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Reel food reviews

From the pinot noir in Sideways to the lemon meringue pie in Million Dollar Baby, this year's Oscar nominees had full servings of award-worthy food moments.

By BEVERLY LEVITT
Published February 23, 2005

As we gear up for the 77th annual Academy Awards on Sunday, we're wondering how clever host Chris Rock will be, what Annette Bening will wear on the red carpet and how many after-parties the stars will hit.

But most important, we're excited about who will win Best Food Scene, Best Food Film, Best Use of the Kitchen.

No such categories? Well, there should be.

And so I offer up my nominations for the best food scenes of the year, because, in the movies, food is never just about food. Food is about love, fulfillment, deprivation, insanity and maybe even heaven.

Ray Charles' childhood kitchen was where he learned about danger and where he came to know a mother's love. In that kitchen, Ray's mother, desperate for her blind son to become independent, teaches him to recognize the sounds and aromas there, and how to feel his way around - skills he will need later.

Throughout the film, Ray (Jamie Foxx) flashes back to his mother standing at her sink, snapping peas and enticing him to come inside for a home-cooked meal. What she gave her son in that kitchen was pride and the love of a strong woman who nourished him.

When Ray achieves success in a sighted world, he buys a beautiful house with a big kitchen for his wife, the other strong, loving woman in his life. His life had come full circle.

Ray is nominated for Best Picture, Foxx for Best Actor and Taylor Hackford for Best Director.

Throughout this gritty film where nobody eats anywhere but a diner, trainer Frankie Dunn (director-actor Clint Eastwood) longs for homemade lemon meringue pie. "Not the kind with that canned filling crap," he says. He asks his protege, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), if the pie at the restaurant where she waits tables is made from scratch. "Sure, says so on the box," she retorts.

We're not sure if either one remembers what "homemade" actually tastes like. Frankie hasn't had a home-cooked meal for a quarter-century. Maggie never learned to cook. After Frankie helps Maggie out of a devastating situation, she takes him to Ira's Roadside Diner, where the pie is the real deal. They share intimate stories, and these lingering bites are the most emotionally nourishing either one of them has eaten.

Million Dollar Baby is nominated for Best Picture, Eastwood for Best Actor and Best Director, Swank for Best Actress, Morgan Freeman for Best Supporting Actor and Paul Haggis for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Gold digger Tom Fennel (Shaun Evans) invites older, glamorous stage actor Julia Lambert (Annette Bening) to his third floor walkup for tea and Victoria Sponge Cake. There, Julia's sweet tooth gets the better of her. Besides, she's chomping to trade a life of lettuce leaves and champagne for potatoes, cherry tarts and . . . him. Even though Tom is a dreadful snob and turns out to be a two-timer, his table is the one she craves, even though she invariably ends up paying for dinner. When her mentor advises, "Don't get mad, get even," she gives the performance of her life, dresses down, and declares her independence. "I want to dine alone tonight, quite alone," she says.

Bening is nominated for Best Actress.

The antihero Miles (Paul Giamatti), whose life seems to be going in only one direction - sideways - waxes poetic about the illusive, temperamental nature of pinot noir and suddenly he's the most popular fellow in California's Santa Ynez Valley. He should be. In real life, pinot sales are up 100 percent there. After seeing this film, everyone wants to drink what the actors are drinking.

In Sideways, wine tastings take center stage, and, if you paid attention, you learned all you need to know to attend one and look respectable. Wine was definitely the star here, with food taking a supporting role.

Sideways is nominated for Best Picture, Virginia Madsen and Thomas Haden Church for Best Supporting Actress and Actor, Alexander Payne for Best Director, Payne and Jim Taylor for Best Adapted Screenplay.

What Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) wanted or refused to eat signaled how gravely affected he was by his obsessive-compulsive disorder. Hughes' anxiety-ridden eating habits dominated his life.

In a scene at the Coconut Grove, where the aviation genius dined often with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett), his predilections were respected. No menu is offered; the waiter states simply, "The usual?" for Hughes and rattles off the "specials for the lady." He returns with a bottle of milk with the top still affixed, a New York steak cooked medium and 12 peas, geometrically placed on the plate.

When Errol Flynn blithely picks up one pea and pops it into his mouth, Hughes is horrified. His plate is contaminated.

The Aviator is nominated for Best Picture, DiCaprio for Best Actor, Blanchett for Best Supporting Actress, Alan Alda for Best Supporting Actor, Martin Scorsese for Best Director, and John Logan for Best Original Screenplay.

This David and Goliath tale feels like a segment of Fear Factor as we watch one man literally place his life in jeopardy to shock audiences.

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is just a regular guy. Happy. Healthy. And then he accepts his own challenge of eating nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days to see the ramifications.

Before he begins he enlists three doctors to administer a battery of tests. He passes with flying colors. After the third day, he begins feeling sick. He has no energy. He's depressed. He gets blinding headaches. And he learns he's doubled his risk of heart disease. At the end of a month of Big Macs, fries, sodas and whatever else he picks from the menu, Spurlock's weight jumps from 185 to 210; his cholesterol increases 65 points; his blood pressure skyrockets.

In the end, this cautionary tale morphs into a bona fide horror movie, especially when presenting statistics that 60 percent of the U.S. population suffers from obesity, the second-most preventable lethal illness after smoking.

Super Size Me is nominated for Best Documentary.

Beverly Levitt is a freelance food writer based in Los Angeles.

The Academy Awards ceremony is at 8 p.m. Sunday on WFTS-Ch. 28

[Last modified February 22, 2005, 14:48:39]