What I Watched

Chopped: Redemption Episode

I am late in writing about redemption. That is the greatness of Chopped. It gives you the opportunity to write these kinds of sentences.

Last Tuesday was a redemption episode on Chopped. Four chefs came back who had previously lost in the competition. They were: Ana Maria, who apparently had seriously cut herself in her last time there; Troy who said that some had thought him to be pompous; Michelle, a pastry chef who forgot to turn on the ice cream machine during her dessert round; and Sammy, who said that he had not taken enough risks in his previous time there.

The thing that I thought was very interesting about this episode was that not all the storylines could be fulfilled. Often on these episodes, it seems to me that there is one truly compelling mission, and that is the person who becomes the Chopped champion. In this episode, after the first round, Judge Amanda Freitag welcomes Ana Maria back and asks if she would mind showing her her finger. Ana Maria tells her that is it fine now, but that she had to have surgery and missed several months of work. So then I'm thinking, okay, this is what we'll see. Someone coming back from cooking one-handed and overcoming physical adversity due to her experience on Chopped.

But she was eliminated in the first round.

Then I thought the most compelling story belonged to Michelle. She seemed to be a genuinely quiet, sweet person. Then an extra layer was brought in. She mentions that she had been a heroin addict. So then I thought, okay, serious drug addiction recovery plus the fact that she has a specific goal, she wants to show her stuff as a pastry chef, plus the fact that she seems to have a winning personality.

She was eliminated in the second round.

The final story to me was the most trivial. It was a story of dynamics. Tryg was unwilling or unable to drop his annoying behaviors. Sammy took offense to the point that he dropped red onion peels on the plates that Tryg  had put out to serve his dishes. Snap! I was surprised that the judges didn't comment on this action during Sammy's evaluation. Is that something that you would want a Chopped champion to do?

Tryg is certainly not blameless. He was condescending to Sammy. But later in the dessert round, Sammy went and checked on Tryg's ice cream, tasted it and made a face. I was wondering if there was going to be further actions beyond this editorial commentary. Again, I had never seen anything like that before during these competitions. It surprised me.

When Sammy won, he was openly gleeful in the fact that he had won over Tryg. The judges choose to stay out of it. Ted had made some earlier comments about their dislike for each  other, but it seemed to me that it was a fire that should have been put out with the onion peel.The judges instead focused on his original storyline: he had been more daring in his culinary choices in this competition. He had come from a hard life. He had started working in kitchens, because he was homeless and this gave him an opportunity to eat.

When I looked over my impressions of this episode, it was the personal dynamics that fascinated me. I thought the eliminations were just. Ana Maria did not cook the lamb properly; Michelle forgot to use one of the ingredients in Round 2; and Tryg turned his ice cream into butter. Despite the search for personal redemption, thingis still have to be properly executed. That to me seems to be the true dance of Chopped.

Midnight in Paris

This film seemed tailormade for me. I am a lifelong Francophile I had the good fortune to start studying French at an early age in my public elementary school in Michigan. When I was in college I studied in Paris. I walked those streets and felt that I knew this city. When I went to graduate school, a central part of my thesis focused on the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Midnight in Paris is definitely in my cinematic wheelhouse.

For those not famliar with the movie, Midnight In Paris has to to do with dreams and time travel. Gil (Owen Wilson) and Inez (Rachel McAdams) are engaged. They are vacationing in Paris with her parents. Gil has been a Hollywood screenwriter and now very much wants to write novels. One night while he's walking in Paris, he finds himself back in the twenties and making the acquaintance of the artists of that time. During this vacation, it becomes a nightly ritual for him to go back to this other world.

When the film began, I was immediately transported. It starts as a visual valentine to Paris. This was one of my favorite aspects of this film, the cinematography that showed off this city. It made me think about how one can have a love affair with a place. It made me very happy to experience Paris again.

