<p>We discussed it over dinner. So here are some to start with:</p>
<p>La Grande Bouffe
Babette’s Feast
Tom Jones
Tampopo
Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
The Wedding Banquet
Diner
Alice’s Restaurant
Chocolat
Cousin, Cousine
Am</p>
<p>You have to include “Big Night,” a small movie starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shaloub and some other well-known actors in the ensemble. </p>
<p>The story is that two Italian immigrant brothers struggle with a failing restaurant and gamble their life’s dream on one big night — a special dinner for an influential guest and his party. Their restaurant, the story goes, is foundering because the chef brother insists on cooking authentic, exquisite Italian dishes instead of the “red sauce” people pleasers of their competitors across the street. A fun, fascinating, and mouth-watering movie.</p>
<p>I totally agree that “Big Night” is the best foodie movie! It has so inspired me and several foodie friends that we are planning to tackle the timpano recipe as a group project at some point in the not too distant future.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reminder. We’ll check out the video.</p>
<p>Ratatouille! Great movie, lots of behind the scenes cooking.</p>
<p>Add ‘My Dinner with Andre’ to fill out the list.</p>
<p>The Four Seasons: Alan Alda and friends eat 12 months of the year.</p>
<p>Oh gosh I was just going to say, “At least you didn’t list My Dinner with Andre”! My least favorite critically-acclaimed movie of all time. (I just didn’t get it, I am sure it is my fault). There was also a great Chinese-language movie where the characters were always eating bowls of noodles and for weeks afterward I was obsessed with eating bowls of Chinese vegetables and noodles. Title anyone?</p>
<p>A new one to add: “Waitress”. Just don’t take a husband. :). And I agree about Ratatouille, too. A bit overwrought and predictable, but some very charming scenes.</p>
<p>Like Water for Chocolate was interesting</p>
<p>love almost all of those movies.</p>
<p>One you are missing is the Mexican film Like Water For Chocolate. Cooking is completely central to the plot. The original book is actually organized as a cookbook – every chapter is titled for some dish and begins with its recipe.</p>
<p>Some of your films just have one or two great food scenes. Here are some others:</p>
<p>Isn’t it The Godfather, Part II that has the great scene where all the men who have “gone to matresses” are making tomato gravy?</p>
<p>There is the great petits-fours-and-shoes “I Want Candy” montage in the middle of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.</p>
<p>The lobster-cooking scene in Annie Hall.</p>
<p>The cannibalistic banquet at the end of Titus.</p>
<p>Hayao Miyazake’s Spirited Away mainly takes place in a luxury hotel for demons, and there is an extended sequence in the middle of the film about one demon’s gluttony. And on this side of the Pacific pond, how about the cooking scenes in The Little Mermaid, the spaghetti date in Lady and the Tramp, or the dancing placesettings in Beauty and the Beast.</p>
<p>One of my favorite Bollywood movies, Kabhie Kushi Kabhie Gham, has a central character who begins the movie as a fried dumpling maker.</p>
<p>I thought the detail in Ratatouille was amazing. As far as computer animated pictures go, we didn’t like it as much as Toy Story 2 or Shrek 2 (two favorites at our house), but thought it was extremely well done. The detail was amazing-- the nighttime scenes of Paris, the very realistic hunched running movements of the rats, the water scenes, etc. The characters just didn’t capture us as much as in the other movies (though I did love the scene where the critic is transported back to his childhood self by his taking his first bite of ratatouille).</p>
<p>Another food-related picture daughters and I like is Last Holiday, with Queen Latifah. Not exactly high-brow stuff, but light, good fun.</p>
<p>Tampopo is Japanese, " the noodle film"</p>
<p>The Wedding banquet" is Chinese ( Hsi Yen)</p>
<p>Both great food movies</p>
<p>This wasn’t a "food " movie but “When Harry met Sally”, has a great scene in a diner
;)</p>
<p>I loved " Like Water for Chocolate"
My D had to read it in Spanish in high school
the book is wonderful ( I read the translated version)</p>
<p>Patient:</p>
<p>You’re not alone in not liking My Dinner with Andr</p>
<p>Yes, Big Night immediately popped into my head as an omission. The mention of My Dinner with Andre brought back good memories too, particularly of Wallace Shawn’s performance.</p>
<p>My ethnic food favourite movies: My big fat Greek wedding, Bend it like Beckham</p>
<p>I really enjoyed a German film called “Mostly Martha” about an uptight professionak chef with relationship issues…</p>
<p>^^Oh, great. It stars the wonderful actress from The Lives of Others. Will check it out (and I loved The Lives of Others).</p>
<p>Marite–did your S take that political science/movies about food class at Wes? My D did, and most of the movies you mentioned were included in it. She loved it–the guy who does it was her favorite prof.</p>
<p>I already concurred on the other thread, but I have to agree here also that I really, really disliked “My Dinner with Andre.” Look up pretension in the dictionary, and it’ll pop right up.</p>
<p>Garland:
He took a class on German cinema. I don’t know what films he watched.</p>
<p>I loved Eat Drink Man Woman. We had an elderly Shanghai nanny when the boys were little and since they never had children, they fell in love with my infants. Her husband came to work with her every day. They cooked the most elaborate meals for those two bouncy toddlers. He was very much like the male character in the movie–so much love in each chop of the veggie. You cannot imagine the effort that went into lunch–the shopping that happened after work etc. That’s part of the reason they needed two people to take care of two boys! the food production took one person four hours every morning!</p>
<p>Then, because they were quite nervous that Buddha might notice that one of the boys hadn’t eaten every grain of rice, he would forestall his own lunch to gobble up their leftovers first–thereby ensuring that their plates were whistle clean.</p>
<p>When we got home, we would get the report of what amazing Shanghai dishes went into the boys --and of course–what went out a la The Last Emperor.</p>
<p>They are still motoring along in New York at age 85. They are the third set of grandparents but they take credit for all the good things that have happened to the boys, haha.</p>