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Reviews
Masterchef Australia: The Professionals (2013)
Respectful, Professional and Challenging
This is the best cooking competition I've ever seen on TV. The contestants are true professionals in every sense: they are able to get through extremely tough challenges (probably the toughest ever seen on TV) and they don't damage their hard-earned reputation with silly dramas. This is a competition of skill without intrigues and personal attacks.
The judges are simply excellent; Marco White shines with an almost overpowering charisma and command, and Matt Preston firmly controls the show's direction with his experienced criticism and his great smile.
But the most important aspect is the *respect* the judges and the show in general is offering to the contestants and ultimately the viewer: no editing of scenes; no focus on smirks or silly sound effects to mock one's words; no sarcasm or disrespect to any dish. It is a huge contrast against Marco White's famous apprentice who has convinced so many people that a failed dish is grounds for humiliating a human being.
10/10. This show has turned Australia as a candidate for next summer's travel.
Juan (2010)
Neither Alfie, nor Don Giovanni; just a murderer.
Juan is a musical where the music is great, the cast is talented, the directing is bold but the scenario has issues.
The concept of the abusive womanizer is captured very well in either Mozart's opera (Cesare's 1955 version being my favorite) or in Jude Law's Alfie. Both works follow the protagonist in his adventures with women, his heartless abuse of their trust and both works ultimately punish him in the own ways: supernaturally the former, sentimentally the latter.
Juan tries to combine the concepts.
But the story fails almost immediately for he is a serial murderer. He does it at the intro of the film -- without the possibility of an equivalent to a "fair sword duel" as it existed in the age of Mozart where victory didn't count as murder. And he does it again at the finale.
His guilt therefore, can no longer be attributed to breaking women's hearts for fun, but for murder instead. Which would be fine in a movie but it doesn't justify neither the origin of the music nor the volumes of sex.
Both Alfie and Don Giovanni explore the issue of trust betrayal in multiple relationships much better than Juan.