Julie and Julia

My sister gave me a DVD of "Julie and Julia" this year, and I just finished watching it.  What did I take from it?

1.  Meryl Streep is always fully the character she is playing.  She's an excellent actress.  I've read that people who know her say she's a down to earth, friendly lady as herself also.  Maybe I could put together a Meryl Streep movie marathon.

2.  Julia Child seems like a fun, interesting lady.  It makes me curious to read her posthumously published memoir, "My Life in France".

3.  Amy Adams is a pleausure to watch.  I loved the movie "Enchanted" because she was...well, enchanting.  I haven't seen her in anything else - at least where I knew it was her.

4.  Even though I liked cooking shows, and I could have seen Julia Child's shows while growing up - I didn't.  If I could recreate my thoughts at the time, I imagine I thought this was a show for people who actually like to eat.  I don't get pleasure from eating food the way Julia Child did.

5.  Blogging really is a self-centered thing to do.  It's a public diary for no reason.  I've thought about this before and I think I'll keep it on my idea shelf - why is this blogging interesting to me?  Why do I want to do it?  I want to write about it one day.

6.  In the movie, its made clear that Julia Child didn't have an appreciation for the tribute Julie Powell thought she was making to Julia.  This is from Julia Child's Wikipedia page:

In 2004, Child was the inspiration for The Julie/Julia Project, a popular cooking blog by Julie Powell that, along with Child's own memoir, in turn inspired the 2009 feature film "Julie and Julia".(Meryl Streep portrayed Child in half the narrative). Child is reported to have been unimpressed by Powell's blog, believing that Powell's determination to cook every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year to be a stunt. Child's editor, Judith Jones, said in an interview: "Flinging around four-letter words when cooking isn’t attractive, to me or Julia. She didn’t want to endorse it. What came through on the blog was somebody who was doing it almost for the sake of a stunt. She would never really describe the end results, how delicious it was, and what she learned. Julia didn’t like what she called ‘the flimsies.’ She didn’t suffer fools, if you know what I mean."

I understand.  Julia Child had a profound love of food and cooking and France.  It gave her life color and dimension.
Julie Powell's blog turned Julia Child's deeply felt experience of food into a two dimensional project; took the life out of it.
7.  In the movie, Julie Powell described the project as a regimen.  In my last salon group we talked about the practice of spirituality in our daily lives.  And, the new year is coming.  So, I would like to create a practice or regimen for myself that I can work on for the year.  The only way to get good at something is to practice it.

Good movie for the Saturday matinee.  Thanks Sister!