I enjoy Food and I really enjoy movies, but I am not a fan of food and films combined. As much as I adore going to the cinema, I have never understood the compulsion to graze through buckets of overpriced, stale popcorn, and slurp gallons of overpriced, syrupy soda. When I watch films at home I manage to do so without ‘jonesing’ for any junk food. Well, cups of tea maybe.

Anyway, I am not averse to films that focus on meals and here are a handful of food-related flicks. (Some of them conjure up such appetising, culinary images that if you had stuffed yourself silly with cinema sweets then you wouldn’t be in the mood for proper, inspired food later on).

Chef (2014)

I’ve loved Jon Favreau since Swingers, Very Bad Things and Friends and will watch anything he directs since his phenomenal success with Iron Man 1 and 2. Favreau stars as a restaurant chef, Carl Casper, who is feeling the constraints on his creativity, so he quits and runs a food van. It’s a feel-good and inspiring tale. There is a brief cameo from his Iron Man alumni Robert Downey Jnr., but the real star of this film is the grilled cheese sandwich Carl makes for his son; food porn at its best. Seriously, I actually salivated.

Burnt (2015)                               

With such an incredible cast (Bradley Cooper, Danial Bruhl, Sienna Miller, Emma Thompson and Uma Thurman) this should have been a slam-dunk. It wasn’t. I couldn’t fault the acting or the cinematography, but I just could not warm to it. Cooper plays super chef Adam Jones, who has won two Michelin stars, and after a very public meltdown involving drugs and women has emerged from his self-imposed exile (which involved the shucking of one million oysters as penance) clean, sober and driven to win a third. Maybe you require a classier palette to find the food on show here appetising, I just found it pretentious, and without understanding or appreciating the backdrop, it’s hard to care about the story.

The Last Supper (1995)

Cameron Diaz stars as one of a group of politically-minded, liberal grad students who share a house and discuss hot-button topics. One evening they allow in gruff Zach (Bill Paxton) and after being subjected to his non-PC views in a very uncomfortable mealtime conversation, a scuffle ensues and they inadvertently kill the man. They then agree to invite a right-wing person round every week and instigate conversations during which they decide if the guest is good or evil and, if they feel they cannot change their guest’s views, they then give them the appropriately tainted wine. Not so much about the meals as they get progressively worse as the group becomes more complacent with their actions.

A very dark comedy, but was one of my favourite films of the 90s.

Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

This must have been a peculiar film to market. I’m generalising but surely most people who like extreme gore and throats being slashed, probably aren’t massive fans of musicals, and vice versa. I, however, really liked this movie. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen, plus a serious budget bring the classic tale of Sweeney Todd to musical life. Tim Burton directs a lavish, gothic version of the urban legend of the barber who despatches his victims from his barber’s chair and moves the bodies to Mrs Lovett’s pie shop where they are cooked and sold to the unwitting public. This put my husband more off the idea of going to the barbers than pie shops.

Ratatouille (2007)

Pixar struck gold with this charming tale of a food obsessed rodent (Remy) with classy taste, who dreams of working in a restaurant. Opportunity strikes when a chance encounter with a slightly inept kitchen worker, Linguini, allows him to put his skills to use. Their partnership involves Linguini being the hands controlled by Remy the rat under his hat, tugging his hair to instruct him on what to do. Insane, I know, but a genuinely touching film and the most appetising, animated dish I’ve ever seen on screen.

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