I've seen that, and enjoyed it!

Teresa

Maybe I'm just naughty, but my favorite food scene in a movie is from 'Tom Jones'. Gotta love the oyster action.

Here is a link that might be useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tezjznL9NzM

Love that Tom Jones scene. It's foreplay via food! One of my favorite cooking scenes is when all the friends are preparing a meal in The Big Chill.

Teresa, I'm glad you liked Mostly Martha, too.

That looks really good! I especially liked the Italian elements in the preview, and since German is my second language and Italian is my third, I should be able to understand it without the subtitles (but I will read them anyway, to see how they match).

I have not watched anything through Amazon Prime, but Kevin says he has a video account with AP that we can use. I'm going to let him handle this.

Thanks for the recommendation!

Lars

This movie was remade in the US as No Reservations, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart. I'd be interested in hearing how it and the original compare.

We watched Mostly Martha last night on Amazon Prime (I did not realize it would be free!), and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I read IMDB user reviews of the remake, and they seem to agree that it does not compare favorably with the original. I have no desire to see the remake, but I'm very glad I got to see the original. I'm going to recommend it to my friend Maartje, who is Dutch and used to manage a restaurant. She is also fluent in German, which is easy since it is so similar to Dutch. I can even read Dutch recipes from knowing German, but I do have to look up a few words. I was a bit disappointed that there was not more Italian in the movie, but that did not detract from it.

Thanks again for the recommendation!

Lars

Lars, I am so glad you enjoyed it. I thought you might, as would almost anyone who enjoys cooking or has an interest in restaurants. I really like Amazon Prime for shopping and for watching movies. Mostly Martha is not available on Netflix except on DVD.

Netla, I did not know there was a remake. I will have to watch it. I must say I am not a fan of Zeta-Jones (at all!), and I have yet to see a movie as good as the book or a remake as good as the original. Still, I am curious and will give it a try. Thanks for ppinting that out.

Lars, do you think the reviews are more accurate on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes?

I do not trust the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes at all. I think they are a bit like Mystery Science Theater in that they will pan a good movie and try to ruin it. Sometimes IMDB gets it wrong, but I think it is a good indication of what movie fans think.

We have Netflix, but not the DVD version. I'm glad I did not have to buy a DVD to watch this movie, as the discs are pretty expensive. I'll have to check Amazon Prime for other foreign movies that I want to see. I bought a DVD of the movie Stadtgespraech a few years ago from Amazon Deutschland, since we have a region-free DVD player, but as you can see, the German DVD has no subtitles! This was not a problem for me, but Kevin could not understand the dialog, which was very funny. I had seen this movie under the title Talk of the Town at a film festival in Hollywood, and the screen version had subtitles, which is why I was surprised that the DVD did not. Obviously they had been created, and I would think that any German movie would have them as an option on a DVD, in order to reach a larger audience. It's unusual to find comedy in Germany, but Stadtgespraech is an exception. Humor is not common in German literature either - at least not in what I have read in the many German literature courses that I took.

Lars

This post was edited by publickman on Mon, Apr 7, 14 at 19:15

Well, I will check out IMDB for reviews. The worst ratings are the ones on Netflix. It seems like they go out of their way to be wrong. I am looking forward to the next season of Orange is The New Black, but after that is over, I think will will cancel Netflix. Between Amazon and other channels on Roku, plus my public library's collection, I have a lot of choices, in fact too many.

And to keep this on topic, my library has a great selection of cookbooks and cooking dvds.

I saw the remake with Cathrine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckhart but not the original. The remake came off as overdone and insincere, IMHO. For me it was kind of a let down. I never seem to like Catherine Zeta Jones' movies.

I like her when she's being herself, but I don't when she's being "American". A nice Welsh girl!!!

I shouldn't be so hard on Catherine. I liked her in Zorro and Chicago and recently liked her movie "Lay the Favorite." It's just that I recently saw her in "Playing for Keeps" which BF made me watch. She was only one of the many truly awful things about that move. I also disliked her in the equally bad "America's Sweethearts" but neither awful plot and dialog was her fault, other than she accepted the paycheck for it.

I enjoyed watching Zeta-Jones in the remake and had no idea there was an original. I'm not saying it was a great great film but for a cooking buff and an admirer of the actress' beauty, it sure was enjoyable. I ejnoy watching scenes from the good life, read expensive, in New York, as well. Easy, no brainer.

We have ap so thanks for the recommendation.

I think IMDB is a terrific resource for movie fans. Rotten Tomatoes is a secondary source, here.

Sorry, just not a fan of Z-J, despite our shared Welsh ancestry. The remake gets such lukewarm reviews, and every review mentions how wonderful Mostly Martha is, that I'm not going to bother with it.

The NYT review of this movie mentions the sub-genre of "cooking melo-comedy" and cites Who Is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe and Big Night as examples. Chefs is not on Amazon Prime or Netflix streaming, but Big Night is on AP. Now that I think about it, I may have seen that one.

I loved "Mostly Martha", did not care for the remake at all.

"Dinner Rush" is another enjoyable restaurant movie with really good acting.

Thanks, Petra. It gets good reviews on Amazon, so I will give it a try!

Dedtired, sure hope you like it. It has some interesting twists. :o)

I haven't watched it yet but i bought Spinning Plates, a 90 min documentary on the lives of 3 unique restaurateurs , some of you might have seen it already ? Another movie on food for some of you to watch.

Here's another food inspired movie, "A Wedding for Bella" which I liked despite my skepticism at a movie starring Scott Baio. It is schmaltzy as all get out, but I like those kinds of movies sometimes.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

"A Wedding for Bella (formerly titled The Bread, My Sweet) is a 2001 motion picture that told the story of a successful businessman who trades in his single lifestyle to marry the estranged daughter of a terminally ill elderly woman whom he loves like a mother. The marriage is a sham in order to give the elderly woman happiness before her death.

Written and directed by Melissa Martin, the film is set in Pittsburgh's Strip District, a thriving and diverse open-air market. Part love-story to the city that serves as its setting, the film is also a loving homage to the personalities of three people who each had a powerful impact on Ms. Martin.

Bella, the title character, and her husband, Massimo, are the creative embodiments of an elderly Italian-American couple who owned, and lived above The Enrico Biscotti Company (the real-life Pittsburgh bakery currently owned by Ms. Martin's ex- husband, Larry Lagattuta, which served as an inspiration for the film)."

Thanks for the tip; saw Mostly Martha last night and liked it a lot. It's nice to see a film that is aimed at a demographic other than testosterone-addled adolescents. Intelligent and touching without being cloying or formulaic.

This post was edited by arley on Sat, Apr 19, 14 at 8:58

Glad you enjoyed it, Arley. I think one of the reasons I pointed it out is because it is so difficult to find a movie that is not saccharine, violent or outright stupid anymore.

Lpink, thanks for that recommendation.

I loved "Mostly Martha," which I watched soon after visiting our daughter who was working in Germany for a year. It was my first time out of North America. I especially took note of the part where one of the characters described Italy as, "It's always warm there." So, our next trip was to Italy!