Enjoy a Movie and a Meal this Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, we invite you to join us for some deeply satisfying movie meals.

From Chana Masala spiced with a dash of deception to burgers with an extra dollop of family love, these cinematic meals offer some delicious holiday entertainment.  

Black Bag | Chana Masala

When George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) warns his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), “Avoid the Chana Masala,” before the guests arrive for dinner in Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller, Black Bag, he’s not dissing his culinary skills. He’s letting her know he’s dosed the spicy Indian dish with “a healthy amount of DZM-5,” a potent truth serum. After George, a counterintelligence agent for Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), learns of a mole in the organization, he’s invited four colleagues—and likely suspects—(Regé-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Naomie Harris, and Tom Burke) for a home-cooked meal and calculated bit of dramatic interrogation. Unfortunately, his wife is also on the list of potential traitors. The Wrap writes, Black Bag “is an insidiously great spy movie, mature and satisfying,” just like the meal George serves.

Dìdi (弟弟) | McDonald’s with Mom

In Dìdi (弟弟), writer-director Sean Wang brings a joyful authenticity to his coming-of-age tale of 13-year-old Chris Wang (Izaac Wang). Living with his devoted mother (Joan Chen), older sister (Shirley Chen), and grandmother (Chang Li Hua) in Fremont, California, Chris struggles to fit in, be it on Myspace or at McDonalds. During a fast-food meal with his mom, Chris attempts to bridge his differences with his mom, even if the fact she eats a hamburger with a fork and knife appears like a bridge too far. The filmmaker told the San Francisco Examiner, “My mom did that growing up.” While Chris whines “that her habit of eating McDonald’s with a knife and fork is ‘so Asian’,” The Hollywood Reporter writes the film captures a bigger family picture, painting “her as a born artist who’s never quite let go of her creative ambitions, whose unconditional love for her children cannot entirely dispel her disappointment at how ordinary her life has turned out to be.” It’s a meal—and a movie—all can relate to. The New York Times writes, “A funny, heartfelt movie, tapping into the audience's latent memories as well as our great relief at no longer being 13.”

Watch Dìdi (弟弟) now!

The Holdovers | Christmas Dinner

In director Alexander Payne and writer David Hemingson’s The Holdovers, three different people—Paul (Paul Giamatti), a cranky classics teacher; Angus (Dominic Sessa), a troublemaking student; and Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), a cook whose son recently died in the Vietnam War—are left to fend for themselves in an empty boarding school during the holiday recess. Come Christmas day, the three gather a meal thrown together by Mary with what’s left in the fridge and freezer from the semester before. It's a meal which is, as The Wrap writes, “a familial dinner at the school’s dining hall, under the shadow of a hilariously sad and crooked Christmas tree [that is] as oddball as the trio it’s supposed to comfort.” Despite the left-over, warmed-up fare, the bond created by these three infuses the meal with something special, capturing, writes Entertainment Weekly, “the need to belong to something greater than oneself, the profusion of a sudden generosity in human nature, and the simple ways in which we can touch each other's lives.”

Watch The Holdovers now!

Let Him Go | Pork Chop Summit

One scene in Thomas Bezucha’s Western noir Let Him Go—which the cast and crew termed “the pork chop summit”—highlights just how carnivorous a simple meal can be. After George Blackledge (Kevin Costner) and his wife Margaret (Diane Lane) drive to the Badlands of Dakota to rescue their grandson from a local clan, the family invites them to dinner. When the gang’s mom tells them, “I hope you like pork chops,” the Blackledges start to realize, as RogerEbert.com writes, “Pork chops are the weapon of choice for Blanche Weboy (Lesley Manville),the steely matriarch.”

Watch Let Him Go on Apple TV or Amazon now!

The Beguiled | Sautéed Mushrooms

Sofia Coppola’s Beguiled, a historical drama set in a girl’s academy during the Civil War, illustrates just how brutal dining etiquette can be for Southern ladies (who include Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning). While hunting for wild mushrooms, students discover a wounded Union soldier (Colin Farrell) just outside their gates and bring him home to recuperate as good manners would dictate. For Vox, the film’s period manners, however, mask its dark comedy where “a candlelit dinner table becomes a minefield of dramatic irony.” Indeed, Coppola told The Guardian that she was drawn to the story “to represent an exaggerated version of all the ways women were traditionally raised there just to be lovely and cater to men.” When their guest overstays his welcome and betrays their trust, the ladies respond by serving him a fateful dish of wild mushrooms.

atch The Beguiled on Apple TV or Amazon!