Tod Kelly
Tod is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. He is also serves as Executive Producer and host of both the 7 Deadly Sins Show at Portland's historic Mission Theatre and 7DS: Pants On Fire! at the White Eagle Hotel & Saloon. He is a regular inactive for Marie Claire International and the Daily Beast, and is currently writing a book on the sudden rise of exorcisms in the United States. Follow him on Twitter.
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on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025At the risk of invoking Godwin, At first they came for the Jews, and I did not speak because I was n…
on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025It's a classic trope when someone says a bunch of marginal positions are unpopular and marginal to t…
on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025I may be going out on a limb here, but I think Hamas is bad and if they're having fewer kids because…
on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025I am in total agreement. on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025I have read some recent damming reporting from gift links at WSJ and NYT that the decline may in fac… on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025I think that an under appreciated implication of MattY's thoughts here is the corollary to his point… on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025Yes, soft peddling abortion is going to be a sure fire winner for Democrats on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025In my time as a politically aware person I have seen it done successfully twice, once by Bill Clinto… on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025Cut myself off: Also trans issues impact on teenagers in a profound manner in a way that previous LG… on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025Someone may need to let the Dems and the Groups know.
The I.C. has Nothing on Union Depot
January 28, 2025
Cheer Up — All Is Not Politics
January 27, 2025
January 26, 2025
As Long as the World Goes Round
January 25, 2025
on Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025
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Does Alive qualify as a food movie?Report
Sure, remember the chocolate bars?Report
Also
Soylent Green
Ravenous
Cannibal Holocaust
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
Eating Raoul
C.H.U.D.
Silence of the Lambs etc.Report
Don’t forget about Jesus Christ Superstar.Report
But I’ve tried so hard to!Report
Or really any movie where Roman Catholics take communion.Report
And if there’s ever a movie of Stranger in a Strange Land. Or Farnham’s Freehold.Report
This immediately (if predictably) took a bad turn — too much discussion in the OP of Cook, Thief, Wife, Lover.Report
Movies about chefs seem to be like movies about other artists but safer for the producers. The big problem about making movies about fictional artists is that your going to have to demonstrate some of the artist’s work to the audience. Creating something that could pass as a masterpiece, especially a musical composition, is difficult work and the person responsible often fails in such a spectacular manner that even lay people can recognize how bad or trite the fictional masterpiece is. The titular opus in Mr. Holland’s Opus comes to mind. Movie audiences can not taste the meals created by a fictional chef so the creative staff only needs to make sure that the meals look good and appropriately impressive kitchen and food lingo is used.
We also need to define what constitutes a food movie. I’d argue that simply being a movie about a chef or heavily featuring food in some way is not enough to make a movie a food movie. Tampopo, a truly wonderful film, is a true food movie because people’s relationship to food, in particular ramen, takes center stage more than any other relationship in the movie. Learning how to become a master ramen chef is so important for the main female character that it over shadows the budding romantic relationship with the trucker. Eat, Drink, Man, Woman might feature a chef as the main character and food might feature a prominent place in the movie but the various familial and romantic relationships are much more prominent than the relationship to food. For something to be a true food movie, food and human’s relationship to it must be paramont.Report
I propose calling this the Aaron Sorkin Problem. And this phenomenon perfectly explains why The West Wing could be such a hugely popular show (the show didn’t have to deal with any of the actual outcomes of Josiah Bartlett’s policies, only assert their superiority) while Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip struggled (people could see for themselves that the sketches were garbage).Report
On 30 Rock the fact that the sketches were garbage was part of the joke.Report
That is an interesting observation. Mr. Holland’s Opus does seem like a good candidate, though I wasn’t aware enough to identify that as a problem when I first saw it.
Of course it actually does work if you are making a movie like Immortal Beloved, which is very loosely based on Beethoven. There, they got to pull out the 9th symphony at the end.Report
If only you knew what goes on in filming food. . . the heat from lights, etc., is not kind to food, and it doesn’t make the food glow and shine the way we think delicious food should. What does that mean? According to my sweetie’s aunt, a home-economist who made a career of preparing ‘food’ that’s film and photography worthy, stuff like using watered-down elmers glue instead of milk (think that bowl of cheerios on the box cover is in milk?), and often, spraying the stuff with high-gloss acrylic spray, etc.
So while one might salivate over the beautiful food in these movies; I’d suggest care in actually eating most of it.Report
I guess that none of you have seen the Chinese movie “Dumplings”
Also, “Chef” and “The Hundred Foot Journey”Report
RE: Dumplings, I saw the original short that was in Three Extremes, but not the full-length expansion.Report
I see now that “100 ft journey” was mentioned in OP…that’s what I get for skimming.
The full-length version of “Dumplings” is worth a viewing if you…appreciated…the shortReport
I’ve seen dumplings. I don’t think of it as a food movie, though, in the same way I don’t think of the original Texas Chainsaw a food movie despite it’s revolving around BBQ.
I haven’t seen Chef, but 100 Foot actually won one of that categories here.Report
I would love to eat the Sunday Dinner in Eat, Drink and the Louis Prima dinner in Big Night.
As an honorary mention, I will add Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Still Walking which involves a lot of food and cooking but is not necessarily a food movie.Report
@saul-degraw Similarly, The Trip.Report
I have yet to see the Trip.Report
The Trip is fantastic, especially if you liked Winterbottom’s other films with Coogan such as Tristram Shandy. It’s definitely set up like a food movie – furious shots of the kitchen, close-ups on plating, etc. – but it’s really about the way a good meal can create an atmosphere for people to bond. The leads could be chowing down on the Generic Sliced Peaches from Repo Man and the movie wouldn’t be any different. The wife and have been working through the sequel (The Trip To Italy), but the realness of it is almost too much. Somehow the prospect of sitting down to dinner with two hilarious but extremely depressing friends is no longer appealing after a long day of work.
BTW, does Do The Right Thing count as a food movie?Report
Shout out to Vikram for winning the thread with the first comment.Report
Thanks!
Though Glyph’s reply makes me wish I had submitted it for a Mount Rushmore post. I hadn’t realized there were so many movies about eating people.Report
There was a movie where Amy Adams was a cooking blogger. It had Amy Adams in it. Some stuff happened. It had Amy Adams in it.Report
I take it you have a bit of crush on Amy Adams.Report
I’m sorry, did you say something? Amy Adams.Report
Julie and Julia… with Meryl Streep in an inspired performance as Julia Child. Worth watching, IMHOReport
I haven’t seen many food movies or paid attention to them as a distinct category. But a few that I enjoyed occur to me when I think about it:
Chef (which I thought was the best food movie I ever saw when I saw it, but again, I never gave the category much thought); Ratatouille; Chocolat; Como Agua Para Chocolate.Report