Tortilla Soup

Tortilla.Soup.2001.DVDRip.XviD-MULTiPLY

I greatly enjoyed Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. I found Tortilla Soup a failed attempt to adapt this film to a different audience. First off, I think the plot development is hinged on the relationship between the father and the daughters. However, it is important to note that this dynamic that drives the conflict and action is not so easily found in Latin-American culture as it has been (re)established in LA. With the Asian family in Asia, the father-dauthers dynamic was on the money. The new cultural paradigm for Tortilla Soup simply lacks that essential element. From this, the development of the film is beyond the realm of belief. Adding to my disappointment, was the discovery that the scripts for Eat, Drink, Man, Woman and Tortilla Soup are practically identical. The variations are few and far between, and I think the duo that put in such hard work scripting this film should have stuck to their Asian success.

Tortilla soup is all about family and food (dinner) and how each really draws inspiration from the other. The food is the hub from which the drama, and the laughs, turn. Three daughters, each at different phases of their lives, are torn between their home lives ruled by their stern but loving father and the outside world. Dad, a chef, spoils them with some of the best nuevo spanish cuisine any latina daughter could ever possibly hope for, and has instilled in each an appreciation of food, and life. Dad is single, realizes he is about to lose the core of his family one by one and food is all he has, or so he thinks. Just when you think he'll be alone to cook for himself, surprises come in spades. And, as always, it's the food that draws them all back.

i saw this film on star-movie channel accidentally in a boring night,and i have to say that i was totally confused about the meaningless mechanical remaking of ang lee's previous movie,you will never figure out how bloody spoiled the remaking was if you never saw the original one before and in the mean time you are not a Chinese.Tortilla Soup has exactly the same plot with lee's original movie and was pretty much a bad "copy" or "translation",apparently you could merely notice only a few differences between the two versions including cast,languages and locations where the stories taken place etc,but they are not important compared with the losing of the soul which was supposed to be expressed to people! the original movie that was filmed by ang lee was a story about a family in Taipei,and the main idea was to tell people the importance of the family value and also question some of the unhealthy city life styles right there in Taipei from a few aspects.so the plot of that movie was meant to be happened to a specific group of people at a specific time and in a specific place,you know you couldn't just copy it and make the movie replaced with a brand new cast and something else,this is definitely meaningless and stupid even if you liked the plot so much.well i kinda get a good expression to all this stuff,you see it just like you know a person very well and you liked him very much,when someday you found out that the person had become a "walking dead" after taking a plastic surgery,though you could still recognize him.maybe the expression is a little bit weird and creepy,but just that it helps reflect the truth.

Well, well, it's hard to describe this film. Sometimes you always feel good when you're watching a film. I don't know exactly the reason. I just know that in some occasions you fell not so good because of the events that occur in one film. Here it's about feeling good. It's very comforting to see Hector Elizondo here. I have always liked him. And I have never thought of his acting qualities, or evaluated him as an actor, I just have always had fun watching him on screen. This movie is no exception. I gotta give him the fact that he actually looks like a cook (chef). He actually seems to enjoy the meals he prepares daily. And also seems his family, people who love him. And there wouldn't be much a film without this love. Martin's (Elizondo) three daughters are the center of the film, of course, including their dad. Tamara Bello is beautiful. It's the first time I see her in a movie, but there's such charm in her face, and she makes Maribel the kind of girl some teenagers may identify with. Leticia (Peña) is also some kind of misteryous, but understandable. We get her situation, and maybe know there's no way out. But we are also by her side, when she has the time to improve. She has kept his feelings for too long, as if she was obliged to, and know she's desperate to let them go. Carmen (Obradors) might be the opposite. She has let her feelings go, but has kept some of them inside also. It is like she knows she must take some decisions, and she takes them, only she may not be so sure, she may just think she is. The rest of the actors are perfect choices, and make each of the characters they play another part of this charming film. I'm hungry...

