I have on the inside of a door in my kitchen a drawing of a waterbird with a frog in its beak half way down its gullet. The frog has its hands tightly around the birds throat. The caption reads Never Give Up.  This is the ethos of my cultural hero Wiley E Coyote, The subject of the  live action/cartoon film Coyote vs Acme. In which my hero sues the giant Acme corporation for its unending supply of products that inevitably fail to work. Tired of failing to catch Road Runner he sees an ad for law firm in specializing in cartoon violence cases involving Acme products. Wile E. meets with a lawyer looking to take on the case. The firm tries to subpoena the Road Runner to testify, but he evades them. His lawyer a perennial looser in a big law firm  somehow believes despite his bosses he can beat Acme the same way Wile E. believes he will catch the Road Runner. Through a series of mostly hilarious live/cartoon interactions the Road Runner at the last moment shows up to defend his adversary. Good wins out in the end. (Hooray!) In a feel good ending in the desert outside  Albuquerque  Wiley reuniting with the Road Runner resumes their chase. It’s a fantasy (what’s wrong with that?) but a good one. 378 stars

 Tony.

Full disclosure, I was a big Bourdain fan. Which makes this telling of his early formative summers in Provincetown all the more disappointing. Expectation is a killer. If the subject matter was not who it is this film would not have made it out of the streaming world. The film itself is a mid level tramedy full of the usual teenage tropes. However Dominic Sessa does a convincing job portraying the young moody aimless insecure nineteen year old who escapes in shame to Provincetown after having been turned down for a writing fellowship at Vassar, lying to everyone along the way about his writing creds. Stranded and broke he his forced to stay, finding a job at a local restaurant as a dishwasher, with a crew of drug taking misfits who he eventually identifies with.  There is a telling scene in the middle of the film where in the kitchen of the owner/chef José Vatel played by Antonio Banderas Bourdain  sees a painting of a famous French chef preparing a banquet for Louis 14 about to kill himself over the fact that the fish supplier was late. Explaining to the clueless Bourdain who fails completely to grasp the implication.  Much later I his storied career the implication would become clear. I suppose it was inevitable that a film like this would appear, given Bourdain’s immense influence in a world he almost created. The culprits here are the producers who got the money to green light this mediocre effort, Sessa's performance excepted, on the basis of that now famous name.  It’s not terrible. Director Matt Johnson should be applauded to taking on this doomed project.     172 stars

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