286643 Mon Oct 09 16:54:20 -0700 2000 24 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1538023 I think the time is right for a movie lampooning celebrity chefs and the restaurant business..kinda like "Spinal Tap" only about food. What chef/restaurant/trend would you skewer? Which actors would you like to see in a movie like this? I could see Christopher Walken as Charlie trotter... Mon Oct 09 16:54:20 -0700 2000 0 PAT I. 1 1538024 Well, Walken does like to cook. Witness the recent Observer article entitled "Who’s in Chris Walken’s Kitchen? He Is! And He Wants to Feed You". My favorite bit: "Christopher Walken crushed a whole bulb of garlic with alarming force on the countertop, as though he were performing CPR, and began chopping the garlic with a menacing-looking butcher knife." BTW, anyone ever been to the Walken family bakery? Wanna comment? Kat Link: http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=3172 Mon Oct 09 17:16:30 -0700 2000 1538023 0 Kat Kinsman 2 1538025 Related: Is Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential being made into a movie by David Fincher or is that a wild (but nevertheless enticing) rumor. Fincher is great as is Kitchen Confidential and the two visions seem to match up perfectly. Kitchen Confidential fits in nicely with Fincher's running themes of becoming enlightened only after hitting rock bottom. (he did Fight Club, the Game, and Seven). In any case, KC would be a movie about A chef with real, interesting experiences to back up the story. I would love to see the part on the Rainbow Room on film! Come to think of it, there's another bond that ties Fincher and Bourdain...the food-sabotaging bits of Fight Club bear a strange similarity to some of Bourdain's less-than-savory revelations about kitchens. I can't wait (if it's true). Someone confirm! -shane Mon Oct 09 21:54:10 -0700 2000 1538024 0 Shane 3 1538027 So who would play him? Tommy Lee Jones? Tue Oct 10 07:15:17 -0700 2000 1538025 0 pat i. 4 1538028 Kitchen Confidential has indeed been optioned by New Line for David Fincher and Art Linson. At what point in production (or pre-production) they are, I don't know. (I'm a tech consultant). The screenwriter was working undercover in my kitchen for a while though. I told my cooks he was an extern from French Culinary (to explain his complete lack of usefulness...Casting, I haven't a clue..though I think Robert Downey Jr. has the perfect resume. Tue Oct 10 09:04:18 -0700 2000 1538027 0 Anthony Bourdain 5 1538030 Just a tech consultant? I'd think they'd stick you in the frame somewhere at some point...prepping, or as an imperious customer or something. Your face is familiar enough from talk shows by now that it'd provide an "aha" for the audience. Tue Oct 10 10:17:35 -0700 2000 1538028 0 Jim Leff 6 1538181 David Fincher?!? This should promise to be one SICK AND TWISTED movie about the restaurant business!! (In the best sense, of course....) BTW, put me down as another guy who absolutely LOVED your book. Sun Oct 22 21:23:26 -0700 2000 1538030 0 mark 7 1538697 If you think Fincher is a BIG deal for the movie... Brad Pitt is going to be the lead according to IGNFilmforce. Considering how well the two work (Fight Club, Se7en), this should be a good see. Tue Nov 21 11:47:17 -0800 2000 1538181 0 Maurice 5 1538031 Good to know, Mr. Bourdain! I really hope it comes through. Maybe Ed Norton can play your part. Let me see if anyone else has told you this: your book made me want to a) eat at Les Halles and b) start smoking freebase again. Great book, dude. -shane Tue Oct 10 10:40:37 -0700 2000 1538028 0 Shane 5 1538032 I just finished up "Bone in Throat". Great read! "The Count" and his restaurant (with his image etched in the door window) reminds me of a restaurant in the village...across the street from "golden Disc"... Food there was pretty bad when I ate there. I think the place was the inspiration for The Olive Garden. Looking foward to the movie! Tue Oct 10 12:35:30 -0700 2000 1538028 0 pat i. 2 1538026 What a riot! I'm picturing him saying (in that intimitable Walken manner) "The stock is cloudy.. cloudy fellas.. What... do... I... have... to... do... to... make... this... clear? Stock shouldn't be cloudy!" Also staring Willem Defoe as... the sous chef. Tue Oct 10 06:08:59 -0700 2000 1538024 0 bryan 1 1538034 The British comedian Lenny Henry did a very, very funny series called Chef! for the BBC in the early 1990's. He played the megalomaniacal Garret Blackstock, chef of La Maison Anglais. He terrorized the sous chefs, waiters, maitre d' and sommelier. Agonized over restaurant critics, publicity and money. Some of the PBS stations have run the episodes, or you