I very much liked Owen Wilson in this film. He had the challenge of making a Woody Allen part his own. The cadence of the language and the sentiments expressed could easily be imagined being said by a younger Woody Allen. I felt that Wilson paid homage to how Allen would have played this role, and then he added what I would call a Jimmy Stewart element to the mix. Wilson has a very sincere, aw shucks component here that really worked. In this film, he is a quintessential American. He is earnest and in love with art and French culture. Wilson chose to bypass the neuroticism and the frenetic activity that often accompanies playing the Woody Allen role in a movie. I appreciated that decision.

I felt that this film suffered from a bias that is often found in romantic comedies, where the writer doesn't seem to trust that the audience will believe in the main character's mission without stacking the deck. In this film, Gil's fiancee, Inez, is portrayed as a thoroughly unpleasant person. It is evident from the start of the film that Gil needed to cut off ties with her and pursue his own life. I think the film would have been stonger if she had been presented as more of a viable option.

I enjoyed the sense of history in the film. It was great fun to see the portrayals of famous writers, musicians, and artists from time past. The notion that everyone, no matter what era, longs for a simpler, grander, legendary time felt true and important. Despite its flaws, I was glad I saw this film.

 

The Descendants

The movie opens with a moment which led to a crisis. You see a woman waterskiing. It's just an instance, full of color and vitality, and then the scene shifts to a hospital room, where this woman is in a coma as a result of an accident on the water that day. Her husband is in the room. He tells her when she recovers, things will be different. He says he will be a better husband.

George Clooney plays Matt King, the husband, in this film. He is also a father. With his wife hospitalized, he is in sole charge of his ten-year-old daughter, Scottie. When the doctor tells him that his wife is not going to recover and the machine will need to be turned off in a matter of days, Matthew retrieves his seventeen-year-old daughter, Alexandra, from boarding school, and they begin trying to resolve things.

The film reminded me of Up in the Air. It seemed like the next progression. In Up in the Air, his character, Ryan Bingham, comes to the conclusion that he does want to feel emotionally connected in life. In this film, Matt King had married; he had loved his wife, had children, and then buried himself in his work. He has to make peace at what happened in his marriage and reconnect with his family.

Clooney is different in this movie. He is quiet, older. I had never seen him as a father before. Has he ever played a father before? There were moments when he reminded me of Cary Grant, those instances when he was on a mission and running in a mad dash. He is smart and determined. He is believable. I felt he earned his moments. I understood his process.

Many of the actors in this film were unfamiliar to me. I would like to see Shailene Woodley (Alexandra King) and Nick Krause (Sid) in other things. They were interesting and original, and I always wanted to see what they were going to do next. And an old familiar, Beau Bridges, impressed me with the intensity he put his role as Uncle Hugh. He demonstrated that one could make a big impression with a limited amount of time.

The  film was shot in Hawaii, an important place to me, so that gives it an advantage in my heart. We walked into the theater, where they played Hawaiian music, and I was already transported. This was my favorite movie that I have seen from last year. I could easily see it again.

 

Rachael v. Guy, Celebrity Cook-Off Episode 4

In this episode, the two teams had to prepare three dishes for a hundred people in ninety minutes. They were working outside in food trucks. Their diners would be their judges, and they would be judged on both food and customer service.

The signs all seemed to point to a Team Rachael victory. They had three team members to complete this task (Lou Diamond Philips, Summer Sanders, and Taylor Dayne); Team Guy only had two (Coolio and Joey Fatone). Coolio had his own vision. He had his soul rolls, his take on eggrolls, and although he was advised not to, he made two dipping sauces. He also had trouble with the fryer on the truck. Joey Fatone pretty much had to make two dishes. When it was time to serve, they were woefully behind.

However, they still won. People loved what Coolio cooked. When it looked like all of their customers were going to go to Team Rachael's truck, Joey Fatone picked up the megaphone and turned on the charm. Although people really liked Lou Diamond Phillip's food, they were not crazy about what Summer Sanders and Taylor Dayne created.

