tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post6211061008268218412..comments2024-03-23T21:46:50.843-04:00Comments on the passionate moviegoer: Ephron's "Julie & Julia" - the foodie boresjoe baltakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11467420961490314339noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-68559237625928501872010-02-19T15:45:19.892-05:002010-02-19T15:45:19.892-05:00i agree with stephen...mate, this is the worst eve...i agree with stephen...mate, this is the worst ever movie i've watched in recent years. what a waste of talent for Streep! but for her who would even suffer to watch it? get real,Ms ephron. do hat making or something...please retiresatyahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01535741146403716194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-75223264953505458502009-12-31T08:53:40.776-05:002009-12-31T08:53:40.776-05:00Good Day!!! thepassionatemoviegoer.blogspot.com is...Good Day!!! thepassionatemoviegoer.blogspot.com is one of the most outstanding innovative websites of its kind. I enjoy reading it every day. I will be back.Carynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-84751290814145356392009-12-24T06:42:30.067-05:002009-12-24T06:42:30.067-05:00Palmer-
Thanks for the generous words. Re copy e...Palmer-<br /><br />Thanks for the generous words. Re copy editors, they were the bane of my existence as a newspaper critic for longer than I care to remember. Professional nit-pickers! I'm glad to be liberated and I flaunt my typos with honor, I say! <br /><br />-Jjoe baltakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11467420961490314339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-61703837210513250242009-12-24T00:14:44.827-05:002009-12-24T00:14:44.827-05:00what a concise - and insightful - review!
the typo...what a concise - and insightful - review!<br />the typos drove me nuts, but the criticisms and compliments were all deserved.<br />joe: newspaper copy editors are losing jobs every day. hire one!palmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16089151648441096644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-70165644610328631722009-09-01T07:27:17.441-04:002009-09-01T07:27:17.441-04:00Ha!Ha!Melinda Welshnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-61914287261241059962009-08-19T22:04:44.269-04:002009-08-19T22:04:44.269-04:00Joe, another spot on review. I'm in desperate ...Joe, another spot on review. I'm in desperate need of a new, good movie to watch and there aren't any! (I'm locked in the burbs where good movies aren't even released any more). What I find frustrating about bad movies like Julia/Julie is the amount of wasted human endeavor and money. I can't help thinking about what the movie could have been. I want art and entertainment, not celluloid crap. There are true artists who can't get financial backing to make great movies and then there are loads of money being thrown at crappy movies and crappy actors. I just want a moment of movie bliss. Well, I didn't get my moment from Nora Ephron (insular artist that she is). Did you read the article about Julia Child in the New Yorker recently? Great photo of her and Paul in the bathtub and her in the beauty of her youth. Anyway, enough of my rant. Love your work. Glad you haven't retired from your passion yet!Mehrenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07617099056812402830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-55197390487059418692009-08-17T19:42:21.886-04:002009-08-17T19:42:21.886-04:00I hated it, too. Total caricature by Streep (well ...I hated it, too. Total caricature by Streep (well done but caricature nonetheless), Amy Adams was nothing short of annoying, the script was predictable and repetitive, Tucci a straw dog and obviously cast because he is short, the guy playing Adams' husband needs to repeat Acting 101 ("OK, Eric, you're a husband who really, really likes what his wife just cooked and he's really hungry, see? So he eats like a pig, chews with his mouth open and spews food all over the place. Got it? OK -- Action!"), and the squealing, jumping-up-and-down vision of Childs an unbelieveable take on a made-for-PBS-oddity that the Childs persona was. Awful movie, simply awful. Time for Efron to retire.Terinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-39007891409571556322009-08-14T21:17:00.317-04:002009-08-14T21:17:00.317-04:00I liked it. Maybe I was generous because I love to...I liked it. Maybe I was generous because I love to cook and I love movies that make fun of snobby Frenchmen.<br />Link to my review:<br />http://www.atlanticcityweekly.com/arts-and-entertainment/movie-reviews/Fun-For-Foodies-53054577.htmlMoviejunkie32https://www.blogger.com/profile/16709028837631119975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-47197977144799167072009-08-14T07:06:25.008-04:002009-08-14T07:06:25.008-04:00FYI
Here's A.O. Scott's exact assessment ...FYI<br /><br />Here's A.O. Scott's exact assessment of Meryl Streep in "Mamma Mia!," as it ran in The New York Times:<br /><br />"It is safe to say that Ms. Streep gives the worst performance of her career — safe to say because it is so clearly what she intends, and she is not an actress capable of failure. There is a degree of fascination in watching an Oscar-winning Yale School of Drama graduate mug and squirm, shimmy and shriek and generally fill every moment with antic, purposeless energy, as if she were hogging the spotlight in an eighth-grade musical."