3/4  If it falls on the floor just push it together
Julie & Julia was a very funny and entertaining movie. I loved Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep together! The movie certainly got me interested in knowing more about Julia Child, who seems like a lot of fun. I found Amy Adams character to... (read full)

4/4  Where are you going? Not here!
I was very VERY skeptical [what? that's not like me at all...] when I walked into the theatre to see this movie, being surrounded by mainly women and their obese husbands, all holding several concession snacks and toppling popcorn on thei... (read full)

3/4  Julie & Julia Quick Review
"Julie & Julia" was a wonderfully touching story.Streep & Adams strike again! I was left extra hungry when the movie was over... A

3/5 Feel-Good In-Flight Film...
  by Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.)
... and nothing more. But sometimes that's enough, like a cold Sam Adams when the only other beer on tap is Coors or Budweiser. KLM offers dozens of films on its trans-Atlantic flights, but most of them are Harry Potter I-VI or GI Joe Cobra in various combinations of language and subtitles. Thus it happens that I felt rather benign about this rather flimsy concoction of a film. I was hoping for a strongly-spiced "food movie" on a par with Stanley Tucci's 'The Big Night'. Tucci plays a long in 'Julie and Julia' but his part is as bland as the mixed vegetables in a steakhouse. Julie and Julia is NOT a food movie; it's a sentimental feel-good marriage-crisis movie about Julie, interspersed with a Saturday Night Live spoof of Julia Child.

Meryl Streep is killingly funny as Julia Child, but her performance is pure parody. There's no story to it - not that a story is required - and there's precious little 'food' for thought. A minor surprise is delivered when, at the end of the film, a phone caller tells Julie that Julia doesn't entirely thrill to her fingertips at being exploited for her fame. That surprise remains unexamined.

The real story is Julie's, about Julie, and "it's all about Julie" in Julie's world. I suspect a generation gap appears in my reaction to sweet little Julie and her navel-gazing blog-to-fame. I found her to be an annoying twit. I would have felt quite sorry for hunky hubby, except that he had no personality to feel sorry for. The two tales here - of Julie's marriage and of Julia's education of French cooking - are shuffled together with a minimum of cinematic artistry. All I can really offer is the advice that, if your choice on your next flight is J&J or Harry Potter VII.5, go for J&J.

3/5 Five Stars for Film, No Stars for DVD Special Features Manipulation
  by IVE (California USA)
Well, I guess it's finally happened...the consumer and film buff who does not own a Blue-Ray compatible DVD player is now officially SOL. The standard DVD release of Julie and Julia contains as special features only a commentary track and behind-the-scenes featurette. To get the full array of special features, one must purchase the Blue-Ray version of the film, AND of course, a Blue-Ray dvd player. Here are the features NOT available on the standard dvd: tour of Julia Child's kitchen in the Smithsonian; featurette "Friends and Family Remember Julia Child;" and "Cooking Lessons," with Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, and other renowned chefs preparing several of Julia Child's best-loved dishes. Why can't the studio release a two-disc special edition in the standard format for consumers like me who don't own the latest home entertainment equipment? I loved the film (especially The Divine Ms. Streep), loved Julia Child's book "My Life in France," very much liked Julie Powell's book "J & J," and can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to owning the DVD. I'm miffed, and in no position to go out and buy myself a new DVD player in this economy, not even at Christmas. This really stinks. So, five stars for the film itself, no stars for the DVD release manipulation.

2/5 A peculia mish-mash
  by C. R. Bates (Beijing China)
This is a curious film. It is in two parts presents in an overlapping function. One is a drawn out going nowhere account of Julia Childs many years of writing a 700 page cookery book, the other is about Julie Powell (contemporary, and about whom they said, "Who?") Julie is surprised to find she is a writer and is respected for the quality of her blog about copying Julia Childs's recipes.

Meryl Streep plays Julia Childs as if she is continually drunk or on the happy pills. What is it? A local accent, or was JC continually drunk or on the happy pills? Does one have to be American to understand such a strange way of speaking? Are there people in the US who actually speak like that?