The final cook-off was between Dayne and Sanders, the two on Team Rachael who had received the lowest scores. Their task was to create an amuse bouche. Guy and Rachael ended up preferring the flavor of what Taylor Dayne had created, although they very much liked Sanders's presentation.

So it is now down to four.  Fatone and Dayne are the underdogs. Fatone has impressed me with his persistence and his humility. He does not believe that his skills match up to what the others are doing, but he never gives up, and then he often surprises himself. Dayne seems to like flying under the radar. She will protest that she doesn't know what to do, and in the end, she is still left standing. 

I will be disappointed if the final showdown isn't between Coolio and LDP. They have shown themselves throughout the competition to have outstanding skills. So far Coolio has bested Lou in the cook-offs, although both cooks have received high praise. As LDP said, Coolio has recipes that he has picked up from his family, from his neighbors. They're idiosyncratic, seemingly wrong, but then they taste so right. Lou Diamond Phillips is very experienced as a cook. While Coolio will often blaze his own trail, LDP seems to try to follow the rules.I would be happy to see either of them win.

 

The Ides of March

The story is a familiar one. Stephen Meyer (Ryan Gosling) is a campaign political consultant. He is the "heart and soul" advisor, the one who comes up with the real numbers and tells the truth. Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is the "brain" of the team. He is first in command; he has the political savvy to know how things really work. They advise Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney) who wants to be president. When the film begins, they are in the primary process in Ohio, and they are trying to figure out what is happening and what they need to do.

This is one of those movies where it is important to be surrpised by the twists and turns of events. Although the script could have easily been predictable, this was not one of those movies where everything is telegraphed miles ahead. I was genuinely surprised, and things made sense. The plot seemed built upon believable motivations and actions. It did not seem that you had to abandon disbelief when you watched this film; you could actually actively engage your brain and think about things without the story falling apart in your head.

The film felt like it was well researched. In his performance as the Governor, Clooney looked like he had studied a lot of tape of presidential candidates. He had the cadence of the stump speech, the gestures of a candidate. There were things that happened that were a twist on things that we have seen in primaries before that made this world seem more believable and also was fun to review from a historical perspective.

I read the IMdb trivia section on this movie and learned that Leonardo DiCaprio was originally cast as the primary consultant, Paul Zara. It was hard for me to imagine anyone other than Philip Seymour Hoffman in that role. I felt that Hoffman was so good at conveying the long, hard years of experience, the wisdom, and the cynicism of this character. He was able to convey both ruthlessness and vulnerability, and he could be both charismatc and seem like a secondary character on the screen. I feel that he is both a humble and an arrogant actor, and he knows when to play what part.

I also learned that Brad Pitt was to play Stephen Meyer. My first reaction was disappointment. I love to see Brad Pitt and George Clooney working together. But in watching the film, I felt that Gosling also owned this part. The thing that I admired the most about his performance was I felt that he was willing to follow his emotions. It is ultimately his character's movie, and i felt that he delivered on the film's inherent promise to show what happens to him.

I also admired the performances of Marisa Tomei as Ida Horowicz, the New York Times writer. She played a different type of role in this film and played it with gusto. Evan Rachel Woods at times reminded me of a movie star from a different era. She was charismatic and fast talking and seemed to own her world except when she didn't. She was a vital presence on the screen.

All in all, I really enjoyed this movie. It would be one that I could watch again, just to hear smart language and to see these actors work.

Chopped: Far, Far, Out

There are many things that I enjoy about this show.

There are the competitors' personal quirks, set up in the introduction in each show. In this case, there was Ian, who was trained as a French chef and thought the ingredients chosen were beneath his skills; Adrienne, who saw this competition as a way to build her confidence; Clark, a young man, only twenty-four years old, who used to work for Dan, an established D.C. chef, who was having a hard time feeling all right about competing against Clark.

