Blog 6

 
The movie What's Cooking features four different families celebrating Thanksgiving. There's a Latino family, a Vietnamese family, an African American family, and a Jewish family. Through parallel editing, we get to see the differences in how each family prepares Thanksgiving dinner as well as how they celebrate it and the catastrophe that follows with each family. The food they prepare typically has turkey and potatoes, the thanksgiving standard. However, each family makes it their way to fit in line with their racial and cultural heritage. The Avila family prepares tortillas and tamales to go along with the turkey, baked with fruits and vegetables. Nguyen's prepare a turkey that's half covered in chili paste to reflect the taste of "everything else we eat". Although it later burns in the oven and is replaced by KFC. There are also many similarities to each family's story. They usually start with someone going shopping, there usually is some disagreement over food preparation, such as with the mac and cheese, then there's some political disagreement at the table during dinner, pretty much undermining the whole point of thanksgiving.



As for me, I thought the film was very enjoyable. I was especially starting to get interested towards the end with everything happening with the families, the cheating husband, the brother with the gun, the lesbian couple, the other cheating husband. But in the end, everything was left so unresolved. It was like the gunshot just made everyone forget about their problems. That feels very unrealistic to me, and a cop-out for a real ending. Overall I'd give the film a 7/10, would watch again for the beginning, but a letdown ending.