By BARBARA VANCHERI and CHINA MILLMAN
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes food is just food onscreen.
Other times, it's a key ingredient for cinematic success, a telling substitute or symbol, or a perfect prop for characters who meet to eat in movies as different as "Oliver!," "Tom Jones," "Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?," "Diner" and "The Bread, My Sweet."
The change in how families eat Thanksgiving meals is shorthand for director Barry Levinson's message about how far -- or how low -- society has come in "Avalon."
Everything you need to know about Debbie Reynolds' character in "Mother" is in these food factoids: She offers her adult son (Albert Brooks) ancient orange sherbet, with its "protective ice coating," and meatloaf, even though he's a vegetarian.
In "Soul Food," when the matriarch played by Irma P. Hall takes ill, her family members no longer gather for a traditional Sunday dinner of ham, chicken, catfish, macaroni and cheese, egg pie, black-eyed peas, collard greens and other goodies, and they begin to crumble like stale cornbread.
But when it comes to films for foodies, it's hard to top "Julie & Julia," now opening and starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child, along with this batch of 10 tasty treats.
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