Saturday evening we watched the movie "Julie & Julia". I remember when it first came out, the reviews were all full of praise for Meryl Streep, who is naturally a superlative actress. Several reviews that I read more or less said that half of it -- the half with Meryl Streep playing Julia Child -- is a great movie. As for the half with Amy Adams playing Julie Powell, ... mneh.
Am I the only person to see the movie who was more moved by the modern half? Or is it a blogger-thing? Obviously I don't expect the answering machine to be overflowing with book offers -- certainly not when I'm invite-only! But there was something about the scenes of her typing away and clicking "Publish" that tugged at my heartstrings. I seem to be getting softer and weepier at movies these days, no doubt because of incipient old age. I couldn't very well tell Wife or Son 2 why those scenes got to me. But the moments when she is sure that nobody is reading and then suddenly she gets a comment out of nowhere that brightens her whole day ... yeah, I think we've all had that happen once or twice. And yeah, it makes a difference. What the hell, so I'm getting weepy in my dotage ....
I did enjoy the movie.
3 comments:
Saw the movie a bunch of times. It's a perfect example of postmodernism. I liked it better than I thought I would. I thought Amy Adams did a wonderful job.
Apparently Julie Powell's (the blogger-cum-authoress) follow-up was a book about adultery and the butcher trade: Cleaving.
I saw Cleaving in a Costco of all places, many months ago, but didn't look at it closely. So I followed your link and looked at the readers' reviews, and they are scorching! Even the five-star reviews start by saying it's not a "good" book, but they rate it highly for Julie's ability to capture her own self-absorption and (repeated) self-destruction. The one-star reviews -- far more numerous -- pan it for much the same reasons.
Actually it sounds kind of interesting. Have you had a chance to read it yet?
Haven't read the book myself - was turned off by the negative reviews (plus I read some of the original blog and was all, well, I've read better blogs out there...)
Post a Comment