Lame drama, but food looks great

Burnt features Bradley Cooper as a narcissistic chef.

Someone needs to explain to me why I should want to spend time with an obnoxiously narcissistic chef who's trying to make a comeback in London after having undermined a skyrocketing career in Paris.

But wait, maybe the answer has something to do with the fact that said chef is the main character in a movie called Burnt, and he's played by a fashionably bestubbled Bradley Cooper.

Burnt, the plot of which I've just described, can't rise above its many problems even with Cooper portraying a culinary hotshot who thinks he's better than everyone else -- and probably would be if it weren't for the drug and alcohol problems that derailed his rise.

Turns out the best thing about this John Wells directed movie, set in the upper echelons of London's foodie culture, is the food, photographed with glossy slickness by cinematographer Adrinao Goldman.

When the camera focuses on the meals that Cooper's Adam Jones prepares, the movie has the allure of a beautifully photographed gourmet magazine, and it affords us a glimpse into the kitchens of the kind of gastronomically praised establishments that serve up minuscule portions for astronomical prices.

Is there an unwritten rule that all highly praised food must never touch the edge of any plate?

Wells supplies the kitchen scenes with the heat and bustle you'd expect, and I'd have been content if food preparation -- complete with tension, yelling and the occasional dress-down -- had completely wiped out the plot.

The screenplay by Steven Knight (Locke, Redemption) doesn't have much to offer once it convinces us that Jones' character is a jerk.

Because he's a talented jerk, others -- Sienna Miller as a saucier with a big future and Daniel Bruhl as a gay Maitre-D -- tolerate Jones and try to help him, even when they're frustrated by him.

Additional support comes from Omar Sy (The Untouchables), as a sous chef whose business in Paris was ruined by the then drunken Jones, and Matthew Rhys , as a rival restaurateur who also dislikes Jones intensely.

Subplots involving Jones' indebtedness to drug dealers and the late-picture introduction of one of his former lovers (Alicia Vikander) add little to an undernourished script.

Functioning as a kind of garnish, Emma Thompson appears as a doctor hired by Jones' employer to monitor his blood-alcohol level, and, occasionally, to offer sage advice.

Celebrity chefs Marcus Wareing and Mario Batali are credited with having served as consultants on the movie, so the kitchen environment presumably has some authenticity.

Truth be told, I'd rather watch the two of them work than be force fed another helping of Burnt.

If you're hungry for a more appetizing food movie, and haven't seen Chef, well ... there's always Netflix.

Great cast puts 'Osage' on the map

A family that goes way beyond dysfunctional.

The big-screen version of Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize winning play -- August: Osage County -- may not reach the cinematic stratosphere, but it mostly holds it own. Credit several stand-out performances in the movie's large (and talent heavy) ensemble.

Trimmed from three to two hours, the movie version of Osage County also benefits from the tart humor in Letts's screenplay.

Moreover, director John Wells, known mostly for great TV work such as ER and The West Wing, wisely recognizes that his cast and Letts's writing constitute the movie's strongest suit.

A slight alteration to the movie's ending takes a bit of the sting out of Letts's drama, but Wells and cinematographer Adrinao Goldman add at least one dimension that's difficult to capture on stage.

They make it clear that the drama emanates from the flat desolations of the Oklahoma landscape. This sense of place serves as sturdy foundation for a caustic view of an American family steeped in bitter discord.

The story begins when the family's poet father Beverly (Sam Shepard) vanishes from home, leaving his embittered, pill-popping wife Vi (Meryl Streep) to browbeat the three grown daughters she summons in the wake of her husband's unexplained absence.

Julia Roberts's Barbara arrives with her estranged husband (Ewan McGregor) and her teen-age daughter (Abigail Breslin). Julianne Nicholson plays Ivy, the daughter who stayed behind and has become her mother's caretaker. Juliette Lewis portrays Karen, the wayward daughter who brings her fiancé (Dermot Mulroney) with her for the visit.

Additional characters include Vi's Sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale); her husband Charles (Chris Cooper); and their grown son, known to the others as Little Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch).

Streep provides the centerpiece for this deranged family table. Her Vi, a woman suffering from mouth cancer, spews vitriol along with cigarette smoke. She's one of those cruel people who views her venomous attacks as necessary examples of truth telling.

