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Food often plays a pivotal role in movie plots, as any dedicated moviegoer knows. Take one prime example: the 1992 film "Como Agua Para Chocolate" ("Like Water for Chocolate"). The main character, a Mexican woman named Tita, uses her cooking to influence and enhance people's emotions. When she's not allowed to marry the man she desires -- and her sister marries him in her place -- her sadness creeps into her recipes and all the wedding guests are overcome by grief during the wedding banquet. On another occasion, Tita uses a meal to pour her love into the man she yearns for, and again it has a profound effect on both him and the other diners. The meal acts as more than just an aphrodisiac; it consummates her passions. Any idea where we'll be stopping first? But "food" plays an even greater role in the film, if you can stomach looking at it like that.
When Frank Bennett meets his untimely demise at the hands of Sipsey, Big George supposedly cooks up more than chicken that night. In the 2000 movie "Chocolat," the sensual side of cocoa is a major plot component. Vianne Rocher and her daughter open a chocolate shop in a conservative French town that doesn't take kindly to the new arrivals and their decadent business -- especially since the shop's opening coincides with Lent. The town, and most of all its mayor, see the whole operation as sinful. Gradually, though, Rocher's caring nature and gastronomical goodies win over the hearts of most everyone, including new arrival Roux, played by Johnny Depp. We'll be sticking around in France for the next one, sampling gourmet delicacies from the culinary capital of the world. When he unexpectedly winds up in the sewers underneath the kitchen of a swanky Parisian restaurant, he pairs up with the restaurant's new garbage boy, a lad by the name of Alfredo Linguini.
The two collaborate with Remy directing his human assistant, allowing the rat to cook up all the delicious dishes he could ever hope to concoct alone. This works for a while, but eventually the secret comes out when a cranky food critic demands to meet the head chef, and it's discovered that Remy's been running the show. Luckily, however, it all works out in the end, as with most Pixar flicks. On the next page, we'll sweeten things up for a bit. After a tour of his extraordinary chocolate factory, Wonka ends up choosing Charlie Bucket -- a boy with no money, disabled grandparents and few prospects -- to run his incredibly secretive and fantastically fabulous business. Charlie was again chosen as Wonka's heir in the 2005 remake "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" after Augustus took another tumble into the chocolate river, Violet again inflated like a blueberry, Veruca was deemed a bad egg for the second time, and Mike was once more shrunk down into a tiny TV-sized figure.
But at least kindly Charlie still came out on top. The 1973 movie "Soylent Green" has become an ongoing joke in pop culture reference, receiving nods in comedy shows like "Futurama," "News Radio" and "Saturday Night Live." The movie dramatized a futuristic scenario where overpopulation and food crises force the food industry into developing interesting alternatives to traditional crop methods. In other words: They start feeding people human meat. The movie closes with the tantalizing cliffhanger: "Soylent Green is people! We've gotta stop them somehow!" Whether that aim is ever achieved is unknown, but apart from the cannibalism, do the food industry secrets sound familiar? 2008, immediately garnering much critical acclaim. The documentary explores different facets of modern American food production, likening the process not to traditional farming, but to a factory assembly line. The film calls multinational corporations to task for detrimental activities like homogenizing crop diversity and spurring a health crisis of epidemic proportions. The film thoroughly details the negative effects experienced by the end consumer, the workers and the animals involved in the never-ending cycle. From subsidized corn to food contamination and corporate corruption to concerted greed, "Food, Inc." delivers a frightening reality check about the food that goes on our dinner plates each day.
The Internet has revolutionized the way we communicate. E-mail has been the most rapidly adopted form of communication ever known. Less than two decades ago, not many people had heard of it. Now, many of us e-mail instead of writing letters or even calling people on the phone. People around the world send out billions of e-mail messages every day. But sometimes even e-mail isn't fast enough. You might not know if a person you want to e-mail is online at that moment. Also, if you're e-mailing back and forth with someone, you usually have to click through a few steps. This is why instant messaging (IM) has become so popular. You can IM with anyone on your buddy list or contact list as long as that person is online. You type messages to each other into a small window that shows up on both of your screens. In this article, you will learn about the history of instant messaging and how it works.
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