Julie and Julia
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sensuality.
My Grade: A+
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Sigh. I'm man enough to admit I wanted to see this movie. I like Amy Adams, I like Meryl Streep and I liked Julia Child. So, yeah, I went to see this! Want to make something of it?! (I saw it with my mom for "cover"
)
Julie Powell is a young woman living in 2002 New York and working in a phone emotional support call-center for people effected by 9/11. She's apparently a woman who never finishes a project -including a half-written novel- and this is an expected, and known, character trait of hers that both her mother and husband chide her about. Determined to "do something" and finish something, spurred by disillusions with her social circle and job, a decent home-cook she takes a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking she's stolen from her mom and decides she's going to cook each of the 500-some recipes in it over the course of the next year and blog about it.
Julia Child, most people with a working TV and bookshelf likely know. A world-famous published and TV chef known for her height, her strong accent and eccentric, loud, demeanor. Most known for the aforementioned book published in the early 1960s and her TV show that pretty much gave birth to the TV cooking shows. She began as a bored wife to a man working for the a pre-CIA American intelligence and security agency recently assigned to Paris. The bored Julia attends the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris -much to manys chagrin- and eventually joins up with friends to write an epic cookbook to teach Americans who're just discovering the drive-up window at McDonald's how to easily master French Cooking, this book would become the one Julie Powell would use half a century later to blog about.
Apparently, studios and screenwriters felt that that neither woman's story stood up enough on its own to sustain a movie so we're given both women's intertwined stories as each "chapter" is intercut between one another. The movie juxtaposes the elegance and luxury of Paris of the early 1950s with the more contemporary Julie's life in a crappy studio apartment above a Queens pizzeria; and the love and companionship Julia had with her husband Paul with the straining relationship Julie has with her struggling, and love-deprived, husband as well as both women's triumphs and struggles mastering French culinary arts very nicely. There's little stark and noticeable transition between the two women who never meet other than a slightly noticeable change in cinematography techniques and of course style of dress and decor.
Overall, this is a wonderful movie, even if it feels its two-hour running time just a bit. It's not likely to win any awards, though Streep does an excellent job was Julia Child. However it's a warm, friendly, movie that's well worth seeing though it does feel a bit long. Amy Adams also turns in a lovely performance as Julie and the surprise glorified cameo of Mary Lynn Rajskub playing Julie's best friend, er, well, Chloe.
If you've got the time and you want something different than the spectacle and splendor of Summer movies and just want to see a good movie based around characters and achieving something great in life this one is worth seeing.
Though I gave it an A+ it's not perfect. It's just my wonky "grading system" which I admit has little rhyme, reason, or logic to it. There's just not anything I can think about it that I didn't like.
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sensuality.
My Grade: A+
==================================================
Sigh. I'm man enough to admit I wanted to see this movie. I like Amy Adams, I like Meryl Streep and I liked Julia Child. So, yeah, I went to see this! Want to make something of it?! (I saw it with my mom for "cover"
)Julie Powell is a young woman living in 2002 New York and working in a phone emotional support call-center for people effected by 9/11. She's apparently a woman who never finishes a project -including a half-written novel- and this is an expected, and known, character trait of hers that both her mother and husband chide her about. Determined to "do something" and finish something, spurred by disillusions with her social circle and job, a decent home-cook she takes a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking she's stolen from her mom and decides she's going to cook each of the 500-some recipes in it over the course of the next year and blog about it.
Julia Child, most people with a working TV and bookshelf likely know. A world-famous published and TV chef known for her height, her strong accent and eccentric, loud, demeanor. Most known for the aforementioned book published in the early 1960s and her TV show that pretty much gave birth to the TV cooking shows. She began as a bored wife to a man working for the a pre-CIA American intelligence and security agency recently assigned to Paris. The bored Julia attends the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris -much to manys chagrin- and eventually joins up with friends to write an epic cookbook to teach Americans who're just discovering the drive-up window at McDonald's how to easily master French Cooking, this book would become the one Julie Powell would use half a century later to blog about.
Apparently, studios and screenwriters felt that that neither woman's story stood up enough on its own to sustain a movie so we're given both women's intertwined stories as each "chapter" is intercut between one another. The movie juxtaposes the elegance and luxury of Paris of the early 1950s with the more contemporary Julie's life in a crappy studio apartment above a Queens pizzeria; and the love and companionship Julia had with her husband Paul with the straining relationship Julie has with her struggling, and love-deprived, husband as well as both women's triumphs and struggles mastering French culinary arts very nicely. There's little stark and noticeable transition between the two women who never meet other than a slightly noticeable change in cinematography techniques and of course style of dress and decor.
Overall, this is a wonderful movie, even if it feels its two-hour running time just a bit. It's not likely to win any awards, though Streep does an excellent job was Julia Child. However it's a warm, friendly, movie that's well worth seeing though it does feel a bit long. Amy Adams also turns in a lovely performance as Julie and the surprise glorified cameo of Mary Lynn Rajskub playing Julie's best friend, er, well, Chloe.
If you've got the time and you want something different than the spectacle and splendor of Summer movies and just want to see a good movie based around characters and achieving something great in life this one is worth seeing.
Though I gave it an A+ it's not perfect. It's just my wonky "grading system" which I admit has little rhyme, reason, or logic to it. There's just not anything I can think about it that I didn't like.
