Julie & Julia
Attention Hollywood: there are two things you should never make a movie about. Blogging. And Cooking.
Attention Hollywood: there are two things you should never make a movie about. Blogging. And Cooking.
Why not blogging? Do I even have to answer this? Everybody blogs. Your landlady blogs about her psoriasis. Your nephew blogs about his wet dreams. Your goldfish even blog about their short lifespan and what you do in front of your computer when your roommate is at the laundromat. No one cares. I mean, if anyone actually did, we’d all be rich, right?
Cooking is also fairly self explanatory. Despite the fact that there’s an entire television channel dedicated to food, the only people who watch it are the same sad sacks who pay way too much for beef made from cows that had their asses wiped by organically-cloned smaller cows that are later made into sausages sold at Whole Foods. In other words, total losers.
Unfortunately for us, someone had the brainwave to somehow combine both blogging and cooking and make it into a semi-biographical historical drama about a woman built with the dimensions of Big Bird. Yes, that’s right – I’m talking about “Julie & Julia.”
I guess now that Dom DeLuise is dead, there was no way they could make a believable biopic about any of the famous fat man-chefs that probably number in the thousands, so instead they turned to Julia Child. Big mistake. In order to make any movie interesting, you need to have conflict, and Child essentially lived a gilded existence on the U.S. diplomatic tip. She’s about as easy to relate to as a statue of Lincoln looking down at you sternly from the foot of your bed while you sleep.
The other main character in this film, played by noted tomboy Amy Adams, is equally off-putting. However, her inability to engage an audience is more related to the fact that she is just so boring to look at the right side of my face fell asleep halfway through the movie. Adams, the human equivalent of wallpaper, is dull enough that exposure to her role in this film is almost guaranteed to kill more brain cells than taking a direct hit off the helium tank in the back of a carney’s pickup.
I propose that the sequel to “Julie & Julia” attempt a fresh melding of the blogosphere and the cooking world, one with a more modern twist. In place of a dead American icon and a mousey New Yorker, the film could instead focus on a living-dead Midwestern cowboy and a disgraced high school chemistry teacher. Together, they don’t get to know each other through a bunch of French recipes – instead they cook up some fucking meth, create a MySpace page that’s sort of about their band but really about how lonely they both are, and then unleash their reign of terror on an unsuspecting countryside. Oh, and the movie wouldn’t need any dialogue, either. Just a loop of people screaming over and over. And maybe some crying. Do you smell something burning?
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Things I loved about this movie
Learning about the real Julia Child.
Watching Meryl Streep play Julia.
The cooking (I'm food obsessed). I can totally relate to Julie wanting to prepare all 527 recipes in Child's The Art of French Cooking in one year.
Note that in the movie, Child says she was "just a secretary" in the OSS, however, she received several commendations for her service. That doesn't sound like being "Just a secretary" to me.
I don't think you'll leave the theater without being impressed by this film, and without being hungry.
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Good movies about cooking
(Of course, they aren't "Hollywood" movies.)
BABETTE'S FEAST
LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
BIG NIGHT
EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN
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Does "Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe" count?
"HE'S GOT A BOMB!"
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A truly bizarre movie about food
La Grande Bouffe (1973)
Bored with modern living, four middle-aged friends -- a pilot (Marcello Mastroianni), a judge (Philippe Noiret), a television star (Michel Piccoli) and a chef (Ugo Tognazzi) -- embark on a gluttonous weekend of food and fornication that's to die for. Literally. Italian director Marco Ferreri scored his greatest global success with this darkly amusing allegory, which nabbed the Cannes Film Festival's International Critics Award.
{;-) Dan in Miami
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Eating Raoul (1982)
Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov
A great food movie! It shows the proper use of an iron frying pan.
Parents (1989) Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt
Another great food movie especially if you like cookouts.
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Cannibalism for Kim Novak fans
"Tales that witness madness" (1973)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070770/plotsummary
{;-) Dan in Miami
PS: Polynesians do like Spam
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The best movie about cooking...
...is Tampopo, bitches.
Although I'm rather fond of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover ...and Eating Raoul...
_______________________________
~No, my young padawan; this one is mine.~
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Confession:
I actually saw this. Mostly for Meryl Streep. My early prediction: she will win her much-overdue third Academy Award for her work here. The film wasn't bad, though a bit too long. I wanted to see more of Jane Lynch, who played Julia's equally-larger-than-life sister.
Poor Amy Adams - she gets no love in this one, as Meryl simply OWNS the movie. Amy is usually good, but a little vanilla.
HS, who is surprised that Coaster liked it considering that nothing blew up.
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Another good food movie: Motel Hell.
Remember, it takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters!
HS
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Ah, so you're the other guy that saw that.
Some very good Rory Calhoun.
Have you heard anything about a remake?
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Nowadays, it's too cheesy to be remade.
I therefore think they should leave it untouched...unless they were to turn it into a horror parody, sort of like how the Brady Bunch Movie was a deliberate mockery of the cheesy TV show.
HS
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I loved Back to the Beach. I still do. Great parodies within.
The best was Bob Denver knocking Gilligan's Island.
You had both Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello knocking both their images and their beach party movies from the '60's. Heck, they even mocked Annette's role in commercials selling Jiff Peanut Butter.
Definitely worth a rental.
.
As far as I'm concerned, the can leave Motel Hell alone and spend the time, money, and effort trying mightily to come up with something original.
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back to the beach?
the humunga cowabunga from downunda? I saw that in theaters when i was a kid. Suprise cameo by Pee-Wee Herman.
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And Big Night rocked!
Even though the ending was predictable....
HS
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Russian hobo cannibals seek Rajah's home address
Police in Russia have arrested three homeless men suspected of killing a man, eating part of the body and selling other parts to a kebab shop.
They said the three men attacked their victim with knives and a hammer.
"After carrying out the attack, the corpse was dismembered. Part of it was eaten and part was also sold to a kebab and pie kiosk," their statement said.
It was not immediately clear if any customers had been served.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8360569.stm
{;-) Dan in Miami
PS: Yum, yum, yum. Hobo kebabs! Tastes just like Spam!
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Those Midwestern cannibals are the worse
Like in that zombie movie "Meat Me In St. Louis"
That Judy Garland deserves a Double Tap!
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crap overacting.
Overacting. Crap. Not interesting.
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I'm disappointed in you all....
Not a "Save the liver!" joke in the bunch.
Looks like I came back here just in time. Now, if I'd only bother to watch some of these movies that are getting reviewed....
TheWreck
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More Russian cannibals seeking Rajah's home address
1. Maxim Glavatsky and Yury MozhnovOur top story of the day has to be one of the more bizarre and heinous items to ever make an appearance on this list -- but certainly not the most original. After all, cannibalistic metal freaks are, like, soooooo 1990s Norwegian Black Metal.
Still, Maxim Glavatsky and Yury Mizhnov are certainly some of the grossest individuals we've ever come across -- and we're not talking about their taste in music or fashion, either. On May 6, Glavatsky and Mizhov were found guilty of eating a 16-year-old girl. Apparently, they lured the girl to Glavatsky's apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia, where they drowned her in the bathtub before cutting her into pieces, boiling her flesh, and then eating it. They then happily pranced around town with her MP3 player and cell phone. When the two were first arrested they tried to plead not guilty before finally admitting to the crime. Their reasoning? "We were hungry," they said.
Glavatsky, who worked as a florist when he wasn't prancing around like The Crow, was given 19 years.
His accomplice, 18.
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2010/05/top_5_douchebags_russian_goth-.php
{;-) Dan in Miami
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Well, at least they're not
lining up for bread and toilet paper any longer.
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