Movies/Films with Food-Related Themes

[franklanguage]

What about the vomit man in the Monty Python film - sorry - I don't remember its name?

The meaning of Life, right? I never even saw the film, and I even know that. (I think I saw the scene, though.)

[Jinmyo]

John Lennon shovelling spaghetti at The Fat Woman in The Magical Mystery Tour film.

[Rachel Perlow]

This isn't actually a "Food Film" but there is that famous shrimp monologue in Forrest Gump. Jason and I were watching it on DVD last week, so I transcribed the scene to record here for posterity.

Bubba Blue says:

Anyway, like I was saying, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can Barbecue it, Boil it, Broil it, Bake it, Saute it. There's, um, Shrimp Kabobs, Shrimp Creole, Shrimp Gumbo. Panfried, Deepfried, Stirfried. There's Pineapple Shrimp, Lemon Shrimp, Coconut Shrimp, Pepper Shrimp, Shrimp Soup, Shrimp Stew, Shrimp Salad, Shrimp and Potatoes, Shrimpburger, Shrimp Sandwich. That's, that's about it.

Not nearly as many as I thought I remembered him saying, only 21 ways to prepare shrimp!

[JSD]

Don't forget The Freshman (with Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick), containing scenes of preparing a meal consisting of endangered and near-extinct animals.  The komodo dragon has a small but important part.

[Malawry]

Bubba Blue says:

Anyway, like I was saying, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can Barbecue it, Boil it, Broil it, Bake it, Saute it. There's, um, Shrimp Kabobs, Shrimp Creole, Shrimp Gumbo. Panfried, Deepfried, Stirfried. There's Pineapple Shrimp, Lemon Shrimp, Coconut Shrimp, Pepper Shrimp, Shrimp Soup, Shrimp Stew, Shrimp Salad, Shrimp and Potatoes, Shrimpburger, Shrimp Sandwich. That's, that's about it.

I can't believe he doesn't mention shrimp and grits, which seems to appear as an appetizer on every menu around here.

[Stone]

There is a thread about what you like to eat while you watch. This is devoted to the movies themselves. (Big Night has been discussed to death.)

Last night I saw Mostly Martha. A very nice German film about a perfectionist chef whose boss drives her crazy by telling her that she is the "number 2" chef in the city. In one of the first scenes, a customer enrages Martha by complaining that the foie gras is undercooked. She challenges the customer, and after being dragged away by the owner, explains that the customer is not always right, the foie gras was perfect. "It is not a matter of taste." (Plotnicki, are you ghost-writing on the side?) The rest of the movie was a fun yet somewhat sad tale about how she manages her all-consuming work ethic after finding herself entrusted with the care of her neice.

[NeroW]

In my opinion, best food movie ever is "Delicatessen."

Wait. Is that even about food?

[ideefixe]

I posted this before, but after my husband the chef saw Mostly Martha, he told me he felt like he's worked a double. Impaling the raw steak on the table was a dream come true for him, though.

My personal favorite is Christmas in Connecticut.

[Elissa]

Tampopo: Juzo Itami's spaghetti western set in Tokyo where the good and bad guys aren't so much as odds as the relative merits of food and sex.

[fimbul]

_Eat, Drink, Man, Woman_ is great, both for the food and the story (could be called _Fathers and Daughters_). A USAian knock-off called _Tortilla Soup_, about a Mexican_American fambly, is pretty, but all the substance leaked out during the translation.

[KatieLoeb]

Babette' Feast

Like Water for Chocolate

Big Night

Tampopo

Soul Food

[joler]

Vatel

[g.johnson]

As I posted on the other thread...

La Grande Bouffe.

[awbrig]

Hannibal

[ngatti]

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.

Loved the kitchen scenes.

Nick

[babyluck]

I recently saw Bandits on a cross-country plane flight. I got really annoyed at the uneducated food stuff in there. There's this woman cutting up vegetables for a mirepoix in such an unsafe and ridiculous manner...and then later an idiotic discussion about saffron being the secret to somebody's pasta sauce. Didn't the scriptwriters have a food geek they could ask about this stuff? This annoys me as much as my partner Erin (who is a choral conductor) gets annoyed at watching actors' efforts to "conduct." We're real fun to watch movies with.  

Saw Bandits last night. Was either that or poke around the forum -- then I said "Hey, honey -- this movie is about food!" Went downhill from there, foodwise. I disagree about the chopping part. She was in a manic dancing frenzy at the time. Would it have made sense to have her stop and calmly peel the carrot & chop the celery? At least she was having fun! We were supposed to fall in love with her zany zest for life. On the other hand, while I wanted to love her during that scene, it didn't quite ring true for me. As my next-door neighbors at the community center, or my customers when I was a short-order cook could tell you, I'm much more lovable than that when I sing, dance & cook simultaneously.

