Movie and a Dinner #1: the Great Outdoors

I knew I wanted to do something like this when I was writing the post about the exotic fruit in Mystery Train, but it didn't quite click. Re-watching the Great Outdoors recently, I realized that food plays a role in many of my favorite movies. Paul Newman eating 50 eggs in Cool Hand Luke, white russians and Sioux City Sarsaparilla in Lebowski, I could go on and on, and I will. Look for the movieandadinner tag. The Great Outdoors is a classic 80s comedy. John Candy and Dan Akroyd, 'scary' stories, a bat and a bear, townies vs. vacationers, fish-out-of-water, it's got all the cliches, and they all work great. I love this movie. The sub-titled raccoons talking about the food in the garbage cans would have been good enough to kick off this feature, Akroyd and lobster tails is good, too, but the scene where Candy eats the ol' 96er (a 96 oz steak, eating the gristle, too, hence the face in the upper-left corner) in one go is beautiful cinema.