The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Julie and Julia

Edouard's picture
Edouard

Julie and Julia

The movie is born of the book Julie and Julia

I withdraw my comments. You astonish me. 

LLM777's picture
LLM777

I just wished they had done the movie on Julia Child alone without the coarse blogger. To me, it takes away from Julia.  I understand why they did it, but real foodies would've gone anyway.

Just my opinion.

Yerffej's picture
Yerffej

I agree.

Jeff

PaddyL's picture
PaddyL

....the Julia part is wonderful, the Julie part not so good.  I wish they'd just done Julia too.

pmccool's picture
pmccool

It's a fun movie, worth the price of admission just to have one's stereotypes punctured by hearing that sentence come out of Julia Child's mouth.  And it is also a moving film.  Go see it.  

Yes, I like the Julia parts better, but that says more about my tastes than it does about the movie as a whole.  The Julie parts are worth watching, too.

I'd love it if the movie nudges a bunch of folks back into cooking for themselves again.

Paul 

ericb's picture
ericb

Why did you withdraw your original comments? I thought they were very good, and I enjoyed reading them.

Yes, the Julie character was narcissistic and slightly annoying (although Amy Adams is cute as a button), but I think that's the point of the movie. There was one scene where she was throwing one of her little tantrums and Eric said something to the effect of, "This is the *least* like Julia Child you have been." That is, you can't become Julia Child (portrayed exactly how we all want to remember her in all of her grandiosity and elegance) simply by baking a bunch of her recipes. Whereas food brought Julia and Paul together, Julie's obsession threatened her relationship with Eric.

As a whole, I really enjoyed the movie (although I kind of need a masculinity check as this rated a 6/10 on the chick-flick meter, and I saw it with my wife and mother-in-law...). It was beautifully shot, and I just couldn't get enough of both the beouf bourbuignon AND Streep. I thought it was a lot of fun.

 

salma's picture
salma

I really enjoyed the movie.  I think if it was done only as Julia, it would have been a bio and adding another aspect (actually another bio since Julie is also a real life) made it more interesting.  I saw it with another friend (and husbands).  My friend who gets some of my breads was thinking about me as she was watching.  I was thinking of myself as a little bit like Julie too in the sense that I am always thinking and planning which bread to make next whether I need bread or not.  Fortunately, my husband has not complained about my obsession or my charity.  I thought a lot of you are even more obsessed than I am and come up with wonderful stuff that I then feel the NEED TO BAKE!  Thanks to all you creative people.

Salma

asicign's picture
asicign

I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago, and would have been perfectly happy if the Julie scenes were left out, and the movie were more like 'My Life in France', which I just read.  I taught myself how to cook from Julia's 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking', and I spent *many* hours trying to follow her detailed instructions for french bread.  My breads back then never matched my expectations, but fortunately, with some new resources, including this site, life is better.

deblacksmith's picture
deblacksmith

My wife really like the movie and I enjoyed it.  I would say for sure that the Julia part is what makes it really good and I could have had less of the Julie half but that is what it takes today to get a movie made.  Hard to beat Streep -- she was really great.  They also did a great job of making her 6 foot 2 -- she was in platform shoes for the movie.  Think what it would be like to have a 6 foot 2 lady in a French Cooking school in the late 40's early 50's with all the other students being men.  You should go see it just for the onion cutting lesson.

Dave

fatdog's picture
fatdog

My wife and I saw the movie last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I agree that I enjoyed the Julia portion (Meryl Streep did a great job of being Julia), I also thought the Julie part was essential to the movie and Amy Adams is so cute.  When we got home, I had to drag out my 1971 copy of Mastering The Art of French Cooking and read it until I fell asleep.  Was inspired enough to start a nice SD pate fermente for tomorrow's baking and a poolish for tomorrow night's pizza dough.

tananaBrian's picture
tananaBrian

Yes, we DID enjoy the film ...but the gutter humor detracted from it.

Brian

 

tananaBrian's picture
tananaBrian

I concur.  Hollywood just CANNOT seem to make any movie anymore without including a bit of their depraved, drug-ridden and sexually humanistic, lifestyles in it.  That includes the children's movies.  Note that the "cleaner" movies tend to make a lot more money nowadays than those that include the "gutter junk" ...you would think that they'd figure it out that the public is voting (with their dollars) against the depravity and promiscuity stuff and would produce better films.  I guess their personal lifestyles override their financial and business decisions... go figure.  Sounds like a need for counseling to me ...they've got some kind of addiction problem(s) that is overriding good sense.

Brian

 

ericb's picture
ericb

Edouard, I'm starting to see what you mean ;)

Rosalie's picture
Rosalie

I don't see many movies (maybe one or two a year), but I made a trip into town just for that purpose.  I couldn't not see a movie about Julia Child being played by Meryl Streep.  That was incredible.  The other part was okay, not bad, but good to balance the story that was being told.

Those of you who have seen it will appreciate that that evening (last night), I was slicing onions for onion bread and started laughing uncontrollably.  Yes, my hand was one with the knife.

Rosalie