Chef's Special

I saw this film afraid of what I was going to see was going to be something like Chuecatown (a self indulgent comedy about gays just for a group of gays). But I found something much better suitable for broader audiences.

There are gay characters but the story show them as people with their good and their bad things. They are not idealistic perfect, nor the weeping victims of society, not evil, they're just persons. And that's a good staring point for the "normalization" of gay people also in movies.

Of course there are some stereotyped behaviors, either from gay or heterosexual characters, but fits very well in the play, and are not very far away from some real truths.

Most of gags work very well, the story is credible and having in mind that is a comedy for all family is a good entertainment. Maybe in some countries that prefer kids to watch violence than love scenes it can be somewhat slightly sexy, but here it is perfectly suitable for all family, as I think it should be.

A very good "Opera-Prima" for a director/writer of sitcoms in Spain TV channels.

I hesitated between "4" and "7" as the movie isn't really bad but also not very excellent either.

In regards to the homophobic conservatism that exists actually, it's good to have a light movie that involves gays.

On the other hand, the movie is really heavy as the funny lines are crude, full of clichés. In fact, the movie depicts a bit gays like a special gender and maybe like fragile people who were expected to hide. I don't think it's fair. Beyond this, i don't really care about gays: they can do whatever they like but i never understood the need to have gay movies shelves in shops. What interests me is a good story and a good story involves every one.

Another problem is that the movie runs after too much themes: it can be a movie about restaurant, but also a romance or about single parenthood.

If the cast and production is top, finally, i felt like watching a sitcom and that's not the definition of a movie!

Besides that, shoddy writing and extremely predictable. A very awkward watch.

Chef's special, or fuera de carta en español. The zany, wacky goings-on in a restaurant, run by chef maxi. He's overwhelmed by the antics of his workers, the customers, and even his personal life. When he tries to fix alex up with the new neighbor horacio, it all goes wrong! The neighbor thinks maxi wants him, instead! But alex thinks horacio already has a girlfriend. What a mess. Can this all get straightened out? The script needed some cleaning up.... some scenes are just silly. When maxi and his daughter do a dance while fixing breakfast, it just felt like filler. When the son is very angry at max, they have a huge fight, but a minute later, the son and dad are friends again. And in the next scene, they are enemies again. There is some fun comedy... at one point, alex says "do you think i'm showing too much cleavage?" and turns around to show how her very low cut dress shows off her butt ...cleavage. It's a bedroom farce. Lots of adult subject matter and cussing. With some serious moments here and there. You'll recognize grandma celia (chus lampreave)... she was in all the almodovar films! It's pretty good. Directed by nacho velilla. He's won a bunch of film fest awards.

First, I should say that the movie definitely had some funny, enjoyable scenes. However, the movie was laden with way too many derogatory gay jokes. I was uncomfortable hearing so many bigoted, insulting, ignorant jokes. Many in the audience I was in laughed, but I squirmed at every "joke." Even in the movie's context of perhaps mocking homophobes, it was not necessary to have some many. Could you imagine a movie about African-Americans full of white characters spouting out a constant barrage of jokes about fried chicken and bananas and athletic prowess? And was it necessary for the main character to be such an effeminate stereotype? As for the plot, the director's soap opera experience was obvious; the plot had several wrenching shifts from light humor to attempts at deep seriousness. If you want to see good Spanish humor without the stereotyping and gay-bashing "jokes," I'd suggest Almodovar's many excellent comedies.