BEFORE: It's Groundhog Day, the first of the February holidays that I'm forced to ignore, because there's only one movie about that, and I've already seen it. Whether the rodent sees his shadow or not, either way I get about six more weeks of romance films.
I've got a few more Nicole Kidman films on the watchlist, but none of them seem right for the February chain, they're more crime or horror-based, and that just won't do. So I'll link from the other lead actor, and Aaron Eckhart carries over from "Rabbit Hole".
Before I get to tonight's romance, here's a look at the schedule for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming for tomorrow, February 3:
Best Cinematography Nominees & Winners:
6:00 am "Lassie Come Home" (1943)
7:30 am "Strangers on a Train" (1951)
9:30 am "Show Boat" (1951)
11:30 am "The Four Feathers" (1939)
1:45 pm "Blood and Sand" (1941)
4:00 pm "King Solomon's Mines" (1950)
6:00 pm "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949)
8:00 pm "A River Runs Through It" (1992)
10:15 pm "Bound for Glory" (1976)
1:00 am "The Hustler" (1961)
3:30 am "Battleground" (1949)
Dang it, I've only seen three of these 11 films - "Strangers on a Train", "A River Runs Through It" and "The Hustler", but I'm going to watch "Show Boat" in February, so I'll count that. Another 4 out of 11 brings my total up to 17 out of 34, exactly 50%. Which is great, but I know that once they get to Best Documentary and Best Foreign Film, my numbers are going to drop quite quickly.
THE PLOT: The life of a top chef changes when she becomes the guardian of her young niece.
AFTER: This is a mostly-inoffensive comedy/romance - although it's a rare "comedy" that starts with a character's family member dying in a car accident. That's a strange coincidental story element to carry over from "Rabbit Hole", by the way, and it was not planned - but as I said yesterday, I've got a sudden build-up of these "grief-based" films, so it makes sense that a few of them are going to end up next to each other.
This completes my trilogy of films about chefs, two of which I watched last year - this third one didn't seem to connect with the others because they didn't share any actors, so I tabled it until February, and sure enough, linking was later available. In all three movies the lead chef character was talented, opinionated, egotistic and high-strung - geez, you'd think there was a formula or something, or that Hollywood films just run on simple stereotypes. Other similarities - all three movies have precocious kids (in "Chef" it's a son, here it's a niece and in "Burnt" it was a girlfriend's kid) that the lead chef has to connect or re-connect with, and of course they have to juggle a relationship along with their high-paying chef job. Conflict with the restaurant owners is inevitable in all three films, and I think al three films feature the high-class chef getting "humbled" by failure or loss of a job. So yeah, essentially it's the same film three times over, just with some different details in each one.
(The title "No Reservations" might lead one to believe this has something to do with Anthony Bourdain, who hosted a travel/food show for 7 years with a similar title, but that's not the case. Bourdain also wrote a book called "Kitchen Confidential", which was sort of the source material for a TV comedy with the same name, where the lead chef character, Jack Bourdain, was played by Bradley Cooper. And Cooper went on to play the chef character in "Burnt" - so it's all connected, man... But "No Reservations" is really a re-make of a German film titled "Mostly Martha".)
But the title doesn't really work here, not any meaning of it at all. It can't mean that her restaurant doesn't take reservations, because how would that work? And we SEE people making reservations there several times during the film. It could mean that she lives her life without reservations, like she regrets nothing and throws caution to the wind, but that's not the case either, because that doesn't match up with what we know about her character, clearly she has a lot of reservations about caring for her niece, and forming a relationship with her co-worker. So I don't get it, there must have been a better way to title this film.
Also, NITPICK POINT here, if she's such a great chef, why does she have so much trouble cooking food for her niece at first. This is meant to symbolize that she doesn't really understand children, but surely at some point during her illustrious career, she must have cooked for kids, or at least learned that they don't have adult palates yet, and probably enjoy different foods. When she cooks a whole fish or makes duck sandwiches for her niece it's played for laughs here, but the joke also has to make some sense, and it just doesn't. I doubt she could be so clueless that she wouldn't understand that kids like to eat things like spaghetti and pizza. What's worse is that people tell her this several times, her therapist suggests fish sticks (which all kids like, apparently) then she has to learn this AGAIN later in the film, why is she so dense about this?
And not ONE person in this professional kitchen wears latex gloves or a hair net? I sure wouldn't want to eat there if they don't follow proper sanitary procedures. I realize those things may not look very attractive on film, but it's very unappetizing to think of all the germs being spread around that kitchen by these so-called expert chefs. I see this all the time on the food shows I watch, like "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and "Food Paradise". These chefs might be only demonstrating their recipes for the camera, but I'll be more inclined to visit those places if I see the chefs wearing gloves.
Also starring Catherine Zeta-Jones (last seen in "Entrapment"), Abigail Breslin (last seen in "Zombieland"), Patricia Clarkson (last seen in "Everybody's All-American"), Jenny Wade, Bob Balaban (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Brian F. O'Byrne, Lily Rabe (last seen in "Pawn Sacrifice"), Arija Bareikis, Zoë Kravitz (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"), with cameos from Celia Weston (last seen in "The Intern"), Matt Servitto and composer Philip Glass.
RATING: 6 out of 10 white truffles
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