might find them on video. Highly recommended! Tue Oct 10 14:35:20 -0700 2000 1538023 0 Elizabeth 2 1538036 BBC America runs it on cable as well. Great show. Lenny Henry is hillarious... I once saw him do a skit as Doctor Who on a british Saturday Night Live-type comedy show that he used to do. I think he would have made a great Doctor! now Henry may be funny... but that other Ainsley guy that does that "Can't Cook Wont Cook" Show on the BBC is just absolutely awful. He's just way too hyper. Tue Oct 10 14:57:00 -0700 2000 1538034 0 Jason Perlow 2 1538059 They had 2 tapes of Chef!, each with 3 episodes at Kim's Video in Manhattan on Bleecker and LaGuardia. I rented the 1st one and will let you know how it is! Wed Oct 11 18:18:20 -0700 2000 1538034 0 Jessica Shatan 3 1538062 If you go to the shop section of PBS.org you'll find it for sale. Highly recommended. Thu Oct 12 06:36:50 -0700 2000 1538059 0 bryan 4 1538074 My local video store (in DC) said that 2 tapes is all that are available. Too bad, because there are definitely more episodes. Thu Oct 12 18:02:28 -0700 2000 1538062 0 Sirina 5 1538081 Chef is so bogus though. I mean, some of it makes sense, but a lot of it is puffery. Have you seen that soup opera thing at ontherail.com? They get nasty, but it's really high opera, and it feels so real. Link: http://www.ontherail.com Fri Oct 13 00:56:34 -0700 2000 1538074 0 Erika 6 1538086 Erika, Chef! definitly 'reads' like a prime time sitcom, but a really good one! Fri Oct 13 10:21:49 -0700 2000 1538081 0 Jessica Shatan 7 1538114 Make sure you're watching episodes from the first two seasons, when the humor was tightly focused on the life of a top chef and the world of his kitchen. In the third seasons, they apparently ran out of good writers and transformed the show to a dreary sit-com mostly about sex. Mon Oct 16 09:12:12 -0700 2000 1538086 0 Josh Mittleman 6 1538763 Yah I like those guys too. the articles are pretty true to the REAL life, and I get a laugh about something every time I go there! As for chef, parts are funny, but it's so white washed, and very realistic. Fri Nov 24 13:26:14 -0800 2000 1538081 0 Gillian 6 1538870 Hey! THANKS FOR THE LINK TO ONTHERAIL.com very cool site, and they have a postcard you can send with great pictures for chefs too. Sat Dec 02 14:52:59 -0800 2000 1538081 0 gillian 6 1538934 Thanks for the link Erika! Ontherail.com has some fun stuff. Maybe they should be the ones with the TV show, at least they get it. I liked that waiter-whacker game too. I got 4500 the first try! Wed Apr 04 18:47:38 -0700 2001 1538081 0 Frankie 3 1538065 I watched the tape with the 1st 3 episodes on it and enjoyed it very much. Since I'm reading Kitchen Confidential right now it was fun to see some aspects of it come alive (the kitchen, the chef ordering his subordinates around, the characters that make up the staff: the klutz who gets canned, the fat guy, the thin guy, the pert female sous chef, the megolomaniacal chef who is an obsessive artiste/drill sargent). 1st, I had to get used to the canned laugh track which was irritating. They've done a pretty good job of combining comedy with drama and two of the pitfalls I anticipated were pretty well avoided: thick english accents and annoying-to-me british humor (for instance I don't like Monty Python and some other brit comedy things). Almost everyone is easy to understand (I don't know about you but I had to watch tapes of Absolutly Fabulous 2x to get what they were saying thru the accents). Re: humor, most of it is universal with the rare reference to something british that I didn't get. Anyway I definitly recommend it, it's a lot of fun, they milk the humor well . . . watch out when a customer asks for salt within earshot of the chef or when the newbie in the kitchen loses a band-aid and what did he work on that day? ravioli and miniature pies with a puff pastry top and bottom that are each delicately tied up with what looks like strips of scallion! In true BBC style, all the acting is very good, and the production quality is high without being too in-your-face. They had 2 tapes and each with 3 episodes--I wonder if there are more?? Thu Oct 12 11:24:03 -0700 2000 1538059 0 Jessica Shatan 4 1538080 It's been a while since I've seen it, but what I remember most is the theme song. Wasn't it a loping, reggae-ish tune, the lyrics of which went: "Ve-ry se-ri-ous pro-fes-sion..."? Fri Oct 13 00:55:49 -0700 2000 1538065 0 Steven Stern 5 1538117 I'm the best So do not test The top of my profession The master of my chosen field Of that there is no question Serious Serious profession Serious Serious profession Mon Oct 16 12:00:35 -0700 2000 1538080 0 Rachel Perlow