Trailer for "Julie and Julia"

This looks absolutely delightful.



http://www.worstpreviews.com/trailer.php?id=1135&item=1

I pray it's better then bewitched

I started reading the book and the author comes off really unlikeable; so much so I stopped halfway through.

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Interesting. I agree with Dottie-Julie was a bore and a bit of a jerk. She looks better here, but all I can think is why clutter up the story of Julia Child with this icky Julie and her whining? Julia had an AMAZING life. And Streep seems to have captured her perfectly.

I went to a screening last week in Lincoln Center.

To be brief:

1. Meryl and Stanley funny
2. The Amy subplot is totally unrealistic and at some point you get annoyed with her very fast.
3. The basic problem with the film is there is no drama, no direction. How can you have a film with drive that is devoted to. . . food?

I wish the studio had the guts to devote the whole film to Julia Child; instead it is 50/50 Meryl and Amy. Even though Meryl and Stanley are entertaining there is no "point" to their story.

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fflagg, I guess they're being true to the book, as the author, Julie Powell, comes off quite annoying in the book I read.

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Updated On: 4/30/09 at 01:44 PM

I'm speculating here, but I think the book might have been a best seller. I remember her appearance on the Today Show and the NY Times ran an article on her as well.

In searching for her book's sales I came across her blog. She really comes off annoying even on there!!

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Updated On: 4/30/09 at 03:42 PM

Thanks Jilani. According to the book reviews on Amazon.com, I'm not alone in my thoughts about the book/author. Wish I had read those reviews before buying the book (I didn't buy it on Amazon which could be why).

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1. how can she afford to buy all of those expensive ingredients?
2. where does she store the leftovers?
3. how does anyone have the energy to cook gourmet meals after a hard day at work?

Mastering the Art of French Cooking was striving to instruct average American home cooks on French cooking, not to be the domain of rich gourmands. The majority of the ingredients - butter, eggs, chicken, flour, more butter - are perfectly affordable, everyday things. The techniques asked for in the recipes could get very involved, but there were tons of diagrams and explanations. Child was a total anti-snob.

And as I remember it, in the blog there were days when Julie was too tired to do her planned recipes so she switched to something easier. But it was a while ago; I could be remembering wrong.

That said, I totally agree with the notion that a movie just about Julia Child would have been perfectly viable. She was an incredible woman with a rich and varied life; trying to make her "relatable" or whatever the hell with the "Julie" storyline is unnecessary.

Updated On: 4/30/09 at 06:16 PM

What I found frustrating about the book was that she completely mis-represents what Julia Child (and "Mastering") was all about. Obviously, it was not meant to be a "Thirty Minute Meals" type of cookbook- Julia Child never expected someone to come home at 6:30 and try to make Veal Oscar. And just because a cookbook includes a recipe for sweetbreads, doesn't mean that everyone who buys the book is expected to cook & eat sweetbreads.

The cookbook makes the point over and over that it's not practical(for example) for everyone to make their own French Bread (though that recipe is in volume 2) but that a curious cook might want to know HOW to do it and that knowledge helps you pick a decent loaf of bread in a store. And that recipe runs ungodly long so that not a single step is left out- You could know NOTHING about cooking and follow that recipe and produce good french bread at the end. Child was the antithesis of cooks like Rachel Ray who thinks she's making it simpler by saying things like "Just eyeball it!" or "toss in a handful" or "Twice around the pan with the EVOO!" Child's recipe include an exact amount for each ingredient and tells you exactly how to do each step- so that a non-cook can make s Souffle the first time out.

To make it into a scary book filled with weird recipes that are impossible to make is just flat out wrong.

I hadn't heard that about Martha but can say that there are a lot worse ways to learn how to cook. Between her TV show and cookbooks, Julia taught me how to cook. I remember as a middle- schooler watching her make a Souffle and immediately going into the kitchen to make a bechemel. I still hear Julia's instructions in my mind when I beat eggs or make an omelet or steam broccoli.

And here I thought I was the only one here who watched her cooking programs. One episode in particular stands out when she was trying to poach eggs and she took some contraption, looked at it as it wasn't working properly, and tossed it over her shoulder saying one doesn't need it anyway!!

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