Reviews

As enjoyable as a movie can get, especially if you like food and hate the right wing of the Republican party. There's a little politics thrown in with the chopping of onions, coddling of eggs and writing and publishing a cookbook.

Nora Ephron deftly weaves the contemporary story of Julie Powell who spends a year recreating Julia Child's recipes for her blog with a biography of Julia and her husband Paul in France from 1948 on. Based on Julia's book and a collection of letters we learn how she took up cooking as a way to fill the time while he husband was stationed in Paris and later Marseille. After taking classes she was asked to co-author a book on French cooking for American women. It took eight years and all sorts of setbacks but it finally succeeded.

In contrast, Julie Powell's blog on Salon.com brought her to the attention of the NY Times and the publishing world very quickly. There tone of the movie islight and Meryl Streep outdoes herself with that Julia Child accent. See my article, Julie & Julia & Book Publishing on Associatedcontent.com.

Although my grandkids love this movie and I found the message (like all Pixar/Disney movies) to be uplifting, especially to kids, I still find the idea of a rat in a restaurant to be disturbing. I keep wondering how clean the kitchens of famous French restaurants are!

How does this compare to other Disney movies? It's a little more ambitious since very few children know much about haute cuisine. Movies like Toy Story and Cars have an automatic interest factor for children.

But most American children think that vegetables come from the supermarket and meals come ready made from MacDonalds. For that reason alone, the movie isworthwhile. Of course there is the love interest and the villains. AndI haven't seen humans as the enemy since Bambi.

Liked the food though -- could almost smell it. It's on my list for best movies for food lovers over at Associated Content. The painterly background was good also.

I have always liked this movie and am sorry it did not do as well as other Levinson films. It's obviously a Jewish family that is depicted although there are no specifically Jewish scenes, like lighting the candles or anything like that.

As the family becomes more Americanized they move away from the family circle center. The suburbs and TV become the two most alienating forces. Armin Mueller-Stahl, Joan Plowright and Elijah Wood were all great.I particularly liked Aiden Quinn as the father although he is obviously not Jewish.

I mention it as one of the Best American Movies about Immigrants on Associated Content.