Anthony Bourdain thought Ratatouille & Road House were the best restaurant/bar movies
Whenever you work within an industry, you can’t help but scrutinize the depiction of it in the movies. That’s especially so when you’re so immersed in it that it is your life. Take the late Anthony Bourdain, for example. He – better than most, also being a film buff – had authority to blast a flick if it didn’t capture the essence of or overly romanticized a kitchen, restaurant or bar. But there were some true winners in his eyes: Ratatouille and Road House.
For Anthony Bourdain, Pixar’s 2007 film takes the cake for the movie that is surprisingly the most accurate of portraying a restaurant. “I thought — Ratatouille probably came as close to being perfect as any film ever in portraying the industry. Again, little things. The burn scars on the woman chef’s arm. It was pretty, pretty good.” Also joining the list of Bourdain-approved restaurant and food movies are Eat Drink Man Woman and Germany’s Mostly Martha. He even suggested that Goodfellas offers a template for being a great chef story, saying, “You’re entering a secret society with a moral compass very different than the outside world, but it is a propelling one. With its satisfactions and its perils and its own style and language.”
As for restaurant- and food-centric movies Anthony Bourdain took issue with, that long list includes Jon Favreau’s Chef, which had its strong suits but was ultimately “a fairy tale.” Even worse was the Bradley Cooper-starring Burnt, which he said “was f*cking unwatchable. It was agony. I mean, I literally couldn’t. I couldn’t.” He also didn’t dig Frankie and Johnny, which stars Al Pacino as a cook…although he clearly didn’t study the trade.
But as we know, Anthony Bourdain wasn’t only about the food – the man loved him a good drink. So as far as bar industry movies go, he’s going with 1989’s Road House. “I watch it every year. Every year I have a Road House party, usually…Out at wherever place I am renting in the summer. And I will invite people over. We will drink a lot and we will watch Road House. It is just awesome…You can just analyze it forever. It’s just peeling back the layers of an onion, you know. The subtext is just so great. When you try to beat up the same guy three times, don’t you go get a gun, you know what I’m saying? What the f*ck, dude? And what criminal enterprise is [the guy who played] Jackie Treehorn in anyway? I mean, it’s all about a f*cking Road House — really? And a used car dealership? He’s not even selling meth.”
At the time of the Thrillist interview, a Road House remake with Ronda Rousey was in development. While this eventually fell apart and the project moved to Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Bourdain said he was interested in writing dialogue for it. He even said he wanted to somehow write kitchen scenes into a John Wick sequel.
The post Anthony Bourdain thought Ratatouille & Road House were the best restaurant/bar movies appeared first on JoBlo.