Short Movie Reviews: Chef, The Maze Runner, The Fault In Our Stars, and more...

John Favreau is probably best known for his work on the Iron Man movie series, but for my money, his best work has been on smaller films.  With Chef, Favreau has returned to his indie roots and maybe made the best film of his career.  Over the years, I've really come to appreciate films about preparing food-- it's surprisingly cinematic, and it really lends itself to personal drama; it's a perfect framing device (I should also mention that I produce a friend's cooking show on YouTube, so maybe I'm biased).  And it works as a great framing device for this film, in which Favreau's disgraced celebrity chef buys a food truck and goes on a road trip across the country with his son.  It's funny, it's touching, it has an all-star cast, and it'll make you want to eat a Cuban sandwich immediately afterwards.  I can't recommend this movie enough-- it's my favorite film of the year.

The near future has never looked worse for young adults, not if Hollywood has anything to say about it, anyway.  The Maze Runner is one of the latest entries in the teenage dystopia genre, and it's just fine.  It's energetic, the special effects are passable, and it has a central mystery that drives the story forward.  At the same time, the girl who's introduced to the stranded community of boys enters as a token plot device that never develops, and the convoluted conspiracy behind the maze itself... well, once it's revealed, I kept shaking my head thinking, "there are much less expensive ways to do this, guys."  This film is decidedly middle-of-the-road.  If you're aching for a sci-fi action film, this movie will certainly scratch that itch... but it won't do much more.

I'm not really in the demographic for The Fault In Our Stars, but I enjoyed it never-the-less.  Shailene Woodley is a great actress (check her out in The Descendants and The Spectacular Now) and her performance is matched by Ansel Elgort, who comes off as a young, more affable Val Kilmer.  It's based on a novel, and the film clearly benefits from the source material-- a lot of book adaptations feel rushed, but this one felt fleshed out, instead.  The depth in the story really pays off when the couple go to Europe in search of a reclusive author.  So, yeah, this was pretty good-- definitely worth checking out if you like cinematic romance.

There's a lot to like about The Signal.  First of all, the cinematography is fantastic!  If all you need is good visuals, go watch this now.  The movie starts out as a cat and mouse game between some MIT students on a road trip who are being cyber-stalked by a mysterious hacker.  The students decide they're going to find and surprise the hacker, but end up being swooped up into something much stranger than they expected.  It gets off to a wonderful start, but it's one of those movies that sets up such a big mystery that once it starts to resolve, it can't help but be disappointing.  It probably didn't help that the reveal at the end is one that I've seen in a couple other sci-fi programs recently.  But despite its problems, this is a film worth checking out, and I'll be interested to see what comes next from the director, William Eubank.

A few years ago I was collecting these discount collections of B-movies.  You could get something like 50 films on DVD for $10, and they were bundled by genre: horror, sci-fi, crime, etc.  Most of the films were deservedly forgotten (though some were of the so-bad-they're-good variety), but occasionally I'd find something in there that was really great.  Sure, it would gratuitously dive into all the trappings of its genre, but it would do it in a thoroughly entertaining fashion.  A Walk Among The Tombstones felt like one of those diamonds in the rough.  It's violent, it has shallow caricatures, it has Liam Neeson... but I walked away satisfied.