Chef (2014)

When I watched Chef the other day, something just didn't sit right with me about it. I really wanted to enjoy it, but I found myself impatiently waiting for it to end. I didn't get involved in it at all, but I couldn't figure out the reason. It wasn't just the cringe-worthy attempt to be hip by continually referencing Twitter, although that definitely grated on me. I sat and pondered this for a while, and eventually realised why I couldn't get into this film. There wasn't enough at risk to make it interesting to watch.

The reason they're all so happy is because not a single thing has ever gone wrong in their entire lives.

Most films follow the three act structure. The first act is used for exposition, and it introduces the characters, setting, and some sort of problem for the characters to overcome, or a goal for them to strive towards. The second act involves the characters attempting to solve the problem, but finding themselves unable to, and everything goes pear-shaped for them. In the third act, the characters complete their character arc, where they learn something about themselves or grow/change in some way, and finally solve the problem at the end of the movie. The tension is supposed to rise and rise throughout the film until the climax finally gives us the satisfying resolution we've been waiting for.

This is what a normal movie feels like as we're watching it.

In this movie, Jon Favreau plays the eponymous chef, who ends up leaving his job at a restaurant after having creative differences with the owner and a humiliating public fight with a critic. Instead, he opts to buy a food truck and travel around, selling the food that he's passionate about. Now, in a more interesting film, he'd struggle for a big portion of the film. Maybe the truck keeps breaking down in the middle of nowhere, or perhaps he can't seem to attract many customers. He'd probably be on the verge of giving up on his dream, but finally, towards the end, he'd manage to overcome all of this and succeed. There'd be the big, rewarding payoff that we'd been waiting for.

However, in this film, that's not how it went down. In this film, this is what happens after he quits his job at the restaurant:

• He got his hands on an old food truck.
• His old work colleague turned down a promotion in the fancy restaurant to come and work alongside him in this decrepit truck for no money whatsoever. I guess I'm willing to let this one slide. Maybe they were incredibly good friends or whatever, but that was a terrible business decision on the colleague's part.
• Colleague gets the truck spruced up all nice.
• Chef's son posts Tweets and Vines about them, which go viral and attract a huge fan base wherever they go, making them instantly successful.
• The critic who had wronged the chef earlier in the film comes with a gushing apology, and vows to buy him a goddamn restaurant where he can do whatever he wants.
• Chef gets his ex-wife back.
• Everyone lives happily ever after.

Everything goes well for him after the initial problem is encountered. It just doesn't make for an interesting film at all.

This is what Chef felt like as I watched it. Apart from the tiny rise in tension where he quits his job, nothing else got in his way, making the whole ride far too easy to keep me interested.

I get that this film is probably just supposed to be a feel-good movie about the dude's family, but I really didn't find it particularly interesting. There are plenty of feel-good movies in which there's still conflict to make it more exciting. I'm a fan of Favreau's work in quite a few other movies, but this was essentially two hours of him living out his fantasies on screen, where he plays around with his cuisine hobby, and somehow gets with both Scarlett Johansson and Sofia Vergara. Also, just a minor thing, but I got a bit sick of all the cuban music by the end of the movie. I don't even know why. Maybe that was just me.

Overall, I rate Chef 3/10.

I did enjoy all the food porn, although for a film called "Chef", I expected a lot more of it. It certainly was a feel-good movie. In fact, it was too much of a feel-good movie. There was so much good-feeling that it was boring to watch.

How to make a Michael Bay Transformers movie

I guess Michael Bay is an easy target for criticism by this point, because it's gotten to the stage where we expect his films to be awful. That doesn't mean I'm going to lay off him, however. I watched all four of the Transformer's movies over the space of a couple of weeks (I couldn't bear to watch them on consecutive days). After investing over ten hours of my life watching these movies, I developed this fool-proof list of rules to allow anybody to put themselves in Michael Bay's shoes and make a Transformers film. In this article, I'll abbreviate the titles as follows:

T1 = Transformers (2007)
T2 = Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
T3 = Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
T4 = Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

So, in no particular order, I give you Michael Bay's rules for making a Transformers movie:

• Ensure the product placement in your film is as shameless, blatant, and frequent as physically possible. Above all else, you must remember that your movie is not art in any way. I mean, is art going to pay for your third Malibu mansion? Hell no it won't! Your movie is a product. It's a medium through which you can become a rich bastard. The easiest way to get a truck load of money is by selling out through corporate sponsorship, and using your movie as a two and a half hour advert for a thousand different products. 

How about a round of "Spot the Product"? My favourite is in the bottom-right, where Michael Bay has used his movie to advertise another one of his own goddamn movies.

• If you can't squeeze enough product placement in the "background" of every shot, just use the Transformers themselves! Plaster them with brand names and you're guaranteed at least two more wheelbarrows of cash. 

Because an ancient race of alien robots would highly value brand awareness. My favourite is the Oreo one. How shameless is that advertising? "Hey guys, I know you're busy watching Transformers battling each other, but how about trying some delicious Oreos? They taste amazing dipped in milk. Go buy a pack or two. You know you want to! Okay, thank you for your time. Now back to the action."