The pasta scene irked me too, though. I didn't see any evidence of cream or anything else he mentioned (capers, I think?) but I was waiting with bated breath to see what his guess for the secret ingredient would be. Is there any better cliffhanger for a foodie? I was hoping he didn't say "fennel," the answer to a similar scene in I think Mystic Pizza. But saffron?!?

That wasn't the worst part, though. She is clearly his superior in the kitchen (unsafe knife work notwithstanding) but it never came up again except when she called his pasta "chewy." And why did we have to see another pasta-with-red-sauce meal? It's not like they worked the SAFFRON thread (ha) in again or anything. They never got to cook together, go grocery shopping together, or consummate their food relationship in any way, which seemed like a gaping omission. Of course, not everyone would feel that way -- my husband didn't. Makes me think there was more in it that ended up on the cutting room floor because it wasn't central to the plot.

Matt's a photog/tech nut, so he yells out the makes and models of every camera, light meter, laptop, etc. we see in a movie and loves to point out inconsistencies. Recently he saw a scene where the character's laptop was a Mac from the back but a Dell PC from the front. He was outraged. And I'm an all around jack-of-all-trades know-it-all, so we're a hoot too. Although our close friends are highly critical too, and we like to sit around impressing each other by nitpicking whatever we're watching. But we don't talk in the theater, of course.

All that being said, if you ignore the food part, Bandits is a really interesting movie. Little trivia -- when Billy Bob says he has a phobia about antique furniture, it's true in real life for the actor. Heard him on Fresh Air talking about the rumors that he & Angelina had a dungeon in their house. Said it was ridiculous because that would be his worst nightmare. Must have added it to the script to make it more real. Of course, I pointed that out to Matt during the movie.

They should really add a smirking face for me. This one's closest...

[Carolyn Tillie]

Has anyone seen "Vatel", featuring Gerard Depardieu as a chef? It's on cable these days.

I adore that flick... (although for being a film about the greatest foodie of all time, it should have been more sumptious in the food department).

[Carolyn Tillie]

There was an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock tv series in which a woman murdered her husband by bludgeoning him with a frozen leg of lamb and then neatly disposed of the weapon by roasting it and serving it to the investigating detectives.

It was entitled, "A Lamb to the Slaughter" and was based on a short story by Willie Wonka-writer, Roald Dahl. It starred Barbara Bel Geddes and is hands-down my favorite Hitchcock episode.

[Eric_Malson]

The very first thing I thought of when I started reading this thread was Les Enfants du Paradis.....some of the most memorable food and banquet scenes ever filmed, IMHO--I'm surprised no one else mentioned it.

Man, I haven't seen that movie in over 20 years! I'd love to see it again....I'll have to start looking around for it.

[chopjwu12]

Does anyone remember the movie about a french chef and his wife. It has great scenes and it takes place during the war. the german soldier is in love with the chefs wife and everything goes a little crazy but in the end they stay together. There was a good scene where the chef is eating ina small restauarant and he has to guess what kind of liver is in the dish. The owner tells him he will never guess but he guessed bear and it was right. I just cant remember the name of it.

A new one is being martha or something martha. Its german its very good.

I know some people may think its a stretch but Pulp fiction is actually a serious food mover. there is almost 300 food references to food in the movie.

[chopjwu12]

Never mind it was russian not germans my time period was a little off. but the movie is called Chef in Love. Its a great one and everyone needs to see it.

[gknl]

A new one is being martha or something martha. Its german its very good..

MOSTLY MARTHA and yes, it's very good! Everything comes together beautifully in the movie. And the restaurant scenes are hilarious. It was one of my favorite films from last year. I'm glad it's finally out on dvd.

[monkeymay]

Just watched 'Pulp Fiction' again for the umpteenth time. It's food references are copious - $5 milkshakes, le big mac, tasty burgers, blueberry pancakes, coffee and pork discussions . Even the cigarettes Butch smokes are called 'Red Apples'.

Imho, the best, most over the top food film is 'Le Grand Bouffe'. I would love to show 'Bouffe' back to back with Bunuel's 'Discreet Charm of the Bourgeiose'. The first concerns a group that eat themselves to death; the second a group whose attempts at dining are constantly thwarted . My ideal double feature!

[mcdowell]

More to my tastes is Eating Raoul. One of the first movies to get me interested in food. Yeah.

On cable a month or so ago I saw something called A Feast At Midnight where a new student at a British public school forms a secret society centered around cooking and midnight feasting with other school misfits and outcasts. It had the very excellent Christopher Lee. I can see those kids growing up and hanging out here.

[monkeymay]

Ahh, Eating Raoul... Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, very funny indeed. Another fabulous film about food and sex. I'm going to have to see it again, it's been long time since last viewing. I remember Raoul as being rather delectable...

Speaking of school boys cooking, have you ever seen 'Gregory's Girl'? One of the lads is a burgeoning pastry chef who runs a nice business out of the boys restroom selling pastries and tarts. He prides himself on developing the perfect pate a choux