The darkly humorous tone of this compilation shares a lot with Itami's great 1985 piece, where erotic gastronomy provided a common thread through dozens of lives, triumphs, tragedies and travails. Wonder if Altman was influenced by the earlier work.
shareI dunno, Tampopo is pretty much a straight-up comedy with a stark undercurrent of social commentary while Short Cuts is only laced with dark humour here and there. But then again I´ve only seen the Japanese film once many years ago so I don´t remember it that well... what I DO remember however is that it was one of the most hilarious things I´ve ever seen. As for the gastronomy, there´s lots of eating going on Short Cuts, too, come to think of it - but I guess that´s just something people do on a daily basis.
I´m always up for a good food-related movie though - have any recommendations?
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
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Aha, interesting, I guess I better check it out then. My previous encounter with Bunuel in the form of Belle du Jour wasn´t exactly a success so I´ve been avoiding the dude for some time now.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
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Just watched Kurosawa's Dodesukaden again after several years. This one seems to me much more similar to Short Cuts in several ways, like the tangential lives, broad but bounded locale for all the action, use of motor vehicle as a connecting element. But maybe it's just me.
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