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Have you seen Baby Driver? The new film from director Edgar Wright, who has built up a devoted fan following after films like Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World? The car-chase extravaganza/iPod celebration starring Ansel Elgort and his perfect lips and goofy demeanor? And also Kevin Spacey once again leaning heavily on an ambiguous-sexuality vibe, all while Jon Hamm plays a real bad dude? That Baby Driver? People really seem to like it! It’s 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it made $30 million over the long 4th of July weekend. It’s a good time to be a fan of Baby Driver.
But one man — one celebrity chef with an appetite for going against the grain — was seriously not into it. Enter Anthony Bourdain:
Some celebrated the 4th of July with backyard barbecues, some with fireworks. Anthony Bourdain exploded a roman candle of derision all over Baby Driver and then grilled up its remains with an adventurous blend of seasonings. Bourdain is of course a widely followed celebrity chef, whose adventurous tastes and brash personality have gotten him countless TV shows and even a few fictional portrayals (including Bradley Cooper on the short-lived Kitchen Confidential and most recent Bobby Cannavale playing a thinly-veiled Bourdain character on this season of Master of None). What’s great about Bourdain’s “Fuck BABY DRIVER” tweet was that there was neither context nor rationale. He probably didn’t have time to explain his position, as he was likely trekking to go eat yak sweetbreads in the Himalayas or something. He did manage to offer a smidge of backup for his opinion:
That would be the poster for the 2011 film The Raid: Redemption, the video-game-esque action movie that was praised for its pure and unadulterated action. So Anthony Bourdain likes his action movies the same way he likes his beef tenderloin: raw and not prepared by Edgar Wright.
Bourdain’s slam on the beloved new action film has drawn some blowback from the film community. Acclaimed director and frequent cheerleader for her colleagues Ava DuVernay stepped up to Bourdain’s tweet with a tweet of her own:
It does when you go as hard as Anthony Bourdain.
