#chef flynn

CHEF FLYNN (2018)

Featuring Flynn McGarry, Meg McGarry, Peggy Daniels, Paris McGarry, Will McGarry, Max Coane, Josh Graves, Robert Arnold-Starr, Dominique Crenn, Jesse Escobar, Will Guidara, Danielle Haxton, Daniel Humm, Bernhard Mairinger, Matthew Mako, Jonathan Michael McClune, Christopher Moreno, Kris Morningstar, Huy Nguyen, Vidal Nuñez, Cecilia Romero, Roberto Romero, Jordan Rosas, Carla Ruben, John Sedlar, Bryce Shuman, Estevan Silva, Nestor Silva, Ari Taymor, Rafael Valdez and Susanne Von Euw.

Directed by Cameron Yates.

Distributed by Kino Lorber. 83 minutes. Not Rated.

At an age where Flynn McGarry should be playing video games, studying for a boring English class, or terrorizing his older sister, Chef Flynn is instead romping down a hillside. Or at an early AM farmers market in search of the best ingredients for an upcoming multi-course dinner where his friends are the waitstaff. Flynn is a cooking prodigy.  

While it seems like there are many young cooks on the scene, featured in shows like Top Chef Junior, Chef Flynn’s Flynn McGarry has both the talent and the Hollywood connections (mom Meg McGarry is a filmmaker by trade) to create a feature-length documentary. Plus, he’s boy next door cute, with his mop of blond hair and Peter Pan impish grin.

At 10, his family indulged Flynn’s creativity by allowing him to turn his bedroom into a cooking work space where, over time, he created dishes like “Beet Wellington” (a Beet version of Beef Wellington that I cannot wait to try someday).

With a 1 hour 22-minute run time, Chef Flynn is an entertaining, speedy documentary, not much longer than what you would spend on a reality-based cooking show. The experience is complete with the reality show tension – but instead of competition, the stress is watching this kid working at all hours of the night and day to make his restaurant work. Being a restaurateur is already known to be stressful but watching the weight on a kid is at times unsettling.  

Equally unsettling is the camera work. For sure, filmmaker mom loves to get her shot at whatever movement cost – in the car, chasing Flynn around, sneaking up on him when he is trying to create. The camera is always there. My kid won’t even let me take her picture on most days, let alone capture Every. Single. Moment. on film.

But that is a mom’s choice I guess… until her child turns 18. I just wish that occasionally she would work with a stationary shot. Or a tripod. Or a stabilizer of any sort. In spite of the food being so drool worthy, I couldn’t help but feel seasick through a lot of the film.

Now, at age 19, Flynn has opened the restaurant Gem in New York City. I know this because I was so intrigued by his story and menu while watching Chef Flynn that I had to look to see what he is doing now. They are taking reservations now through the end of December – at $155/per person for a two-hour 12-15 course dinner.

Bonnie Paul

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SxSW 2018 Diary - Day 2

Who doesn’t want to hold a baby goat? Day 2 is off to a good start at Viceland’s space, a mixture of marketing genius and prime real estate. It makes me wonder if the people responsible for promoting HBO’s investigative news show attended the same 2016 SxSW talk that I did, We Need More Mischief and Whimsy, because they have nailed it.

In the back of the Viceland bus a DJ is spinning “She’s a Bad Mama Jama” while another DJ mixes it up in the yard–it’s only 10 am. I shoplift one of the free prescription pill bottles filled with Mommy’s Little Helpers (i.e., mints) and make my way to the first session of the day; it’s sunny and a lovely 90 degrees.

Throughout the week I find myself drawn to the stories of strong women leaders. First up is Gayle King’s interview with Featured Speaker: Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of the online dating site Bumble. I was vaguely aware of Herd’s backstory–she had been a Vice President at Tinder until she left in 2014 over claims of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, when making such waves was not as supported as it is now in the #MeToo era. Like Esther Perel, she believes relationships are the most important facet of our lives. 

Buy a bigger table. In a male-dominated workspace, women (and minorities) may feel there is only one seat at the table for a token representative, which can lead to female friendly-fire incidents. 