• Make sure Optimus Prime, the most badass and interesting character in this whole franchise, is absent/incapacitated for a huge chunk of your movie. In T1, he didn't even show up until over an hour into the movie. In T2, he's dead for half the film. In T3, he gets tangled in some cables whilst most of the action is going on. In T4, he gets captured and locked up in a big space prison. JUST LET US WATCH OPTIMUS FIGHT THINGS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
• When Optimus Prime finally shows up, upgrade him and make him look all awesome (just like the trailer promised), but make sure he's only upgraded and awesome for about a minute, before he goes back to standard Optimus. In T2, he took the old, dying Transformer's parts and he became badass for about a minute. In T3, he had his trailer to carry all his equipment and he became badass for about a minute. In T4, he rode on the back of a Dinobot and he became badass for about a minute. Starting to see a pattern?
• Remind your audience how awesome and powerful America is, with a enough military propaganda to make Joseph Goebbels proud. The underlying message of these movies is that America is the greatest nation on the planet, so cram in shot after shot of America's almighty military. I want to see fleets of battleships, huge rooms of drone pilots, squads of indestructible Navy Seals, and endless intelligence agents supporting them all. Seriously, these films made me feel proud to be American, and I'm from North London.
• If that wasn't enough, it's very important that there are dozens of American flags scattered throughout each film. Remember: America rules, guys. Don't forget about America. Hello? Guys? Are you thinking about America? Please look at this flag. Isn't it glorious!

Hell yeah!

• It's of utmost importance that the main human characters are generally as annoying as possible. Every time it cuts back to them, your audience should groan in boredom.
• The purpose of your female lead is to be a sex object. In fact, basically every female character who isn't a mother needs to show either arse or tit in order to receive screen time. Women must be sexualised to the extreme. Have them wearing as little clothing as you can get away with. Remember, a woman's purpose is to give us guys some eye candy!

(Top) First scene featuring female lead in T2. (Middle) First scene featuring female lead in T3. (Bottom) First scene featuring female lead in T4.
Notice a trend? To really put this in perspective, try and imagine the male lead being established in the same way.

• Also, make your women as orange and shiny as you can. Ideally, you'll cast a tangerine in fishnet stockings. 
• In fact, try and make every single shot almost entirely composed of various shades of orange and blue. If you can't do it naturally by shooting everything in a desert, or at sunset, do it in post-production, by screwing with your actor's skin tones until they look jaundiced.

I'm seriously concerned about the state of everyone's livers.

• Just as the military story starts to get interesting, cut back to the goddamn Witwickys bickering about plant pots or whatever it is they do. Forget what your audience wants, you're in charge. If you want to focus a big chunk of your film on the "hilarious" mundanity of suburbia, just go for it. After all, it's suburban adolescents who are going to see your movie. Maybe this way, they'll think, "Wow, this guy is just an average high school kid like me. He has parents and lives in a house and everything! I can really relate to him. I'm definitely going to go and see all four thousand sequels." That's how kids' brains work, right?
• When the Transformers are transforming, make sure it's as incomprehensible and vomit-inducing as possible. If anybody can tell where Bumble Bee's legs came from whilst he's transforming from a car, then you've made a mistake. Go back and make it more confusing.
• Any ethnic characters must be portrayed in the most racist way possible. It's very clear that Michael Bay and his writers have never met anybody who isn't white. For this reason, we need to rely on stereotypes and offensive caricatures. Remember the introduction of Jazz in T1? He actually said this: "What's crackin' lil bitches? This looks like a cool place to kick it!" whilst doing flips and striking poses. Or how about the insanely incompetent twins from T2? All they did was fight each other, get in the way of everyone else, and talk with such over the top ghetto slang, that their dialogue was no doubt written by a middle class white guy who still lives with his mother. What about the Japanese Transformer in T4? I can just picture how the thought process went for him: "Alright, let's have a Japanese Transformer, who speaks with a Japanese accent for some reason, even though he's an alien robot. What do Japanese people look like? Of course! Samurai! Problem solved. Now, for the next order of business: an African Transformer who looks like a Zulu warrior..."

(Top) Jazz in T1 posing for the front cover of Run DMC's Greatest Hits. (Middle) Even the other characters in T2 hated the twins. (Bottom) Samurai Transformer from T4. Shut up, that's why.

• Get Linkin Park (or, if they've had enough of your crap, get Imagine Dragons) to write a song for your movie. Don't forget that the soundtrack is yet another opportunity to get a load of cash. What band are the kids into these days? Find 'em. Get a song out of 'em. Sell it. 
• Make sure that Optimus Prime becomes less and less likeable as you progress through the series. When we first meet Optimus in T1, he's the wise, powerful leader of the Autobots, who would gladly give his own life for mankind. By the time we get to T3, he's the worst. This is an exact quote from him in T3, after the Decepticons had spent a day destroying Chicago, completely unhindered: "Your leaders will now understand Decepticons will never leave your planet alone, and we needed them to believe we had gone, for today, we take the battle to them." Putting aside the fact that this reads like it was written by an eleven year old, what a total dick move by Optimus. So you sacrificed the city of Chicago, and allowed millions of people to be slaughtered, just to make a point? Talk about passive aggressive! He then went on to execute Sentinel Prime, his wounded, unarmed prisoner who used to be a close friend. He also murdered Megatron who had literally just saved his life. In T4, he threatened the Dinobots by basically saying, "If you turds don't let me rule you, I will literally kill you." Yes, Führer! Heil Optimus!
• The film must finish within a couple of minutes of the action ending. Don't forget that your audience has the mental capacity of a turnip, so they won't be able to stay focused after colourful things have stopped fighting other colourful things. As soon as you finish the action, wrap everything up ASAP.
• Always finish your movie with Optimus doing a voiceover, summing everything up, like J.D. in Scrubs.

So there you have it. With this guide, you too can produce a billion dollar film franchise, just like the almighty Michael Bay. What young artist doesn't aspire to be on par with a modern day Shakespeare like him? Now go out there, and don't come back until you've sold ad space to every company you can think of. Godspeed.