BURNT

DVD

LIVING ROOM

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Daniel Bruhl

My brother made me watch this film because he's a chef and this is a film about chefs. It is also a film for people for whom food is the ultimate art form. Bradley Cooper plays a sort of Van Gogh of chefs who has gone mad, smashed everything up and become an oyster shucker in New Orleans. In 3 years he shucks one million oysters. That's a shitload of oysters, close on a 1000 a day for three years imcluding Sundays. We know because he has recorded the shucking of each oyster in a small note book. When he shucks his millionth oyster, we are invlited to watch him write the number 1,000,000 in his very small notebook. Let's say it took half a second to write each number on the basis that the early numbers didn't take very long but when he got to about 100,000, the time taken to write each number increased by a quarter of a second. If a thousand seconds is about 16 minutes, then a million seconds is about 16,000 minutes. This is 270 hours or nigh on 22 twelve hour days. He would also need more than 200 A5 notebooks. Some penance, and that's without the oyster shucking itself.

This oyster shucking has the effect of driving him even madder than he was already so he goes to London and opens the best restaurant in the world. He doesn't seem to require any money to do anything which makes his life a bit easier.

Most memorable scene:

Sienna Miller is a super sous chef who thinks that Cooper is a pig because he rants and shouts all the time in between throwing plates of food at the kitchen walls. Milleer accidentally over cooks a piece of turbot.

                                                                   COOPER
                                                                 ( alarmingly calm)

                                                                   What have you done to this fish?

                                                                   MILLER
                                                                   I cooked it.

                                                                  COOPER
                                                                  ( Louder but still apparently calm)

                                                                  I said, what have you done to this fish?

                                                                  MILLER

                                                                  As I said, I cooked it.

                                                                  COOPER
                                                                  ( scary mocking tone)

                                                                 You cooked it. That's what you did is it?

Cooper turns away from the camera in order to prepare himself. He turns back towards the camera, eyes bulging, spittle spraying out of his mouth, hair matted to his forehead. He advances on Miller, looming over her like a rabid bear.

                                                                COOPER ( CONT.)

                                                               You didn't cook it, you destroyed it. You made its
                                                                death pointless...

MILLER backs away, terrified. COOPER closes in on her, frothing and ranting.

                                                               COOPER ( CONT)

                                                              Say sorry to the fish.

                                                             MILLER
                                                            ( Terrified but trying not to laugh)

                                                              No.

                                                              COOPER
                                                             ( Threatening viiolence)

                                                              I said, say sorry to the fish.

                                                               MILLER

                                                             Alright, I'm sorry fish.


                                                              COOPER
                                                              ( apoplectic with rage)

                                                            Not to me, to the fish!!!!!!

If you still want to see this film, that's your business.