Reviews

All sorts of things wrong with the episode. Why kill Natalie? Better to stall her until after the con, then turn the mark in; that way he'll be too busy with his defense to come after you. Even maybe bring Natalie in on the con, telling her it is further punishment for the mark. Charlie gets revenge for Natalie by tipping off the mark, who she knows to be a really bad guy, would she do that? Frost Jr. Is afraid of his father's scorn, but what could the old man do to you that is worse than killing yourself? If the old man is so unforgiving, why does Frost's assistant, who was active in the con, remain working for him?

Other than that, the pace is good, Natasha Lyonne is super likable as the main character, and the car is great. (I learned to drive in one, though my mom's Barricuda was olive green and the racing stripe was black.) I assume the sloppiness was an unavoidable consequence of setting up the rest of the series. I hope future episodes make more sense.

Look, we all know where ION movies sit in this hierarchy: a step down from Hallmark in terms of budget and actors, and usually even more saccharine. This was no exception, with OK (if stereotypical) acting all around, though rather extreme overacting on the part of the matriarch. The pretty protagonist had more personality than is usual for ION movies, even more than some Hallmark movies. The mystery itself was not bad, at least not guessable within 5 minutes. For me there was one real hole (small spoiler coming): the espresso machine was supposed to cause the power outage when she hit the brew button, but the main power draw in an espresso machine is the boiler element, and that would have already been on (you can't draw espresso from a machine you've just switched on); the power draw of the pump is minimal, around 100 Watts for a Nema motor driving a rotary pump. Also, this 'barista' only half-loaded the portafilter; she was planning to fill a small samovar from that? Picky, I know, but when they sourced a decent commercial espresso machine maybe they could have borrowed the dealer's expertise for a bit?

A bit of a muddle, but here's what I think is going on: a bunch of super-WASPy looking people pretend to be Italian so that they don't have to remove the original names from their restaurants. They make what to my eyes looks like Atlanta-style pizza, basically a kind of tomato-covered taco, and can't understand why nobody in Chicago, which has its own pizza tradition, want to buy it. They jump to the wrong conclusion, which is that an even worse pizza chain down the road is siphoning off their business. No doubt because they've seen millions of movies like this one, the main characters decide that the way to compete is combine one restaurant's crust with the other restaurant's toppings. Since neither is recognizably an ingredient in "pizza" in Chicago, it is unlikely to work, but through the miracle of TV movie magic they get enough of the third restaurant's business to stay afloat. Maybe even earn enough to finance the next movie's restaurant, which will be a kosher-style lobster-and-pork-ribs joint in Brooklyn.

"Evanstown?" Seriously?

So, you're Lasse Hallström and you decide to make a movie. Your protagonists will be itinerants, traveling from place to place until finding themselves in a charming French village. There they will introduce the locals to an exotic and slightly magical cuisine, with recipes passed down from the cook's mother and enhanced by special ingredients brought with them in their travels. The food will all be spectacular, and you will film it beautifully.

When the newcomers first arrive many locals will shun them, try to drive them away. The lives of the newcomers will get more and more intertwined with those of the locals, finally all antipathy is overcome and the newcomers become fully accepted. At that point wanderlust returns to the main cook, who you won't let get very far, and the film will end with the wanderers now a permanent part of the village.

The movie will star a young Juliette Binoche type, and be called... Chocolat.

14 years later you will reboot it as The Hundred-Foot Journey.

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I enjoyed this film very very much, but it really is an obvious rehash of Chocolat. The acting is quite good: this is one of Om Puri's best performances (in his Bollywood movies he is often forced to overplay his part), and Mirren is of course fabulous in everything, even pretentious Greenaway twaddle. The beautiful Charlotte Le Bon (who does look remarkably like a young Binoche) was good but honestly the role didn't call for much; I would like to have seen her character given more wrinkles. (She also didn't succeed in hiding her Canadian accent when speaking English.) Manish Dayal is likable and does a credible job, though an actor from India or the NRI community in England might have brought more edge to the role

It was a delicious film to consume, but not especially challenging in any way. Like chocolate.