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“Chronicle,” a Movie Shot Where?

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Is this Cape Town?

I don’t know about you, but if a movie is shot in South Africa I can tell. Within five seconds of a Volvo ad screening on TV, I can detect Chapman’s Peak or the Karoo or a shot in Cape Town central – no matter how hard they try to disguise it. So blow me down (and away) if one of 2011’s blockbusters (and one of my favorite movies), Chronicle, wasn’t shot in South Africa and I didn’t even smell a rat or fynbos or the salty spray of the Atlantic at Clifton for one milisecond. Even if you check out the photo to the left, try and see Cape Town in there somewhere. As one American critic noted, director Josh Trank did an amazing job with the movie, not least of all in transforming South Africa into Seattle.

The story in Chronicle is a simple one. Three high-school kids discover a hole in the ground that seems to have been made by a meteorite, go into the hole, and then, zap!, something happens to them. They all inexplicably develop telekinetic powers – they can do fun things like move cars by pointing their fingers and they can fly – and plenty other things an 18-year-old could have fun (and get into trouble) with. But all of a sudden, of course, things start to go wrong in a bad way. It’s a very smart movie, written by Max Landis (whose father, John, made movies like American Werewolf in London) that has you guessing all the time. And I don’t mean just the location.

Safe House

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We all know that Cape Town is being used a lot for movie shoots and ad shoots, often doubling for a city in America or elsewhere. This week sees the launch of Safe House, an action blockbuster that is set smack in the middle of the Mother City and which is getting great word of mouth already.

It stars Denzel Washington as a rogue CIA agent who, after evading capture for a decade, is sent to a safe house in Cape Town, where he is guarded by Ryan Reynolds.

Of course everything goes wrong, and from the very start of the movie it’s chases and shootouts. And, of course, lots of great Cape Town scenery.

The movie is already being compared to the Bourne series because it’s not only as fast as a whip, but it’s smart too, with the actors also including Vera Farmiga and Brendon Gleeson.

The young Swedish director, Daniel Espinosa, spent much of his time growing up in Africa, in Mozambique especially, and he knows South Africa well. “For me,” he said in an interview, “it was like coming home.”

Watch the trailer:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IfQY4fNcnw

The Coffee Saga

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At Superette, Purveyors of Deluxe Coffee

At Superette, Purveyors of Deluxe Coffee

There’s always something new going on in South Africa, every time I visit, but one thing that has always lagged for me, a coffee lover, is great coffee. Don’t get me wrong – the coffee at the average restaurant has always been better than the drip you find in America, but the focus on roasting great beans and making the perfect macchiato has been missing. People judged the excellence of a brew on whether it was Illy or Lavazza beans being used. There was nothing else to measure goodness by. Until now, that is.

In Cape Town it started with Origin. When Origin opened a couple of years ago, it was a big deal. The Soviet-style logo turned out to be not inappropriate because, at least for a while, Origin ruled. It had a huge warehouse in De Waterkant, big bags of beans stylishly placed around the premises, a bustling stall in the Old Biscuit Mill, and it even started selling its produce in hotels and restaurants. Less auspiciously, the service too was, in many people’s view, very Communist – that is to say, not particularly good. But that didn’t seem to bother people stopping by in droves. The word was getting out: Someone local was at last roasting coffee! Small guys had been doing this for ages, but no one was as professional or as in your face as Origin.

Bean There Buys Only African Beans

Bean There Buys Only African Beans

In Johannesburg a similar venture, Bean There, at 44 Stanley in Milner Park, has also been roasting beans – African beans only, mind you – to growing acclaim. Now, all of a sudden, there are numerous places opening up around the country that either roast and sell beans and coffee or coffee only, but the emphasis is on quality. Even Plettenberg Bay has the excellent Doubleshot. There are regular coffee-shop roundups in magazines and coffee klatsches gathering every Saturday at a new venue (Capetonians can check out Ernst Kuschke’s group).

Coffee Now Comes with Latte Art, Not Just Froth

Macchiatos Now Come with Latte Art, Not Just Froth

The mover behind Origin, or the name people got to know, was David Donde. Until a couple months ago, that is, when there was a rift between him and the owner that apparently was the gossip of Cape Town’s klatsches. Donde went off on his own, and has now started Truth Coffee Cult, which, though it has a strange name in an even stranger location (a place called the Prestwich Memorial at the corner of  Buitengracht and Somerset streets), has Donde’s reputation. That should guarantee it success.

At the same time another former employee at Origin, New Zealander Judd Francis, has opened Deluxe Coffeeworks, where he and his partners are not only roasting beans but selling some of the best coffee around. Within only a few months of opening, there is often a line out the door. They are selling their beans and coffee in funky new restaurants like Superette, in Woodstock. And now there’s talk of Deluxe taking over the Origin stand at the Old Biscuit Mill.

The coffee battles are on!