Like staring at the sun

Dallas bad boy John Tesar steals the show on Top Chef Seattle

Who's first to get quoted? Tesar. Who scores immunity? Tesar. Who knowsinstantly that the geoduck needs a little more salt? Tesar.

Photo courtesy of Bravo
Dallas cheftestants Danyele McPherson of The Grape, John Tesar of Spoon andJoshua Valentine of FT33.

In episode 2 of Top Chef: Seattle, Dallas chef John Tesar casts a voodoo spell, his pent-up enthusiasm and scary-intuitive knowingness so intense, it's like seeing molten lava right before the volcano erupts. It's like staring at the sun.

Forget Padma, forget Tom, forget the other contestants. Tesar is a ready-made reality star, a vortex who can't help but slurp up all the attention in the room.

He's the first contestant to get quoted. He can tell instantly that the geoduck needs more salt. He spots a pot of chili oil about to burn up.

What must it be like to be a viewer from Michigan or Montana and not be clued in to his inexorable gravity pull? Watching the show as a Dallasite is like being in on a secret. We're inoculated with Tesar powder. Wise to his combination of chef chops and high drama, we know it's a waste of our time learning the name of the beige girl with vertigo or the swarthy guy with the stretched-out earlobes.

Watching the show as a Dallasite is like being in on a secret. We're inoculated with Tesar powder.

The producers throw in a few plot twists, like their dumb idea of bringing back three contestants from earlier seasons to re-compete for the Top Chef title. One of them has even stahhged at Noma. But Tesar silently rules, his glasses propped on his forehead, perched at an awkward angle between his eyes and his hairline.

The only other cheftestants who make a dent on this episode are the female with the accent who talks nonstop and FT33 chef Josh Valentine, also from Dallas, who scowls at the news of the three returning contestants.

"That sucks. I'm gonna get in fights, I'm sure, now," Valentine says. "It's our turn. None of them were able to seal the deal. I hate them all."

He starts to lose it when he misplaces an ingredient for his dish.

"Hey hey, where's my fucking mushrooms?" he asks. "I think a lot of people think I'm just this little guy from Oklahoma, and that'd be their mistake."

Good effort, Josh!

The episode is all about Seattle, beginning with the opening quickfire challenge to use local seafood. Tesar teams up with Sheldon from Hawaii and English-as-a-second-language Kuniko.

"I know she's Japanese, I'm thinking to myself, maybe she has incredible knife skills," Tesar says. "I've watched every episode of Top Chef and I think the decisions you make are just as important as the dishes you make."

"Winning the first quickfire on Top Chef is gonna be up there in the top five things of all time in my life, not only in my career," Tesar says.

There are clams, crabs and other things pulled from the Seattle sea, still live and twitching. The camera catches Tesar, up to his wrists in a vat of mud to pull out a live geoduck, while two girl chefs stand nearby, wringing their hands. As he and his teammates finalize their plan and start chopping, he says aloud to no one, "Who says the most hated chef in Dallas can't get along with people?"

Quickfire happens, Team Tesar wins. Only one in the three-member team will get immunity, so they draw knives to see who. Who else? Why even bother drawing knives?

"I've been a chef for a long time, and I've accomplished a lot of things," Tesar says earnestly. "But I have to tell you, winning the first quickfire on Top Chef is gonna be up there in the top five things of all time in my life, not only in my career."

The elimination challenge takes place inside the Space Needle, the quintessential Seattle building where the chefs must make the quintessential Seattle dish. They have 47 minutes because that's how long it takes for the needle to rotate – hey, just like Reunion Tower. We can conclude from this challenge that Seattle loves the heck out of rectangles of fish plopped atop fava beans, because that's what all of them turn out.

"They all did very similar dishes, so in a way it is easy to compare them," says judge Gail, glass half full.

The dishes may be all very similar, but only one has been touched by Tesar: the chili-oil-poached cod with daishi. His team takes it and Kuniko wins for her clever idea of poaching fish in a pot of chili oil. It's hugs all around, with Tesar graciously not mentioning the part where he saved the chili oil from burning.

Letting her have the spotlight makes him look big. He wins again.

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Movie Review

The Magic Faraway Tree is a whimsical family lark that fails to take root

Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment

Andrew Garfield, Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Claire Foy, Phoenix Laroche, and Billie Gadson in The Magic Faraway Tree.

With kids and families always on the hunt for entertainment, it’s typically a safe bet for a movie studio to offer up something new, even if it is a film based on an old property. The Magic Faraway Tree, based on a series of books that started in the 1930s, is a very old property, one that its filmmakers have tried to liven up with a few stars, a lot of whimsy, and a boatload of CGI.

The Thompson family, led by stay-at-home dad Tim (Andrew Garfield) and breadwinner mom Polly (Claire Foy), are forced to move to a rundown country home when Polly gets laid off. The kids - Joe (Phoenix Laroche), Fran (Billie Gadson), and Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy) - are used to the perks of city life like wifi and electricity, and each of them rebels in their own way to their new lot in life.

Fran, enticed by a fairy named Silky (Nicola Coughlan), is the first to venture out of the house, making her way to a magic tree that transports her to a world full of strange characters like Moonface (Nonso Anozie), Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns), Dame Washalot (Jessica Gunning), and more. Her adventures there not only broaden the world she thought she knew, but may be the key to helping her ailing family.

Directed by Ben Gregor and written by Simon Farnaby (Paddington 2, Wonka), the film is a pleasant enough lark, but it fails to fully capture the imagination. The five-member family has a lot going on, from an initially-mute Fran to a domestic situation that raises more questions than it answers. The film tries to incorporate an anti-technology message through Tim’s hatred of a smart refrigerator (voiced by Judi Dench!) and the kids' addictions to devices, but it’s quickly shed in favor of other options.

Once Fran makes it to the Magic Faraway Tree, there’s a nice shift in the storytelling, but it’s unclear what the ultimate goal is. It’s a good idea to have Fran, the youngest of the children, convince her older, more cynical siblings about the virtues of the magic world, but the conflict in the real world doesn’t seem to rise to the level needed for the escape the tree provides.

There also seems to be a missing link in the storytelling for viewers to understand the importance of the fantastical characters. The visuals of seeing Moonface and his crescent moon-shaped hair, a man with a suit full of banging pots, and more are fun for a while, but not enough to carry the whole film. A last-minute revelation feels like it was something that should have been disclosed much earlier to help strengthen the emotions of the story.

A two-time Oscar nominee, Garfield is making his first foray into family movies (if you don’t count playing Spider-Man), and while he does a good job, he doesn’t make the best fit for the semi-goofy role. The same goes for the Emmy-winning Foy, who isn’t given much of anything to do. The movie puts the story on the shoulders of the three child actors, and while each of them acquit themselves well, none of them are so outstanding as to be noteworthy.

With nearly 90-year-old source material, The Magic Faraway Tree needed to be something truly special to stand out in the 21st century movie world. Unfortunately, it features a mostly forgettable story that features some fun visuals, a couple of cute kids, and not much else.

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The Magic Faraway Tree is now playing in theaters.

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