We’re coming to the end of the Fed Ex and UPS freebie screeners. Nightcrawler is coming tomorrow, I’ve been told. Unbroken just arrived 15 minutes ago; the other two were delivered yesterday. The knife is big, long and sharp — a lethal weapon. It’s from the Chef guys at Open Road.
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“I had gotten an impression from speaking with Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn that Chef is negligible fluff, but it’s too engaging to be dismissed as such. It’s basically a celebration-of-good-fortune movie…a celebration of perfect, scrumptious art-food (the cooking and serving shots are to-die-for), of clever guy humor and pothole-free narrative charm, of Favreau’s acting and writing skills (as well as John Leguizamo and Robert Downey, Jr.‘s)…okay, it’s fluff but it’s very tangy and alive and well-constructed fluff. It never once reached in and got me in that deep-down place, but I never felt the least bit irked or antagonistic toward it.
“It’s a nice easy cruise, this film. There’s really no substantial reason to put it down with any passion. In fact, Chef is so well crafted and engaging and satisfying that I forgot about the weight issue that I’ve mentioned once or twice. I still say that if Downey had Favreau’s role instead of a cameo, Chef would be that much more engaging. Because it would be. There’s something about a guy with a weight problem that goes against the basic grain of escapism, which is what this movie is basically selling. But I forgot about it. Or at least, it didn’t get in the way. Coming from me, that’s a serious compliment.” — from a 5.5.14 post called “Chef Is Deft and Likable.”
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