I highly recommend "Tortilla Soup" to anyone that is a fan of great films. Hector Elizondo is perfect as the veteran chef who has to accept that his three grown daughters are finally moving on with their lives. The cast runs smoothly throughout the whole movie, and by the time it ends you feel better about life. It is a very up-lifting and feel-good movie, and I think it is perfect to anyone that either needs that or wants that in their life. Enjoy...

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed this film. We had wanted to see this when it first came to video/DVD but didn't get to it. Frankly, I then forgot about it. Last week, I was reminded of the movie and went out and rented it. I have not seen the Ang Lee movie, "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" so can not comment on how it compares. But we really liked "Tortilla Soup" The performance by the cast of Elizondo, Pena, Obradors and unknown (to me) Mello; was very good. Raquel Welch was a bit over the top, but all in good fun. The interaction between the father (Elizondo) and daughters was believable and you could sense the love he had for them under his stern exterior (and you knew his daughters knew it too). As others have mentioned, the food preparation and serving scenes were colorful and very beautiful. Shows there is a lot more to Mexican cuisine than what you run into at most restaurants. This movie will make you smile, like enjoying a good meal. 8 out of 10

Better than the ordinary Hollywood movie, this family comedy does a very nice job of presenting a variety of characters in the throes of pursuing their own version of the American Dream. That the family is Mexican-American adds a welcome difference. The camera loves the food being prepared, the Latin-flavored music score enlivens the proceedings, and the acting is quite serviceable. Jacqueline Obrador and Elizabeth Pena shine as the older daughters in the family, the always-reliable Hector Elizondo is fine in a rare leading role. Of greatest interest, however, may be Raquel Welch, playing her age and her ethnicity for the first time in my memory. It is her role, not her performance, that mars the movie. She is a caricature of an older-middle-aged unattached woman, the butt of unkind jokes. And it is the unwitting bias toward the older woman character that undermines the otherwise upbeat, happy ending intended. Still, this one's worth the cost of a rental. Not great art but at least it doesn't insult the viewers' intelligence.

"Tortilla Soup" tries hard to be a better movie. It has assembled many of the elements needed for that: Great cast, good settings, fine POTENTIAL topic area. Despite the promising beginnings, this flick falls flat. The writing includes so many wooden cliches and tired old tropes that the movie comes off as something a very talented 16 year-old girl (with access to a Hollywood studio) would produce. Several times during the DVD viewing I thought I recognized the movie: Was it that I HAD indeed seen before, but had simply forgotten about it? That does happen, of course. I'd see some scene or other and then think, "Oh--- I saw this 5 or 8 years ago, and the new DVD is merely a re-issue of that older movie." Wrong! I had not seen it, I finally figured out. The release date is 2001, and my memory isn't THAT bad. Those moments of DVD deja vu and recollected story simply show how cliched this movie really is. The movie's writer and/or director somehow managed to include passages from many past flicks of the genre. A more rigorous and careful script review and production plan would have caught those gaffes. But this movie, again, has the amateurish feel of a bright child's first effort, so the gaffes would have been understood coming from a high school student, but not from a supposed adult professional. The themes of family, belonging, growing up and moving out, deciding on a future, etc. deserved more care and skill in their depiction. The truly wonderful cast deserved more. The paying audience deserved more. As a "one shot" TV movie that appears one night, gets a possible rerun a few months later, and then disappears forever--- "Tortilla Soup" might have been adequate. But one would think the producers would have known better than to make a corny, derivative, and cliched movie into a "permanent" DVD release.

I have only walked out on a movie twice in my life, and this was one of them. The other was Taxi Driver, which, at that time in my life, was just too violent to stomach. This was just too sickening to stomach. Filled with bad acting, trite dialog, two-dimensional characters, and sometimes-amateurish cinematography and film editing. Examples: A kitchen quarrel amongst the sisters is resolved by playfully breaking dishes on the floor and the three singing and dancing over the shards arm in arm. Just too cute. A character demonstrates her zest for life by standing up in a sports car with the wind blowing in her hair and squealing, "Woo-hoo-o-o-o-o!" Just too trite. And not only did I walk out after 50 minutes, but it was my wife (a "chick-flick" aficionado) who suggested we get out of the theater before she became physically ill from this turkey grande.