9½ WEEKS
Back in the 80s, when Mickey Rourke didn’t look like his own melted waxwork, this film alerted us to the hitherto unexplored erotic possibilities of the refrigerator. In something of a sexy trust exercise, he has Kim Basinger close her eyes before popping various chilled comestibles into her mouth. It’s to the director’s credit that the sexy actress with all food and juice down her chin doesn’t look like a stroke victim after a dentist visit; indeed it was one of the most famous, erotically-charged movie moments of the decade. In the end, Rourke covers her in honey and they have it off. (NC)
INDIANA JONES & THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
It might not be the best Indy film, but the feast scene is one of the most memorable in the trilogy (we refuse to recognise that Crystal Skull nonsense). A perfect balance of gross and light comedy, the moment the “snake surprise” is sliced open to reveal innards full of live eels you know this is going to be difficult to stomach. The eyeball soup and big beetles seem relatively palatable compared to the dessert – monkey brains still in the head of the monkey. Even Heston would think twice. (JK)
PULP FICTION
When hired assassins Jules and Vincent pay Brad and his buddies a surprise morning visit, they discover the boys tucking in to Big Kahuna burgers, “the cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast”. Helping himself, Jules commends their choice of tasty burger, which he washes down with a long, close-up slurp of Sprite while quizzing them on European fast food nomenclature. This apparently sociable meal setting is underpinned with a sense of immense and terrifying menace, which plays out true to form when Jules summarily executes a boy on the sofa while Brad is in mid plea. (NC)
MONTY PYTHON’S MEANING OF LIFE
Before the days of Channel 5, the frighteningly obese were seldom made into screen stars. Apart from in this memorable scene though, where John Cleese waits on a dirigible-sized diner, pressing him with course after course made room for via his projectile vomiting into a silver bucket. As his fellow diners gamely continue their meals amidst this precipitation of puke, our hefty hero is tempted to sample one last item, the wafer thin mint. It proves to be the final straw for his gastric capacity however, and he explodes, showering the room with guts and bile. (NC)
RATATOUILLE
Of all the movies here, Ratatouille has to be the most foodie, the most mouth-watering and the most inventive, and all whilst being just a collection of drawings – no real food was hurt during the making of this feature. If, like UB40, the idea of rats in the kitchen (and these are very ratty rats all over the kitchen) turns your stomach, be prepared to have it back on an even keel by the end. Like the best recipes, it’s perfectly balanced – thoughtful and nuanced, and at the same time a colourful, funny animated yarn. (MB)
WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
As movie purists we shun the notion of the pointless remake, so this series of moral and dietary warnings comes from the 1971 original. Any of the golden ticket winners’ fates cuts the movie mustard, but our favourite is Augustus Gloop. A moralistic fable of greed and consumption, his disobedient hand-to-mouth nomming of pure melted chocolate from the indoor river sees him being unceremoniously taken up the fudge pipe. This, together with the various fates of Veruca Salt, Mike Teevee and Violet Beauregarde, set the bar high for subsequent cinematic child abuse. (NC)
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Words By Matt Barker, Nick Coquet, James Kendall
