring happiness to the viewer. \u00a0You get nice food and you spend time in the company of a father reconnecting with his son.<\/p>\n

Given that Jon Favreau’s fingerprints are all over this movie – he wrote, starred and directed – its tempting to wonder if Chef<\/em>\u00a0is a reflection on his film making career. \u00a0This was a man who originally made his name making creative and edgy comedies such as Swingers<\/em> and Made. \u00a0<\/em>He then spent the\u00a0last decade working on enourmous Hollywood blockbusters –\u00a0two\u00a0Iron Man<\/em> movies\u00a0and\u00a0Cowboys and Aliens<\/em>. \u00a0Like the food at Rivas, there isn’t anything particularly bad about\u00a0Iron Man 2\u00a0<\/em>but it lacks the soul and creativity that Favreau was originally known for.<\/p>\n

Feel good food movies. \u00a0There should be more of ’em.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An out of work chef rediscovers his love of cooking and bonds with his son when he starts a food truck business<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2141,2139,2140,2120],"class_list":["post-16861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-bobby-cannavale","tag-chef","tag-jon-favreau","tag-scarlett-johansson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16861"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16871,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16861\/revisions\/16871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}