WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[JackFavell]

Great poster, T! And I know you watched your favorite this morning with Crazy Ida:



I laughed so hard at the banter over Kim Novak. Thanks, guys, for the giggles. I really needed them.

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Last night I got a much needed night out and went to see CHEF. Run immediately to your nearest theater and check it out... another great movie about FOOD - it's preparation and it's meaning in our lives.

This gentle comedy has a great story, wonderful settings and cinematography, a kick-ass soundtrack and best of all, a really superb cast who all do exceptional jobs. Jon Favreau is not only funny, he has become an incredibly good writer and director, taking a slip of a story and imbuing it with music, color and flavor. There is nary a mis-step in this little indie comedy about the meeting of old cultures and the modern age. The characters are ones you will like, which seems unheard of in this day of reality TV and bad caricatures. I can't remember liking a recent comedy as much. The characters have real flaws... no one is a bad guy, really. Everyone has their reasons. It was a pleasure watching a film with such adult, sensitive, tolerant and humorous sensibilities.

Favreau plays a chef past his prime and inventiveness, frustrated, stuck in a job where he must prepare the same menu every day. His child, ex-wife, girlfriend and fellow cooks see him killing himself night after night to prepare food that even he knows is not worth the effort. After a scathing review and then losing his job, the chef is forced to confront his flaws as a chef and as a father, while traveling across the country with his son. It's an internal journey for the chef, or El Jefe, to find himself again, and to connect with his son.

Favreau is not only a really fine actor, he manages to tie food, landscape, family, friends and music together in such a colorful way that you feel like dancing out of your seat to the nearest ethnic restaurant with your loved ones and partying all night long after seeing it. The mostly latin soundtrack keeps the pace extremely lively. We went to dinner before the movie and I was starving halfway through the film... I would have killed for a Cuban sandwich or some smoky brisket by the end. There are no cliches here, we've seen the story before, but the movie goes on it's journey without any sense that we know what will happen. That's quite a feat. I just wanted to follow El Jefe and be delighted at the turn of events.

The language is quite off color, but the story is so well done, it doesn't matter. I would take my 13 year old daughter to it (and will), who probably hears worse language at school now. Besides Favreau, who is more likable here than in any of his other movies, the cast includes Sofia Vergara as the understanding ex wife, the wonderful John Leguizamo (who is as laid back as I've ever seen him) as the chef's 3rd in command who steps up to help him change his life, Bobby Cannavale (a totally underrated actor), Oliver Platt, Scarlett Johannsson, Robert Downey, Jr., Dustin Hoffman and a wonderful kid named Emjay Anthony, who holds his own among these greats. Everyone, including the kid, is very natural. If anything, the movie is more understated than over the top. It's hilarious, sweet, and quite good. It has a feeling of ...I don't know quite how to say it.... as if the actors were all friends in real life and just wanted to have some fun on film. See it.

[RedRiver]

That Ida! What a pure, real actress. Whatever she did, it came from deep in the gut. Like Chicago blues! I'd like to see OUTRAGE. I haven't seen much of her directorial work. I should change that. To think LAUGH-IN suggested she should marry Don Ho!

[RedRiver]

Jacques LeFavell! It's great to hear from you.

[JackFavell]

Hiya, Red! What's cooking?

I enjoyed the film immensely, kingrat. It may be hard to believe, but as a woman, I found Favreau to be quite sexy in this role...there was something sweet and relaxed and even masterful about him that I never really saw before in his films. I completely bought the idea that he could attract those women, especially in the scene where he was cooking for Scarlet Johannsson as foreplay. I thought he was perfect and charming.

Something I should have mentioned before was how well Favreau integrated the shots of hands chopping and preparing foods with his own acting of the same preparations. I caught a couple of tricks he might have used in order to achieve such seamless food prep scenes. Glad I watched all those docs on the making of Citizen Kane or I wouldn't have known how he could appear to be such a great technician with a knife.

[CineMaven]

I'm fair. How are you?

I'm well, thanxxx! Trying to get back in the swing of things with writing at the Oasis.

