Review of Death Defying Acts

I quite liked this - CZJ is at her best, actually acting as opposed to just looking beautiful, though she is a bit implausibly beautiful as a woman who is supposed to be very poor and living on her wits. Reasonable plot tension and character development, nice tie-in with what we know about Houdini - surprised that Timothy Spall as the manager doesn't even bother to try an American accent, though he is otherwise quite good. Saoirse Ronan as the is-she/isn't-she psychic daughter is really great.

Review of 'Chef'

Cheerful restaurant cooking film, devoid of tension or narrative interest. 'Artist' chef who loves food loses job when he refuses to cook the same menu that his commercially-oriented boss insists on, and instead gets a food truck (we'd say catering van) on the insistence of his loving and gorgeous ex-wife. He takes his ten-year old son on the road trip to bring it from Miami to LA, they bond over cooking, the food is great, and he ends up re-marrying the gorgeous ex-wife.

Fantastic Latin music, an amazing cast, all more or less tipped down the drain in what was a watch-able but uninteresting film. Some mild interest in the fact that it's mainly a 90-minute commercial for Twitter - the dad doesn't really get how Twitter can be used to publicize a new business, but the smart ten-year old shows him, so that every time the truck turns up in a new town there are crowds of people waiting to eat the great food. (Small side note - the food looks really horrible to me, but I am a near-vegetarian.)