Greetings, reader!
Two days from now will be October 1st, which marks a severely underrated occasion: International Coffee Day. As a massive fan of the caffeinated beverage, I decided to celebrate by sharing a list of recommended movies and television shows for fellow coffee enthusiasts. If you want something thematically coherent to watch with your cup of joe during International Coffee Day, look no further!
#5 in movies: Thor (2011)
"This drink, I like it"
"I know, it's great, right?"
"ANOTHER!"
A nice cup of joe will keep you awake and focused for any Marvel movie, but it fits the first Thor film particularly well, due to the hilarious scene quoted above. Who could forget Thor (Chris Hemsworth) tasting his first-ever cup of coffee, only for him being accustomed to Asgardian culture as opposed to Earth becoming painfully obvious as he requests another cup by loudly smashing his cup onto the floor? "I meant no disrespect", the oblivious Avenger adds to the confused onlookers in what might just be the film's funniest scene. I do sincerely hope that no actual coffee was harmed during the making of that scene.
#5 in TV shows: Friends (1994-2004)
"Come by at lunch so that my boss doesn't see you - Kim will freak out, she already doesn't like me"
"That's weird, I don't think my boss likes me either"
"...I don't think mine likes me either!"
"Maybe it's a universal thing"
"Or MAYBE...it's because you're all hanging around here at 11:30 on a Wednesday!"
That, dear reader, is the smartest thing Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) ever said over the course of ten seasons.
Seriously though, so much of Friends is spent in the lovely coffeehouse Central Perk, that you'll often find yourself craving for a nice cup of coffee yourself when watching the iconic sitcom. Let's just hope that the coffee you're drinking with your Friends viewing is better than the woeful coffees that Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) makes throughout season 1!
#4 in movies: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
"Do you ever get that feeling?"
"Sure"
"Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there"
Even if it wasn't for the major part that coffee-drinking plays in the film's plot, Breakfast at Tiffany's would still be just the sort of movie that calls for the caffeinated beverage being enjoyed while watching in my opinion. There's just something about classic old-timey Hollywood pictures like this one that feels extra special to watch when sipping a nice cup of coffee on the side.
But I've singled out the classy and timeless Breakfast at Tiffany's in particular, for a number of reasons. Protagonist Holly Golightly, played in a charming performance by the incomparable Audrey Hepburn, belongs to the New York 'café society' of the time - and while this elitist subculture of snobs is very accurately portrayed as an elitist subculture of snobs, there's still something very compelling and endearing in the oft-repeated name 'café society' for caffeine enthusiasts like myself, which adds a level of intrigue to the social dynamics of the film. Furthermore, who could forget the romantic and deeply caffeinated atmosphere of the Tiffany & Co. flagship store, where the titular breakfasts are enjoyed?
#4 in TV shows: Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
"Bridge officers, report for duty. Commander, set a new course - there's coffee in that nebula"
In the world of television, there are many characters who are passionate about coffee (it is after all a fairly easy characteristic of warmth and relatability to give to a character, from a writer's perspective). But hardly any fictional character is as much invested in coffee as Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) from Star Trek: Voyager. Throughout this very solid Star Trek spinoff, Janeway's love for coffee is used as a humorous but also thematically powerful constant, a reminder of home while she's spearheading a mission lightyears away from Federation territory.
Her many, many quotes about the importance of coffee always make me chuckle, and find the captain relatable on a whole new level. It's nice to know that hundreds of years from now, at least in the utopian future envisioned by the great Gene Roddenberry, humanity's love for coffee is very much still a thing.
#3 in movies: The Bucket List (2007)
"Read it"
"Kopi Luwak is the world's most expensive coffee. Though for some, it falls under the category of 'too good to be true'. In the Sumatran village, where the beans are grown, lives a breed of wild tree cat. These cats eat the beans, digest them and then...defecate. The villagers then collect and process these stools. It is the combination of the beans and the gastric juices of the tree cat that give Kopi Luwac...its unique flavor...and aroma. YOU'RE SHITTING ME!"
"No, cats beat me to it!"
Really, it's all there in the quote. The reveal of Edward's (Jack Nicholson) favorite coffee's origin may gross you out for a moment, but at least up until that scene, this very fine comedy-drama calls for sipping some very fine (and maybe not cat-originated) coffee. Upon finding out that Kopi Luwak and its origin are a very real thing and not a joke created by this film, I'd feel almost tempted to taste the coffee out of morbid curiosity and overall fascination - if it wasn't so damn expensive, I'd probably add drinking Kopi Luwak while watching this film onto my own bucket list.
#3 in TV shows: Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012-Present)
"I bet if you talk to the guy he'll let us out. Just say, I'm the President and I'm gonna be out for a quick coffee"
"Hey Daryl, uh, can you open this up?"
"I'm sorry, I can't allow it"
"That's unbelievable"
Once again, it's all right there in the title. In this wonderfully chill Netflix series hosted by the one and only Jerry Seinfeld, the host and the guest-of-the-week always drive in some fancy car to get a nice cup of coffee while having amusing conversations. For a viewer like me? Love the comedians, don't care about the cars, love the coffee.