The film is long and seems to be going nowhere, and the impression is that someone made a film about Julia Childs, realized it was dull, drawn out, and boring, and decided to add something novel to rescue a botched effort. The fact that someone became obsessed with re-creating Julia Childs's recipes over a whole year and write about her experiences in an internet blog seems to have been a story that has been cobbled on to salvage something from the efforts.

Julia Childs did not realize how unrealistic and unworldly she was, or how unscrupulous she was with her French collaborators, and Julie Powell was equally unworldly and did not realize that she was a good writer.

This film is a mish-mash and will baffle and certainly not please anyone who is not American


5/5 Five Stars for Streep
  by William Alexander (Spartanburg, SC)
A friend of mine who was an actor once told me that he thought the hardest part to play was someone either living or within living memory. With the coming of the internet and YOUTUBE age, that's likely to become a more common problem, but no less daunting.

And Ms. Streep pulls it off with a performance so good it was like Julia Child breathed again in all of her good-hearted, iconoclastic glory.

Honestly, overall, I did not care for the film too much, and I could have cared less for the other actors in the film. That's just my opinion, and other reviewers have written about them in glowing terms, so perhaps I missed the bus somewhere and may have to rethink that position one day. Also, there have been some serious complaints that the Master Chef (I am unsure of the formal title) of the Cordon Bleu was depicted in a way that made her look like a far more snobbish and dreadful person than she actually was. Nevertheless, it is absolutely worth it just to watch the scenes with Ms. Streep. It's one of her best performances yet, and that's saying something. She takes a so-so movie and a so-so script and makes them sparkle as the legendary gourmet who tried to make everyone's life a little happier through those most basic and delicious media - good, hearty unpretentious food, good company, and good cheer. Just an amazing performance, and were she alive, I will just bet Julia Child would have been the first one on her feet cheering and clapping.

I note with a smile that the one thing you will not want to do is watch this movie on an empty stomach!

Recommend!

5/5 A far better film than a book.
  by Graves (Pennsylvania)
All too often when a well loved book is turned into a film, fans of the book bemoan who the director or the screen writer got it wrong and all the wonderful things the book had that got lost on the way to the screen. And then you get the rare case when the film is so much better than the book that you wonder if you'll ever bother to look at the book again. "Julie & Julia" with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams is one of those films.

Based on Julie Powell's blog, a New York office drone, dreading the approach of the Big 3-0, breaks out of her life by attempting to go through every recipe in the first volume of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year. While the book focuses almost exclusively on Julie Powell in her Queens apartment, the film splits time equally between Amy Adams' Julie on her epic food quest and Meryl Streep as Julia Child in post war France, who takes cooking lessons as a way to break up the boredom of her day waiting for her husband to come home.

Each actress dominates each scene she is in with a sense of life and energy. A lot of fuss is made over Streep's portrayal of Child as she goes from chopping her first onion, literally, to getting her cook book published. But equally important to the film is Adams as Powell, the woman who never finishes anything, determinedly holding on to her self appointed project and this is the driving energy behind the film. As much as Streep pours energy and life into her version of Child, we know she makes it, we know she becomes the Grand Dame of TV chefs. On some level we know Powell success too but for her it is less a quest to be published than to finish the journey of self discovery she has set herself on. Streep shows us how Child started out, we know what she becomes. Adams' Powell brings us along to find out what she will become.

In the book Powell is following Child's direction from the cookbook but is not a particular devote. By comparison in the film Adams' portrayal has her ready to quote Child on any number of topics and this creates the link between the two women the audience needs.

In the book Powell brings a lot of personal baggage that gets old fast, the film ignores this and focuses on what the women have in common. It doesn't talk down to the audience but lets you follow along through cooking, supportive husbands and love. Not just the love of a good meal, but the sort that encourages you to grow and be more than you were. This isn't a film just for foodies, but for people who dare to act on a dream, or think they might. Oh and for record, I haven't deboned a whole duck...yet.