'Dinner For Schmucks' Isn't The Only Movie With Manic Mealtimes
From 'Beetlejuice' to Indiana Jones, a lot can happen at dinner time
Sure, it’s a remake, but with a cast featuring Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifianakis and Jemaine Clement we’ll give Dinner For Schmucks (out July 30) a pass. Based on the 1998 French comedy Le Dîner De Cons the film follows Tim (Rudd) as he’s invited to his boss’s monthly dinner engagement. The agenda is to bring the stupidest guest possible and the winner earns certain advantages within the workplace. Tim brings along the deftly dumb Barry (Carell) to compete among the other executives and their idiotic invitees. A lot can happen round the cinematic dinner table... see below for other manic mealtime mishaps ranging from the hilarious to the grotesque.
Beetle Juice (1988)
In true Tim Burton style, the comical and the creepy are melded. Multiple dinner guests of the obnoxious Deetz family are suddenly possessed by the gleeful spirits of the newly dead Maitlands (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) and made to sing and dance to a calypso from the grave. For the song’s finale their prawn cocktails come alive, grab them by their faces, and throw them across the room. Now that’s a party.
Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom (1984)
Baked beetles, eyeball soup, steamed monkey’s brains and baby snakes cut fresh from the mother to squirm across the table; and Anthony Bourdain wasn’t even invited! Indy’s dinner in the Indian palace is one of the most stomach-churning scenes to feature in any kids’ movie and easily the most nausea-inducing thing Indy had to contend with, up until the quizzical CGI prairie dog in Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008).
The Phantom Of Liberty (1974)
Surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, perhaps best known for Belle De Jour (1967) with Catherine Deneuve, was a true artist, and a master of the subversive. The rambling, episodic nature of The Phantom Of Liberty stumbles from one absurdist set piece to the next, the most bizarre and memorable being a scene where a group of well-to-do people sit around a table on toilets, underwear round their ankles. When one guest excuses himself to leave the table we follow him to a little room away from the others to have a bite to eat, only to shout ‘occupied’ when a woman knocks on the door.
Festen (1998)
The first film to comply with the Dogme 95 manifesto (a list of specific limitations that the filmmaker must adhere to, for example, no music, filmed on location, hand-held camera only) is an ultra-dark affair concerning some particularly bleak subject matter. At a dinner party held for his birthday, a man is accused of the ultimate taboo by his son. While Festen is anything but a chuckle-fest(en) it’s brave movie-making and well worth a watch. Just not with your mom.