It seems pretty clear to me that if you want to be successful on Chopped, you need to park your attitude. In this particular episode, Adrienne, the person who had only five years of experience as a culinary professional, ended up as the winner. The odds were against her succeeding, but she kept her head down; she focused on the tasks at hand; she wasn't uber confident about her chances of winning; and she didn't trash talk her competitors. In Chopped, that can take you a long way.

I woke up this morning and thought perhaps one of my go-to mantras could be, "What would a Chopped judge do?" I recently wrote that I believed Iron Chef America could take a page from Chopped in terms of their judging panel. Chopped would never have a reality show star as one of their judges. They seem to have a set list of the people they use in this position, and they are all accomplished restauranteurs who seem tough, but they also seem to have the competitor's best interest at heart. They assess what's on the plate, what goes on in the process of making what goes on the plate, and they also address character. I think they do a really good job.

I realized last night that I missed Ted Allen. Sure, he's there, annouincing various things along the way, but these are minor variations on lines that he says every week. I know it's a steady gig, but is he bored? Perhaps he could again be one of the regular judges on Iron Chef America? I miss hearing more of his thoughts on things.

The last thing that I really like about this show is the ingredients. There are generally at least two items on this show that I have never heard of before, and so it's interesting to hear an explanation of what it is, what it tastes like, and what are the best ways to deal with it in the kitchen. I think it's an ingenious show.

Rachael v. Guy, Celebrity Cook-Off, Episode 3

Some thoughts on the third episode:

 This episode featured judges from Chopped. It made me realize that at this moment in time, the Chopped judges trump the Iron Chef America judges. They're who the ICA judges should be: charismatic, highly knowledgeable with top notch culinary credentials. They seem passionate about food and also they seem committed to doing the best job they can as judges on Chopped. And they're willing to turn the table on themselves. These chefs were represented in competition on Chopped.

On this show, they were represented by Scott Conant, Alex Guarnaschelli, and Marcus Samuelsson. Each of these judges selected a favorite dish. Rachael and Guy chose a member of their team to compete in making that dish. The losers of these three rounds would then compete in a separate cook-off.

In the first round, the dishes were fried chicken, pasta with a tomato basil sauce, and porterhouse steak. Here's what seems evident to me. If I was in the competition, I would want to be on Team Rachael, because she seems to me to be much more hands on. Guy seems like he listens. He will toss in a few sage words, but he expects you to do the heavy lifting. Rachael goes in there and rolls up her shirtsleeves. She will give detailed instructions on recipes. She will yell it to you step by step.

This also may be a reflection on the teams. It seems to me that Summer Sanders and Taylor Dayne really needed that kind of instruction to get through this round. Perhaps if Guy was faced with that situation, he would also step in.

The judging feels a bit circumstantial. To me, it has been established that there are certain team members who are highly experienced in the kitchen and others who are not as skilled or as experienced. Yet in these competitions, it is just judged on the dish, however you get it on the plate. So, in Round 2, it seemed mindboggling that two of the best cooks in the group, Lou Diamond Phillips and Cheech, were in  the bottom three. The idea that Joey Fatone wins the cook-off between the three of them seems absurd, and yet it makes sense. The dish was grilled cheese. He was the only one who was able to make a sandwich where the cheese was melted. He made something very simple, the sandwich he made for his kids for lunch. The other two went fancy and overthought it and it just didn't work.

I'm sorry that Cheech was eliminated. It would have been hard for me to continue watching if it had been LDP. He is such a complete fan of All Things Food Network and such a smart and enthusiastic cook. I always look forward to hearing his comments; He is the one that I want to stick around.

 

United States of Tara, Season 3

In this final season, the stakes feel higher than they have ever been. A new part has emerged for Tara, Bryce, patterned after her stepbrother who abused her, the person whose actions may have splintered her into these parts in the first place.

Unlikle the other parts who are willing to compromise and work together cooperatively, Bryce is intent to go it alone. He start to kill off the other characters, gloating that he was ever closer to his ultimate goal: killing Tara.

