Reviews by Matt

A while ago, maybe three years or so, I decided to see how long it would take me to watch every DVD I owned. Movies and television, nothing would be missed. I did not give myself a deadline; I just saw it as something to do. Well, like I said it has been three years and my guess is I am less than halfway though. It not that I have a lot of DVDs, though it has not helped that I keep adding to the collection, it is that time has not allowed. Mostly though it is a mood thing. Some of the movies I have you have to be in the right mood to watch.

Now imagine that I gave myself a deadline of a year and I did a review of each movie? One of the reasons I decided to not be a journalist was the constant deadlines. Also I would be repeating myself a lot since I own many of the movies I have reviewed.

That is not the case in “Julie and Julia.”

Julie (Amy Adams) decides to get herself out of her rut by cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and must do it in one year. She puts her life in cooking up on a blog and begins to gain notoriety for her project as her marriage suffers.

Cut between Julie’s story is the story of how Julia Child (Meryl Streep) became a household name. She is in Paris with her husband when she decides to take cooking classes. She is very good at it and when she finally completes the classes, she is asked to help revise a French cookbook for Americans.

Allow me to gush here for a second. I love Amy Adams. In every movie I have ever seen her in she is full of charm and charisma. She was the best part of “Junebug,” and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.” She knocks every role out of the park. Even with all that in mind, her storyline was the weakest part of the movie. There were some funny/interesting parts, like when she has to boil the lobster, but it not add anything to the movie that was not covered by the Julia part.

Streep was amazing as Julia Child. When I saw the preview, I was worried her voice was going to get annoying, but Streep plays her in such a way that it is endearing. Most of the humor comes from the Julia half. She has such a quick wit and a humor about herself and it makes for some great scenes.

I understand why the movie was cut as it was. Julia has some success and then we see Julie have some success. Julia fails and Julie fails. It just seemed to be a bit too much and way to coincidental at times. There were times when it was blatant that it was trying to show how similar these two women were. You could really do that with anyone, the only connection that these women had was that cookbook.

Yes, this review looked a bit more at the bad than the good, but the movie is really quite good. I actually found myself enjoying it. The performances are good and it is really funny, I just wish there was one story and not two.

7 out of 10
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sensuality.
123 min