<br /><br />About a week later, one of the Times' theater critics, Charles Isherwood, had this to say:<br /><br />"I wouldn’t want to say Ms. Streep gives the worst performance of her career, as some aver, but it has got to be the scariest. When she is called upon to sing the title song — just after stumbling upon three ex-boyfriends she hasn’t seen for years — she flies into a spasmodic frenzy that concludes with her writhing on the roof of a goat house. Later she sings a syrupy ballad, 'The Winner Takes It All,' with an operatic intensity that’s unsettling. It’s not exactly 'Rose’s Turn,' after all, or even 'My Man' from “Funny Girl.'"joe baltakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11467420961490314339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-8445230330861445792009-08-13T19:25:32.184-04:002009-08-13T19:25:32.184-04:00You nailed it, baby! Good thing we had free popcor...You nailed it, baby! Good thing we had free popcorn.Susannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-88944409184718161892009-08-13T17:12:46.514-04:002009-08-13T17:12:46.514-04:00Well put, Carrie! While we definitely disagree on...Well put, Carrie! While we definitely disagree on the merits and virtues of the movie, we concur on Streep's delight and seeming surprise with being a movie star. She's downright school-girl giddy about it and she seems to be enjoying the ride. For the record, I think she's our greatest current actress. She's always fascinating to watch and she's always huge fun in a comedy. I guess that, last year, I was where you're at now. I couldn't comprehend the criticism that she received for her performance in "Mamma Mia!" A.O. Scott actually called it amateurish. (I may be paraphrasing here, but that's the gist of what he said.) For me, yes, she was playing it broad, but in the spirit of the ABBA songs themselves. A good fit. It's the same approach that she's taking with Julia Child. Only, this year, it grates - and, as a result, I know how Tony felt last year.joe baltakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11467420961490314339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-81065061039326506312009-08-13T13:56:54.298-04:002009-08-13T13:56:54.298-04:00Much as I love contrarians, I completely enjoyed J...Much as I love contrarians, I completely enjoyed J & J -- on many levels. As the contrast between a pioneer and a settler, between a woman who kept her eye on the goal and one who moaned, and about the tricky business of marriage. I love Streep, I love that she can't believe she's a movie star, I love her affectionate portrait of an odd (and definirely not boned) duck. For me, it was pure pleasure.Flickgrrlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-80215853659857669782009-08-12T18:08:06.967-04:002009-08-12T18:08:06.967-04:00I enjoyed the film but often felt like I was watch...I enjoyed the film but often felt like I was watching someone do a Julia Child impersonation for much of the time, rather than just getting to know a character. Maybe because of that, I liked the Amy Adams segment more (but then again, I'm more of an Amy Adams than Meryl Streep fan anyway).TALKING MOVIEzzzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11621046844665110326noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-89275986983113807842009-08-12T17:58:40.579-04:002009-08-12T17:58:40.579-04:00Sexist pigs!!!Sexist pigs!!!Nora Ephronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-51520286189277503252009-08-12T17:56:13.136-04:002009-08-12T17:56:13.136-04:00I’m still wrestling with the second half of J&...I’m still wrestling with the second half of J&J, though it’s quite funny and contains that those gorgeous scenes of Paris. My problems occur when I think about it somewhat realistically. It is a true story/stories, after all. Are we to believe that both women's lives were that cartoonish? And yet it seems pretty accurate to me.Nicholasnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-72450153186839818602009-08-12T17:31:25.032-04:002009-08-12T17:31:25.032-04:00Alex- We agree to disagreeAlex- We agree to disagreejoe baltakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11467420961490314339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-13917295109559970542009-08-12T17:29:11.201-04:002009-08-12T17:29:11.201-04:00Joe- Well, I guess I disagree with you only in the...Joe- Well, I guess I disagree with you only in the sense that the spirit of the film seemed true throughout, even as "the usual" (as the previous poster put it) took over. One might say the same of many films, not just Ephron's but many comtemporary movies and even a few from earlier eras.Alexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-60720950534486766912009-08-12T15:38:51.723-04:002009-08-12T15:38:51.723-04:00I was surprised by how the film defaulted to a pre...I was surprised by how the film defaulted to a predictable Ephron-esque narrative resolution, with the usual unearned happy ending. A darn shame.Stephennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-79933113504340032582009-08-12T11:24:44.828-04:002009-08-12T11:24:44.828-04:00I was never certain if Child's bizarre persona...I was never certain if Child's bizarre personality was the real thing or an affectation that she adopted for the public and TV. I agree with you that her success stems mostly from the fact she was good TV. Yes, a real character.Clintnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18439960.post-35410624847445510862009-08-12T11:13:22.740-04:002009-08-12T11:13:22.740-04:00Thank YOU! I think Streep was TERRIBLE - 2 hours o...Thank YOU! I think Streep was TERRIBLE - 2 hours of the same trill, over and over..I hated th is movie, because I know and love the real Julia Childs. Also hate Julie story - find it extremely incredible - can't even buy ingredients for a recipe in one day, much less get all the cooking done for a new recipe..Her blog is really all about her, not about cooking at all. Really nice to read this sane review, after everyone piling on the cookies, even the New York Times..Plus, Ms. Ephron's neck is fine! It will get a LOT worse (saw her do her thing with streep on Charlie Rose - she "wants people to cook'..right! she wants to make money.. Hated this movie..Barrynoreply@blogger.com