In this season, the danger and heartbreak of living with someone with D.I.D. was continually highlighted. Important events were basically ruined by Tara's meltdowns on a regular basis. It was thought that Tara could not be trusted with her sister's baby. (I actually had to agree.) This season I did wonder if Max, Tara's stalwart husband, would decide to leave.

Spoilers ahead:'

What amazed me in the end was when Tara had reached a victory over Bryce, how you could see little bits of everyone in her actions in the world. Her voice carried residue of the other parts, but now it seemed like everything was just blended together. This show was not only enjoyable; it had heft to it. There were plenty of things to ponder every time.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

This piece was written by Guest Reviewer Michael Sweeney.

 

The door opens and a wrinkled, seedy looking John Hurt glances nervously past your shoulder, looks at you suspiciously.

"You weren't followed." he says, glances again.

And thus you enter into a smoky, dark and quiet film that, in my youth, would have been called a "psychological thriller." Hurt is Control, the head of British spy agency MI5 and he is about to send a trusted young agent on a mission that will upend the entire British intelligence community.

This film has all the elements of intrigue, suspense and mystery that characterized the suspense and film noir genres of decades past. Missing are frantic chase scenes (eat your heart out, Jason Bourne), improbable feats of athleticism and spectacular explosions. And yet this film is gripping. There are many small, but rich, elements that deepen the experience and the characterizations - a bee in a car, an owl on fire (okay, you had to be there) and a meticulous attention to period details, to architecture, to style that underline and support the story and create an ambience that both establishes mood and believability.

As a measure of the quiet intensity of this film, the protagonist, George Smiley (Gary Oldman) has several scenes and probably eight minutes of screen time before he utters a single word of dialogue. There are meaningful glances, sidelong looks, shrugs, tiny nods and wistful smiles in place of what often passes for dialogue now.

I read the original novel by John le Carré years ago and I don't remember much of the story now so I don't have a lot of comparisons to make. But even without knowing the story, the film stays true not only to the genre of the cold war spy novel of the 70s and 80s, but to the dark, suspenseful Hitchcockian thriller and even pays a little homage to film noir's rainy black and white classics. It's a film that demands attention and doesn't do much hand holding although there is more than usual narration and explanation by a couple of characters to keep you up with the story.

Definitely worth a theatre trip. I'll give it a solid four stars.

Rachael v. Guy, Celebrity Cook-Off, Episode 2

In this episode, both teams had two hours to make four desserts. One of the desserts had to include a savory ingredient chosen by the celebrity leader of the other team. Guy chose anchovies for Team Rachael. Rachael chose horseradish for Team Guy.  The dishes would be judged by a panel of culinary students.

 In this show the celebrities need assistance. In addition to the two hours, they are given a half hour to consult with their other team members and with the team leaders on their game plan. Both Guy and Rachael basically gave their teams the ideas on what to do with the tricky ingredients and instructions on how to do it. It was up to the teams to implement these directions, but they were given a map.

Coolio and Lou Diamond Phillips continue to charm.  For some reason, Cheech's cooking is not being shown on the show. I would love to see more of his process as he is preparing his food, but that is not being shown to us. Joey Fatone is also not getting very much screen time.

I wondered a bit about the structure of the show. Last week one of Team Rachael's member was eliminated, giving Team Guy a one person advantage. What if Team Rachael kept losing and the numbers became more skewed? Would it be that interesting to watch such a lopsided competition?

This week they evened out the teams again by eliminating Alyssa Campanella. After the dessert competition, she competed against Summer Sanders on who could make the best salad. I was actually surprised that Summer won. Serving essentially raw salmon seemed to me a valid reason for elimination. But Rachael and Guy thought Alyssa's salad was sparse and the dressing was simply oil and vinegar. they liked Summer's presentation and thought the other ingredients worked in her dish.

The showitself  to me feels a bit raw.  That might just be the growing pains of a first season. I could watch this season just to see Lou Diamond Phillips. He is that interesting and endearing to me. I feel the same about Coolio and I think I would about Cheech, too, if they ever did show him on camera.