re: Chef with John Favreau

I get a lot of people with very different film tastes asking me for Netflix recommendations, and I ALWAYS recommend Chef. It's not an all-time great, but it's insanely good and should appeal to literally every human being with a heart.

The only problem that I have with the movie is that the drama and climax feel a bit too... generic? Kind of like a computer collected every single romcom film that's ever existed, wrote a script based on that info, and then passed the script on to a very talented writer/director/actor that cleaned it up a bit and then put his entire heart into making it a beautiful human project.

If you liked Chef, check out "Big Night" with Stanley Tucci and Tony Schaloub playing restaurant owning Italian brothers in the mid 50's. Another delightful food-centric film that I like a bit more. The drama between the brothers and lovers felt more natural than the "I want my wife and kid back" storyline of Chef, though it wasn't nearly as well directed.