This is a nice and mellow series to watch with your morning cup of joe, and don't worry about catching every episode as there's really no point - you can just pick the ones with your favorite comedians in them. I can especially recommend the episodes Seinfeld did with John Mulaney, Trevor Noah, the late great Norm MacDonald, and of course the show's most famous episode - apparently President Barack Obama had cracked just enough jokes in his presidency in order to qualify for 'comedian' status. This makes for one hell of an episode, as Seinfeld and Obama cruise around the White House lawn and enjoy decent coffee while talking through all sorts of subjects.
#2 in movies: David Lynch: The Art Life (2016)
"He gave me the Robert Henri book, The Art Spirit, and I loved that book, I can't remember much of it now, but I used to carry it around and the art spirit sort of became the art life and I had this idea that you drink coffee, you smoke cigarettes, and you paint, and that's it. Maybe, maybe girls come into it a little bit. But basically it's the incredible happiness of working and living that life"
The documentary about my favorite director David Lynch is, naturally, a 90-minute stream of thought as Mr. Lynch talks through all sorts of odd subjects from his strange upbringing and peculiar worldview to his cryptic art and curious lifestyle, while pausing to take a heavy drag of a cigarette before going off again.
One thing that you'll learn from the documentary, in addition to some seriously messed-up stories from urban Philadelphia, is that coffee plays a big part in David Lynch's life (as can be surmised from most of his works). He talks a great deal about the titular 'art life', consisting of drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and making art - just like with the comedians and cars and coffee, there's one part of the trio that I don't particularly care for while the other two I'm all for.
#2 in TV shows: Gilmore Girls (2000-2007; 2016)
"You like coffee?"
"Only with my oxygen"
"So what are you having?"
"Coffee. In a vat"
"I need coffee. Extra strong. Double caf. Triple caf. No, forget the caf, throw in the whole cow"
"Everything in my life has something to do with coffee, I believe in a former life I was coffee"
Yeah, I couldn't settle for just one quote. Coffee plays such a big part in this lovely comedy-drama, that I'd put the caffeinated beverage right up there with Luke Danes (Scott Paterson) and Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) as one of the show's most consistent and important characters. The love that the titular Gilmore girls have for coffee is endearing, and it's always a blast to remember the behind-the-scenes fact that Alexis Bledel, who plays Rory Gilmore, despises coffee in real life and is actually drinking coca-cola from those cups throughout the series. Say what you will, that is quite the stunt double performance by the iconic soft drink.
#1 in movies: Fight Club (1999)
"Gentlemen! Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club"
Yeah, uh, I'm terribly sorry for breaking rules #1 and #2. The thing is - I really need to talk about the fact that every scene in this David Fincher masterpiece contains the image of a Starbucks coffee cup somewhere in the background. No, really. Every scene.
Some go as far as to claim that it's every shot or even every frame, and I have to admit that I haven't done the research to find out where the fact ends and the urban legend begins. I just remember reading about this fact, and spotting about a thousand Starbucks coffee cups laying in the background when I watched Fight Club for the second time. They're everywhere! Whether it's a jab at mass production and consumerism befitting the film's themes, or just a fun little visual gag, is anyone's guess.
#1 in TV shows: Twin Peaks (1990-1991; 2017)
"You know, this is, excuse me, a damn good cup of coffee"
"Mr. Cooper, how do you take it?"
"Black as midnight on a moonless night"
"You're not gonna believe this. There was a fish in the percolator!"
"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. It could be a new shirt in the men's store, a cat nap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee"
In the wonderous world of Twin Peaks, coffee is everything. Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) drinks black coffee at every possible moment while always complimenting the beverage, the constant serving of cherry pies and coffee at the Double R Diner is perhaps the most constant source of safety and warmth in the Twin Peaks universe, and coffee even plays a psychedelic role in season 2's Red Room sequences when demonstrating how strangely the laws of physics and reality work in that plain of existence.
In his four-and-a-half-hours-long video Twin Peaks ACTUALLY EXPLAINED (No, Really), YouTuber Twin Perfect gives symbolic meanings to all of the running gags and ongoing themes in the series. In his analysis, he reckons that coffee symbolises the 'fuel' that the detectives in the series run on, and the bitter/sweet balance of the police characters always enjoying strong black coffee and sugary donuts fits in with the show's larger themes of balance between light and dark, hope and despair et cetera. This theory offers a possible explanation for why the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) begins with a stale pot of coffee (Laura Palmer's (Sheryl Lee) mystery has gone stale and the people investigating it need 'refueling'), as well as the season 2 finale's iconic scene of Cooper's cup of coffee freezing into solid form while in the Red Room (the Man From Another Place (Michael J. Anderson) stops the flow of coffee to demonstrate that he controls the flow of the investigation).
But, really, it all boils down to one scene. In Twin Peaks: The Return (2017-2017), the spirit of Dale Cooper is trapped and all but forgotten in the body of one Dougie Jones. Little by little, fragments of memory start to come back to him. This narrative is at its very best in a scene that I consider the most relatable scene in television history: when the poor and simple Dougie Jones is at quite a literal loss for words, blissfully unaware of anything that's going on, he hears the word "coffee", prompting him to smile, get up and walk to where the coffee is while gleefully repeating the word "coffee". Watching that scene truly makes me feel represented.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I celebrate the beginning of Saturday Night Live's new season by ranking the Top 15 SNL host monologues!
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