I love the often-cited Babette’s Feast and Big Night, too, but the great scenes in them are great because of the emotions associated with the food…the shock on the General’s face as he recognizes the wines and the succeeding courses, the slow awakening to pleasure of the devout old people, the love between the brothers as they sit down to their omelette.
Tampopo is one of the few movies that just makes me HUNGRY, darn it. Hungry for a big ol’ bowl of ramen with pork and veggies. I can’t sit down to one of these without thinking of the old man instructing the younger one on how to stroke the surface of the soup with the chopsticks, how to admire the composition of spring onion and fishcake.
Eating Raoul. I haven’t seen it in a while, don’t remember much actual eating in it, but its main plot line, the idea of having people over for dinner so they can be offed and sold as dog food, is some damn fine dark comedy. Great retro home furnishings, too.
Elaine May in The Heartbreak Kid eating an egg salad sandwich in a restaurant with her newlywed husband (Ryan O’Neil?) and getting egg salad all over (ALL OVER) her face without knowing it and chewing with her mouth open and … meanwhile he has started making eyes at the beautiful girl (Farah Fawcett?). Made me never want to eat egg salad in public.
Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces -
“Dupea: I’d like a plain omelette, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee, and wheat toast.
Waitress: (She points to the menu) No substitutions.
Dupea: What do you mean? You don’t have any tomatoes?
Waitress: Only what’s on the menu. You can have a number two - a plain omelette. It comes with cottage fries and rolls.
Dupea: Yeah, I know what it comes with. But it’s not what I want.
Waitress: Well, I’ll come back when you make up your mind.
Dupea: Wait a minute. I have made up my mind. I’d like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee, and a side order of wheat toast.
Waitress: I’m sorry, we don’t have any side orders of toast…an English muffin or a coffee roll.
Dupea: What do you mean you don’t make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don’t you?
Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?
Dupea: …You’ve got bread and a toaster of some kind?
Waitress: I don’t make the rules.
Dupea: OK, I’ll make it as easy for you as I can. I’d like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A number two, chicken sal san, hold the butter, the lettuce and the mayonnaise. And a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Dupea: Yeah. Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven’t broken any rules.
Waitress (spitefully): You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
Dupea: I want you to hold it between your knees.
Waitress (turning and telling him to look at the sign that says, “No Substitutions”) Do you see that sign, sir? Yes, you’ll all have to leave. I’m not taking any more of your smartness and sarcasm.
Dupea: You see this sign? (He sweeps all the water glasses and menus off the table.)”
Then too, there’s Ann-Margaret awash in a flood of baked beans in Tommy.
But I have to also vote for Mr. Creosote.
Another 3 votes for Babette’s Feast, Big Night and Eat Drink, Man Woman
I think it’s only appropriate to add two Bunuel films about food (neither very mouth-watering though): The Exterminating Angel where people eat a little too much, and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie where everyone’s always meeting for meals but never eating a bite.
The whole movie is just one scene after another about food and each one of them could be a favorite.
My personal favorite is drowning the shrimp is whiskey on the gangster’s girl friend’s stomach. Eating raw eggs by the girlfriend and the gangster is good also. The truck driver and noodle lady trying the competition’s noodles out is good also.
This isn’t really a scene per se, but every time Bradd Pitt is on screen in Ocean’s Eleven, he’s eating something. Enthusiastically. Once you notice it, it becomes kind of funny. There’s a scene in the Bellagio lobby where he’s munching shrimp cocktail out of a wine glass, for no reason whatsoever. Cracks me right up.
I would say the great <b>Tom Jones!</b> whereas Tom and Mrs Wilkens proceed into a meal at a inn and turn it into a bawdy guide to food being sexual. The camera centers on both staring at the audience as they delight in making each other more heated as they dine on roast. They eat lusciously and lascivously, eating each other up with their sparkling eyes and overt sexual play. A visual delight.
For its year, it was pretty controversial. Today, slightly campy but all in all, a worthy movie to watch (I am surprised not many have watched it- Albert Finney at his finest)
I would say the great Tom Jones! whereas Tom and Mrs Wilkens proceed into a meal at a inn and turn it into a bawdy guide to food being sexual. The camera centers on both staring at the audience as they delight in making each other more heated as they dine on roast. They eat lusciously and lascivously, eating each other up with their sparkling eyes and overt sexual play. A visual delight.
For its year, it was pretty controversial. Today, slightly campy but all in all, a worthy movie to watch (I am surprised not many have watched it- Albert Finney at his finest)
More votes for Big Night and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.
One movie that hasn’t been mentioned yet is Tortilla Soup, which is basically the Mexican-American version of Eat Drink Man Woman. If you love Mexican food, the movie will leave you drooling.
Ok, this might seem odd, but what the hell. In the animated version of Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, the kids eat a treat called Turkist Delight. I don’t know what it is about it but when I saw it as a kid it seemed like the best food ever!
There is a great scene in the beginning of “Enchanted April” where Lottie’s husband is eating sole and talking about a dinner party. It is so funny.
There is also a funny spaghetti eating scene later in that movie.
The scene from Wall Street where Charlie Sheen is making dinner for Darryl Hannah in his new apartment. The Talking Heads’ “Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place)” is playing in the background while he makes fresh pasta, sushi, and she pulls out a tub of Hagen Daz. You can see in Charlie Sheen’s face that he’s made it - he is the King of the World.
Cook Hand Luke eating hard boiled eggs in Cool Hand Luke, and the way his belly is so bloated at the end of it all.
The Lost Boys, where Kiefer Sutherland’s vamp powers turn Chinese noodles into worms and steamed white rice into maggots.
“How do you like your maggots, Michael?”
