Deliciously good
Look, some movies just make you hungry. You're sitting there watching someone assemble the perfect bowl of ramen or grill a Cuban sandwich at 11pm and suddenly you hate yourself for not having planned better. So here's the idea: pick one of these, make the food, eat while you watch. A proper eat-along. Chef is obvious. Tampopo is a commitment but absolutely worth it. And Delicatessen... Actually. Maybe have a light snack for that one. These are three movies where food is the whole point. Not the backdrop, not a metaphor the director is very proud of. The actual point. One is warm and funny. One is obsessive and strange. And one is a French post-apocalyptic black comedy about a butcher who is very good at keeping his tenants fed. Bon appétit.
The Picks
A woman decides her ramen is not good enough and refuses to accept that. An entire team of strangers shows up to help her fix it, because that's apparently what happens when you care about something enough. Absurd, warm, and weirdly erotic in places. You will leave hungry.
Official synopsis
In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.
A burned-out chef loses everything, buys a food truck, and drives across America with his only remaining friend and the son he'd been too absent to actually know. Turns out the kid is great, whoops. Jon Favreau wrote, directed, starred, and somehow wrote himself a sensual thing with Scarlett Johansson AND a marriage to Sofia Vergara. No notes. MY MAN!!!
Official synopsis
When Chef Carl Casper suddenly quits his job at a prominent Los Angeles restaurant after refusing to compromise his creative integrity for its controlling owner, he is left to figure out what's next. Finding himself in Miami, he teams up with his ex-wife, his friend and his son to launch a food truck. Taking to the road, Chef Carl goes back to his roots to reignite his passion for the kitchen -- and zest for life and love.