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Would you like a grand repast? The world's best sushi? Or just a piece of toast? From Japan, Mexico, Denmark and the U.S. come some of the most savory movies about the preparation and consumption of food.In his new film Chef, Jon Favreau plays a kitchen magician who leaves a posh restaurant and opens a food truck serving perfectly prepared tacos. Movies have reveled in the culinary art ever since silent films: in 1925′s The Gold Rush, starving prospector Charlie Chaplin turned desperation into inspiration by making a sumptuous meal of his boot and shoelaces. Hollywood has produced food movies for kids (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and sci-fi fans (Soylent Green, anyone?). In the Taiwanese Eat Drink Man Woman, Ang Lee served up a rich repast of domestic angst, and Marco Ferreri imagined four charming gents eating themselves to death on the finest cuisine in the French La grande bouffe.
The potential choices are bountiful. But we ordered up the following eight movies to suggest the breadth of the dining experience. As Estelle Reiner says after watching Meg Ryan mimic an orgasm at Katz’s Delicatessen in When Harry Met Sally: “I’ll have what she’s having.
Food, Inc., 2009It’s said that you wouldn’t want to see how sausage is made — so how about the rest of America’s comfort cuisine? In “Robert Kenner’s passionate, witty documentary,” Mary Pols wrote, “We meet the meat, most of it miserable, corn-fed, dosed with antibiotics and on its way to centralized slaughterhouses and processing plants. Kenner shows us farmers in peril, powerful corporations in charge, scientists cooking up genetically modified foods and the toll the system takes on our health and sometimes even our lives. … The film takes us to meat-processing plants and slaughterhouses (sometimes with hidden cameras), offering glimpses of chickens collapsing under the weight of their own breasts or the truly revolting production of bleached hamburger ‘filler’.” Can a movie exposé change what America eats? Pols hoped so.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi, 2011Sukiyabashi Jiro, a basement restaurant next to a Tokyo subway station, has 10 seats and three Michelin stars. It’s where President Obama recently dined with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and, according to Agence France Presse, finished only half his plate. Many gourmands would say, “I’ll take the rest.” The world’s most revered sushi joint became the most renowned thanks to the effusions of TV chef Anthony Bourdain and this loving 2011 documentary, which portrays the saintly fanaticism of an artist dedicated to elevating the craft. “I fell in love with my work and gave my life to it,” Jiro Ono tells director David Gelb. Jiro is now 90; his son and sous-chef Yoshikazu has been waiting longer than Prince Charles to take over. But the old master still needs to learn. “There is always a yearning to achieve more,” he says. “I’ll continue to climb, trying to reach the top, but no one knows where the top is.”
Julie & Julia, 2009“There are two Julias in Nora Ephron‘s movie,” wrote Mary Pols for TIME. “One is short and petite, the other extraordinarily tall and pleasantly beamy. One loves to cook, while the other lived to cook. Both are based on real people. One, Julie Powell (Amy Adams), had a bright idea, while the other, Julia Child (Meryl Streep), had a calling.” Like a deft cook mixing recipes from two sources, Ephron combined Powell’s best-seller about preparing 365 Child recipes with Child’s memoir My Life in France, detailing her discovery and mastery of French cooking, which spurred her career as a writer and PBS star. (Stanley Tucci plays Child’s devoted diplomat husband.) “This is a charming crowd pleaser,” Pols wrote, “but it’s also surprisingly bold. Ephron has varied her usual moviemaking recipe, proof that Julia Child still inspires.”
Ratatouille, 2007Only Pixar would dream up an animated feature about a country rat who comes to Paris — scampers into the kitchen of the once-great restaurant Gusteau’s — to be a French chef. He could create superb dishes, if only he can find a human ally. His desperate choice: a callow scullery lad named Linguini. “I can’t cook …” Linguini says, and the rodent shakes his head no. “But you can?” Remy answers with a Gallic shrug so eloquent it says many things. First, a modest “Eh, a little.” Beneath that: “Well, not to brag, but I’m actually quite proficient.” Most important: “Trust me. Together we’ll cook up some magic.” Begun by writer-director Jan Pinkava and completed by Brad Bird, Ratatouille is a lavishly detailed ode to the frantic, collaborative artistry of cooking. Its great moment: when the town’s severest critic tastes Remy’s first dish and, in a flash, fond memories — of a loving mother giving him delicious food — play across his face. Ratatouille turns all its viewers into gourmets and grateful children.
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