Restaurant scenes.

[budgie]

He does them well, don't you think? One of the best (if not the best) scenes in PDL, the best in Hard Eight, a thrill in Magnolia, and a dizzy whirl in Boogie Nights (ok, club, but it's the table element that matters - what is that?).

Thinking I'd like to see a whole movie based around them, like Dinner Rush but 100 times better and twice as long.

[Jeremy Blackman]

a dizzy whirl in Boogie Nights (ok, club, but it's the table element that matters - what is that?).

There's also the Jack Horner / Dirk / Amber / Rollergirl dinner scene.

[©brad]

dinner scenes are good. one of the best ones that comes to mind is the one in Mulholland Dr. Too cool.

[Derek]

Bill Pullman's nude scene in Igby Goes Down.

[phil marlowe]

the bar scenes in magnolia are really my favouite PTA-moments.

[Fishbulb]

This is kind of unrelated, but I have noticed that a lot of scenes in PTA's movies revolve around the telephone. There's the scene in "Boogie Nights" at the party where Julianne Moore's son is trying to call her and Guzman picks it up. "Who was that?" "Some kid looking for his mom". Then there's the scenes with PSH in Magnolia where he's on hold, trying to locate Frank Mackey and dealing with all of his assistants on the phone. (Not to mention him ordering the porno magazines over the phone too). I don't think I really need to go into how many scenes in Punch Drunk Love involve the telephone. For the majority of the movie, Sandler is either on  the phone with clients, trying to work out the pudding deal,  getting hassled by phone calls from his sisters at work, calling the phone sex woman, arguing with PSH, etc. Even when Sandler is in Hawaii, the damn phone is still keeping him from Lena- he can't get through to her hotel room. When Sandler goes to Utah and confronts Dean, what is he holding in his hand? A PHONE. When he finally confronts Dean and Dean backs down, Sandler triumphantly throws the phone at someone as he walks out of the place. Almost like he's "free' of the tyranny of the phone's hold on him, or something.

So what is Paul's deal with phones? They seem to represent the difficulty we can have connecting with one another, or in the case of phone sex, trying to reach out to someone as a substitute for real human interaction. I can't honestly think of a movie offhand that features more scenes of someone talking on the phone than PDL. It never becomes boring though. PTA writes good phone conversations

[Cecil]

of course tarantino does great restaurant scenes as well

[AlguienEstolamiPantalones]

this has nothing to do with anything but everytime i see  cecil b. dementeds avatar i keep thinking about alicia witt and the gerbil up her butt  , ahh the power of cinema at work

somehow i cant help thinking john waters would be honored

[Cecil]

i like the restaurant scenes in pecker. ahhahaah pecker plus one

[budgie]

it's the table element that matters - what is that?).

I thought about it, and I guess it's all about the seemingly insurmountable space that is, at the same time, oh so negligible - see Jim and Claudia's kiss - wow! Genius directing.

Also how that ocean of space can also be so claustrophobic when two enemies are seated at the same table - see ? or how it can be used as a form of protection and defence - see John and Sydney in the Hard Eight opening.

I love space, and I think PTA knows all about it, morphing it and all - yeah, the telephone thing is part of the same deal.

[©brad]

speaking of restaurant scenes, can anyone  think of really good restaurant movies? I'm not talking really about films where the characters are eating in a restaurant, rather a film about the restaurant itself. I'm playing around with a script that's about a restaurant- all the characters are the various cooks, waiters, bartenders, dishwashers, etc. Food and beverage world kinda fascinates me. Anyone who's worked in food and beverage knows that every restaurant in the world has a story, or in most cases, a soap opera. Restaurants are kinda like little gypsy families and I'm trying to work with that in this new thing I'm doing.

[Pubrick]

speaking of restaurant scenes, can anyone  think of really good restaurant movies?

[©brad]

From the washington post

"In "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover," British director Peter Greenaway is audacious enough to stage a metaphor so grand, so lavishly comprehensive, that it can stand as a final, definitive assessment of the state of Western civilization. Of necessity, his thinking is global and his vision retrospective. To articulate his views, he references politics, art, economics, even fashion, finding room in the film's densely eclectic visual design for both Jean-Paul Gaultier, who designed the costumes, and the Dutch master Frans Hals. Yet his conclusions, when boiled down to their essence, couldn't be more basic: As a culture, we are what we eat -- or, to take it even further, what we eliminate. If anatomy is destiny, then it's the bowels that dictate history, it's the bowels that rule.

sounds pretty delicious to me. never heard of the film before now. looks like i'll have to wait until i get back in the states to see it though. The POS video store here doesn't have shit- I went in to rent annie hall and hannah and her sisters for a paper only to find out that they didn't have a single woody allen movie. they do, however, have 35 copies of 40 Days and 40 nights. grrrrr

[MacGuffin]

Thought it was overrated, but:

[budgie]

Although I implied PTA could do a 100 times better film, Dinner Rush was good for what you are asking about - soap plus restaurant. It's, er, 'Altmanesque', and I did really enjoy it I just wanted another hour of it. You might find it languishing as it's fairly recent.

The Cook is worth buying, cbrad, it's that good.