Wolfe Herd said Bumble’s success was not motivated by revenge; she believes that hate spreads hate and love spreads love. Herd, who will celebrate her 30th birthday next year, declined to respond to questions about a $450 million buyout offer from Match.com.

Next on my schedule is Christiane Amanpour, who is promoting her new television series, Sex & Love Around the World; this is one of the speakers I have been most excited to see. Amanpour in December 2017 was named the interim replacement for PBS’s charlie Rose after sexual harassment allegations against him surfaced. Like Wolfe-Herd, Amanpour talked about being the only woman at the table, having a female boss who was not encouraging, and sexual harassment in the workplace, as well as the importance of having supportive male figures/mentors.

The more parity, the healthier the nation. Amanpour notes this worldwide reckoning on gender equality has been a long time coming. “How many times have I been asked what it is like to be a female war correspondent,” she asks with exasperation. She alights briefly on a range of other topics including Macron (the new “It” guy), North Korea, the Crimea, and fake news. In terms of what she has learned in 35 years at CNN, “There is real currency in starting at the bottom and moving up to follow your dream.”

Let’s talk about lunch, which is one of the toughest nuts at SxSW to crack. The 30 minutes in between sessions is not enough time to get to the food truck lot and back or to sit down for a meal in a restaurant. It’s a 20-minute time investment (10-minute line, 10-minute wait for food) for the few food trucks abutting the Austin Convention Center, which is doable if the next session is unpopular, if you have a friend saving you a spot in line, or if you leave a talk during the Q&A. It’s hard to concentrate on the speakers when you are trying to figure out where your next meal is coming from.

Today the 2 pm keynote is in the same room as the 12:30 talk I attend so I don’t want to leave for lunch and give up my seat. My friend scores a bathroom pass, which allows her to skip the line to get back in, so she leaves and returns with cauliflower tacos for us to share from The Peached Tortilla, named one of the top 101 food trucks in the US a few years ago. It is legit; I eat the same lunch–this time without sharing–two more days in a row.

For the Keynote, Ta-Nehisi Coates is being interviewed by his Atlantic Editor-in-chief; his book, Between the World and Me, won the National Book Award in 2015, he is the author of Marvel’s The Black Panther comic book, and will be writing the new Captain America movie. He attributes the success of the Black Panther movie in part to a need by black people to see their experience presented.

Coates talks about being criticized by other black figures, such as Cornell West, for not being an activist. Like Wolfe Herd, he asks, “Do you have to bring someone down to make room for you? Is there only room for one black intellectual in the public space?”

I always want to write angry, with heart. As a writer he tries to interpret a situation objectively, vice persuading others toward a particular course of action, even if he is sympathetic to a particular cause.

He has decided being on social media is not good for him and has permanently abandoned Twitter.

To cope with my FOMO about missing the Westworld Sweetwater set tour, I go to the Westworld Show Runners panel featuring the actors playing Maeve, Delores, Bernard, and Jimmy and the show’s creators. The cast comes across as a family, and attributes their success to it: “This group of individuals wants everyone to succeed and to kick ass; we all take care of each other.”

When asked about how it felt, amid a very macho show setting, that two of the strongest characters are female, Thandie Newton responds with an eye roll: “It feels normal, it feels right.”

When the cast is asked about experiences they draw on to play their characters, Newton cites the women in the DROC that she has worked with as an activist, women who have died (figuratively) over and over again from abuses.

Like the previous speaker, the show’s creators say they do not spend a lot of time on social media.

Did I say the sneak peek at the Westworld Season 2 trailer was the highlight of this session? No, because the highlight was a surprise appearance by Elon Musk!!! It turns out Westworld’s creator’s helped celebrate the Falcon’s recent launch with a promotional trailer depicting a Tesla orbiting space while David Bowie’s Space Oddity plays in the background. So yeah, we watched that, and Musk also talked briefly about what inspired him.

That evening I watch “Chef Flynn,” a documentary about a child prodigy chef. At 15, Flynn appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, and in 2018, at age 19, he opened his first restaurant in New York City. His story is interesting in part for the social commentary about how he was parented and how he is disrupting the food industry’s traditional path to chef stardom. Chef Flynn was on hand, along with the director, to answer questions afterwards as part of the SxSW film festival.

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