In reality, Vi isn't quite so courageous: She's a woman with a mean streak as wide as the Oklahoma flatlands, one of those people who feels cheated by life and refuses to take it lying down.

Sporting a wig that covers Vi's chemo-assaulted hair, Streep gives the kind of showy performance that demands attention, but her's is not the best work in Osage County.

For that, you need to look to look to Martindale, whose Mattie Fae has a totally lived-in feel. The same goes for Cooper: His Charles is given one of the play's more moving moments. In the face of so much craziness, he becomes a spokesman for simple decency.

Equally good are Roberts as the daughter with guts enough to stand up to her mother, and Nicholson, whose character acquires unexpected strength as the movie progresses. Lewis might be the weakest of the sisters, but when the material calls for Karen to have her moment, she delivers.

Misty Upham appears as the Native American housekeeper hired by Beverly to care for Vi. She's used by Letts as the play's one stabilizing presence.

Wells finds touching moments amid the comic clangor, which -- on screen -- tends to be overwhelmed by a slew of late-picture revelations. There's screwed-up, and then there's "too damned screwed up," a condition of which Osage County becomes an unfortunate example.

Still, a lunch scene packs plenty of comic punch, and there's enough fine acting here to keep August: Osage County on the map -- if not to make it one of the year's most highly regarded destinations.

They're casualties of a shifting economy

Woes in the world of management; execs feel the pain, too.

Just about all the men in The Company Men have enjoyed success. Their houses are spacious. They drive upscale cars. Their kids don't want for anything. Class trip to Italy? Not a problem. They're competent businessmen who believe they've earned the fruits of corporate life at a Boston company that made its name building ships. Of course all bubbles eventually burst, and, in the hands of director John Wells, The Company Men becomes a lingering look at what happens when a company begins to shed once valued employees who have turned into excess baggage.

Dead weight, it should be noted, has nothing to do with skill, experience or even prior success. It has to do only with balky parts of the company that have become a drag on profits and, thus, a worry for stockholders. A company that made its bones in the rugged world of manufacturing now sees its future in a newly acquired health-care subsidiary. And all those men who built and sold the ships? Well, that's why we have scrap heaps.

The Company Men has obvious relevance in a time of economic duress. It begins during the Bush administration and continues for a year. For a while, the movie does a good job chronicling the fate of newly unemployed executives, men who are unaccustomed to viewing themselves as failures or showing up at a less-than-luxe placement center.

All well and good, but somewhere along the line, Wells begins to succumb to predictability; he shrinks from the tough conclusions that deserve to be drawn from this story and offers light at the end of a dark economic tunnel. He also concentrates his attention on a well-heeled management class, paying relatively little attention to workers who also have been cast aside. In fact, they're mostly invisible.

Ben Affleck plays Bobby Walker, a confident salesman who's among the first to be fired. He's followed by a variety of others, including Chris Cooper's Phil Woodward, an executive who worked his way up from the factory floor. Tommy Lee Jones plays the tough-minded head of the ship-building division, a guy who values his employes and who believes in the old-fashioned way of doing business; i.e., making things and selling them for a profit. His view obviously is losing traction.

As Bobby's brother-in-law, Kevin Costner gives a nice small performance. He's a contractor who mistrusts what he sees as Bobby's white-collar arrogance. Costner's Jack Dolan ultimately helps Bobby rediscover a sense of purpose in hard, physical labor, not the first evidence of the cliches that increasingly make their presence felt.

Scenes at the fictional GTX Corp. ring true, as does the performance of Craig T. Nelson as the company's hard-assed CEO. Nelson's character has adjusted to new economic realities and is blessed with the ability to avoid looking back. He's aided in his downsizing efforts by an equally tough woman (Maria Bello) who delivers lots of bad news to lots of angry employees.

Affleck gives a convincing performance as a man whose confidence is put to the test. When men are fired, their egos also are downsized. They've lost their place in the world.

It's fair to say, though, that Wells' screenplay might have benefited from a harder edge and a tougher conclusion. The Company Men should not be dismissed, but when it's done, you may realize how much more it could have accomplished.