The Even-Movie-Characters-Gotta-Eat Puzzle

ratatouille

I fell asleep during this movie, so I didn’t use any quotes from it.

We haven’t had a puzzle around these parts for some time now, and since this is the season of free outdoor movies in New York (enabling me to see Sharknado for the first time last week–divine), how about a little silver screen brainteaser to send us all into the weekend? Name the movie from which each of these finger-lickin’ food quotes is taken. Be warned: some of these are tough nuts to crack. (I didn’t use “Take the cannoli,” or “I’ll have what she’s having,” because I respect you more than that.) For bonus points, name the actor and character who uttered each line.

  1. Lunch is for wimps.
  2. Yes, these crackles are made of synthetic goose and these giblets come from artificial squab and even these apples look fake, but at least they’ve got stars on them. I guess my point is, we’ll eat tonight, and we’ll eat together.
  3. Sometimes the spaghetti likes to be alone.
  4. But you know what does bother me? You know what makes me really sick to my stomach? It’s watching you stuff your face with those hotdogs! Nobody–I mean nobody–puts ketchup on a hot dog!
  5. And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in Paris?
  6. Red wine with fish. Well, that should have told me something.
  7. What’s tiramisu? Some woman is gonna want me to do it to her, and I’m not going to know what it is.
  8. When I was a lad I ate four dozen eggs / Ev’ry morning to help me get large / And now that I’m grown I eat five dozen eggs / So I’m roughly the size of a barge!
  9. Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke.
  10. Annie, there’s a big lobster behind the refrigerator. I can’t get it out. This thing’s heavy. Maybe if I put a little dish of butter sauce here with a nutcracker, it will run out the other side.

Don’t click Continue or scroll down until you’re ready for the answers.

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Fried Green Tomatoes and a Food Film Puzzle

fried green tomatoes

I never met a fried vegetable I didn't like.

Last weekend, during a visit to my parents’ house, my mom fried up some green tomatoes from my dad’s garden that Jason and I scarfed down like they were going out of style. In addition to being tart and crispy and delicious (her secret: use seasoned fish fry for the breading instead of humdrum cornmeal), the tomatoes reminded us of the movie of the same name, particularly the awesome scene in which Kathy Bates wraps herself in Saran Wrap.

But Fried Green Tomatoes was hardly the first or last film to feature a food item in the title. Have you been following Llalan’s beer and movie guidelines? If so, you’ll be able to identify the movies that contain the following quotes. Ten of the titles include something edible; the other two feature beverages.
  1. kathy bates“In telling the story of my father’s life, it’s impossible to separate fact from fiction, the man from the myth. The best I can do is to tell it the way he told me.”
  2. “You realize we’re all going to go to college as virgins. They probably have special dorms for people like us.”
  3. “Seems like the government’s got more interest in a dead man than a live one.”
  4. “Thanks for the compliment, but I know how I look. This is the way I look when I’m sober. It’s enough to make a person drink, wouldn’t you say?”
  5. “No, I can’t. My wife can always tell. She can smell it on my sweater.”
  6. “Apart from you, they’re the most stupid creatures on this planet. They don’t plot, they don’t scheme, and they are not organized.”
  7. “Isaac started the whole thing. He’s a boy preacher who came to this town three years ago. At nine-years-old back then, he had a charming way that appealed to all the kids and teens like us to follow him with his own teachings of the bible and of the Old Testament. But me and Sarah thought he was just plain weird.”
  8. “Centipede, I do not know whether to kill you or kiss you.”
  9. “There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.”
  10. “This is not gonna work, Little Chef! I’m gonna lose it if we do this any more. We gotta, we gotta figure out something else. Something that doesn’t involve any biting, or nipping, or running up and down my body with your little rat feet.”
  11. “Think of your children pledging allegiance to the maple leaf. Mayonnaise on everything. Winter 11 months of the year. Anne Murray – all day, every day.”
  12. “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door… And that’s all. I ask for the movement to continue. Because it’s not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power… it’s about the “us’s” out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up – I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.”
When you’re ready to see the answers, click away… Continue reading

Beer for the Big Screen

Can someone get this man a towel?

When I was 25 my roommate and I concocted an elaborate drinking game to play while watching John Cusack’s High Fidelity. Every time a top five list was created: drink; every time Rob got rained on: drink; and most importantly, every time Rob unearthed some greater life truth: drink.

By the end of the movie we both had empty wine bottles in our hands and felt wise in a way you only can when you’re drunk, 25, and just watched a John Cusack movie with your best friend. Turns out we may have been a little over-ambitious in our rules, like, maybe Rob’s line about the sad cottony reality behind women’s choice of day-to-day undergarments shouldn’t have counted as a greater life truth. If I were to do this all over again, I’d definitely do things differently. First, I would have beer, instead.

Llalan’s top five movie/beer combinations:

And don't try to tell me this isn't horror: it's effing scary!

1. Horror (The Shining)
My gut reaction with this is stout, and everyone knows you must go with your gut reactions in horror movies; if you over think it or are black, you’re dead. Drinking a stout gives you something to hold on to, something heavy, solid, both a companion and something that could be easily used as a weapon. For The Shining, I’d go with a Russian Imperial like North Coast Brewing’s Old Rasputin, which’ll have you spinning spells by scene in the hedgerow maze. Continue reading

Popcorn, Mon Amour

popcorn cart

"Better make that a double; I'm going to see Die Hard: With a Vengeance."

I was sitting in a darkened theatre on Saturday, munching handfuls of popcorn, when suddenly the entire tradition of movie popcorn struck me as absurd. In Brooklyn, so much as whispering through a movie would probably get me punched in the face, but I am allowed to eat the loudest, smelliest snack possible a mere two feet from another patron’s head, and no one is allowed to say anything. I think this revelation was spurred mostly by the fact that we were watching the dismal and quiet French film Amour (spoiler alert: unhappy beginning, unhappy middle, unhappy ending, followed by me extacting a sworn statement from Jason that he would never smother me with a pillow, diapers or no), but even so, I couldn’t help but consider the weirdly powerful love affair between celluloid and popcorn. After all, potato chips and corn chips and pretzels have the same salty-oily-crunch factor, and though those snacks are more popular in virtually every other venue (including the realm of house cats), cinemas are the domain of popcorn alone.

Apparently, like any number of romantic pairings, the match between popcorn and movies began because both parties were in the right place at the right time. The portable popcorn popper and the nickelodeon were bright young things together in the late 19th century, and it didn’t take long for popcorn vendors to start parking their carts outside the theatres to take advantage of the crowds. Later, the popcorn moved inside to boost theatre profits during the depression. Not even war could tear the two asunder: sugar was rationed during World War II, so candy disappeared from concession stands, but the War Department gave the official go-ahead to theatres to continue to serve popcorn. Continue reading