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Great poster, T! And I know you watched your favorite this morning with Crazy Ida:

Hi Wendy...nice to "see" you here again. You've been missed while you've been dealing with real life. Thanxx so much re: Ida. Yes, I was right there every step of the way watching Ida do her thing. She was great. All in. She locked eyes with George Raft like a cobra with a mongoose. Luv it!

I thought I'd put my hand in another creative direction. I took one of my collages and animated it:



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Last night I got a much needed night out and went to see CHEF. Run immediately to your nearest theater and check it out... another great movie about FOOD - it's preparation and it's meaning in our lives...I enjoyed the film immensely, kingrat. It may be hard to believe, but as a woman, I found Favreau to be quite sexy in this role...there was something sweet and relaxed and even masterful about him that I never really saw before in his films.

You've got me intrigued with your review of "CHEF." Jon Favreau, ey? I'll check it out.

[Rita Hayworth]

Yesterday, I will be brief - I saw The Crimson Pirate - Starring Burt Lancaster and it's quite entertaining and I was very impressed by Lancaster's acrobatic skills and I learned something new from TCM Staffing that Burt was a Circus Performer/Acrobat before he went to Hollywood and became a SuperStar in his own right.

[movieman1957]

I heard an old radio show of Martin and Lewis and Burt was the guest and part of the sketches dealt with acrobatics and Burt's time in the circus.

[RedRiver]

When I was about ten, CRIMSON PIRATE was one of my favorite movies. What young boy wouldn't love it?

[JackFavell]

I love Burt in The Crimson Pirate, but even better is Burt in The Crimson Pirate with Nick Cravat, his childhood friend and circus partner. The two of them are just wonderful together and I love that they made him a silent partner in many of Burt's films.

[movieman1957]

Not since I spent an afternoon watching "Long Day's Journey Into Night" have I spent time with a group of unlikable people than today when I watched "Baby Doll."

Larry (vecchiolarry) described it elsewhere as feeling as if he needed a bath after watching it and it is hard to disagree. The situation is so thoroughly outlandish as to be hard for me to buy it in any sense but the performances are compelling enough to carry me on.

Karl Malden, Eli Wallach, and Carroll Baker are wonderful in their roles. I imagine it is easy to play heroes and even villains but to play these kinds of characters seems a unique talent. Malden is not the regular type guy we came to know. Here he is a sexually frustrated, desperately poor phony whose making the best of his wretched life finally gets the better of him. He is a blowhard who thinks that he is someone when he couldn't be more wrong. Wallach is the new guy in town who suffers a crime from Malden and gets back at him in the best way he can, through his wife. And Baker is the virginal bride who relishes in that with Malden but is awakened by Wallach's attention. Often feigning her southern manners she continues to play the situation when if she had any sense of those manners she would have put an end to things early on. But, then where does the movie go?

The story is unbelievable and manic but if you are out for eccentric, grand performances than this may be for you.

[moira finnie]

Gee, Chris, you are a better man than I since I've never gotten all the way through the movie. Maybe that makes it unfair for me to have an opinion about it, but not as unfair as these subhuman characters may seem to anyone born in the South. Kazan was a great filmmaker, not a perfect one--this doesn't do his talent or the actors justice, imho--even though I realize it helped to break down some of the archaic Production Code strictures at the time of release. It sure doesn't seem to have aged well.

[RedRiver]

This dreary movie may have benefited the pajama industry, but it did nothing for me! I realize not everything can be light and fluffy, but must it be unpleasant?

[movieman1957]

At one point I almost did stop. The first twenty minutes are pretty tough. Malden and baker do almost nothing but yell at each other. That was as much a turnoff as the whole underlying sexuality. I really stuck with it just to see them work.

I can see how it would be so repellent. Who among us normal folk could ever imagine knowing anyone like the three of these people? The worry is that it is things like this piece of work and some others that give Southerners a bad reputation. We're not all like that, thank God.

Was Tennessee Williams capable of anything light and pleasant?

[RedRiver]

I've never worn an outfit like that!