Julie & Julia

Magdaleen Duvenage

Viewing at: Sterkinekor
Release Date: 13 November 2009

Directed By Nora Ephron.
Screenplay By Nora Ephron & Julie Powell
Produced By
Laurence Mark, Amy Robinson, Eric Steel & Nora Ephron.
Cast: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci & Chris Messina.

Genre: Biography Comedy.
Classification: PG 13
Running time: 123 Minutes

This movie was quite fabulous! It is something serene and feminine, it brings something home that has been missing for quite some time... Some of the articles I have read on Julia Child was that because of her, Americans started cooking again, she was the reason for getting rid of microwave dishes and take-outs. This woman is about: pearls-in-the-kitchen and loving-butter-all-the-way! She is the reason why I love being a woman, everything about her way of living and loving is so true to the feminine heart. I understand Powell's fascination with Julia, I am developing the same craziness...



Poor Meryl is not a hottie in this one, I have to just say how completely and utterly fascinated I am with her; this woman can play absolutely ANY part imaginable! If you can dream it, she can play it! I am shocked how she can go from Donna Sheridan in “Mamma Mia” to Julia Child in “Julie and Julia”, she is really one gifted lady. I bow down to you – oh gifted actress of the ages – all hail to Meryl!!!It felt like watching the elements of cooking written together in a recipe of Life and Marriage. Mouth watering aroma's all around – Julia squeaking voice, all thrown together in a dish called everyday life!



The story takes part in two scenes. The one is with Julia and her amazing husband Paul (played by Stanley Tucci) in Paris in the nineteen-fifties. She is restless, and is on a seeming tour to finding her passion in life. Trying everything from making hats to painting, but all she seems to know how to do, and is extremely good at it, is: eating! Thus the love for food begins and the journey is enfolded with lots of butter, garlic, spices, meats and sauces! Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is a wife in Queens who lives in 2002, she works for a government organization that is involved in rebuilding the World Trade Centre.



She seems to be a woman who loves her husband and cooking. It feels like she has lost her way though. Doing a job she clearly is not in love with, she decides to cook all 524 of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” – in Julia's cook book, and she plans to do it in 365 days and blog about it. Julie found a way to connect with herself, she found something she is good in, in her struggle with life, she found something that makes her want to get up in the morning and she was good at it!
Blogging is what I like to call the “fake” author. It is almost the same as reality T.V.'s fake “celebities”. The difference is that Powell was an actual writer and her book became this movie...




One of the most outstanding features of this film is the fact that Julie became a “better person”, and “better wife” because of this challenge. She finds herself. There is stages where one gets the idea how selfish she became, but to me a story needs to end better than it began; the same as in cooking.Julie got to know Julia through this experience, although it turned out to be different than what she anticipated – the difference is that it happened. She connected with a woman she never met, on a deep emotional level and it taught her to be her... Julia was for Julie a symbol of growth and it left a good taste. One cant ignore certain elements in this movie. Clearly Julia could never have children, and the longing in her life was visible, it seemed that children never was a bother to Julie.



They both were happily married, it was like Nora created a interesting sex live for the conservative Julia. It is almost to say: Who needs kids? We have good food and great sex! A compromise, if I may call it that... There was never explicit sex, always just the insinuation towards it that made it so fascinating.I like the unexpected ending. I have always been a favourite when it comes to story telling, literally before fame hits. I think that characteristics are so scares and one never knew those people before they become what we know them as... I loved the platonic way of doing things and the effort it took was phenomenal, nothing back then, came as easy as things do these days.Both these stories are true, both have an impact on society today, and both portray something that is lost to the feminine realm... I thought it was very entertaining and funny! The language was incredible, this is the way men and women are suppose to talk ladies and gentlemen. The story was told amazingly and everything about this movie is almost edible... Don't be surprised when you go home hungry.

I am giving it a tasteful 8/10!

See you at the Movies!

500 Days of Summer

Magdaleen Duvenage

Viewing at: Nu Metro
Release Date: 13 November 2009

500 Days of Summer.

Directed By Marc Webb.
Screenplay By
Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Webber.
Produced By
Jessica Tuchinsky, Mark Waters, Mason Novick & Steven J. Wolfe.

Cast:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Grace Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Rachel Boston & Minka Kelly.

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Classification: PG 13
Running time: 96 Minutes

When this movie begins, they say up-front that this is not a romantic story, at this specific stage I start getting sad... I know that movies are suppose to be realistic and that there is a line in life of realism that one can never escape – but for me, when I see a movie, I want to relax, I want to believe that all is going to work out fine and that every one will get there happy ending. Almost as to say: there is hope and light in a dark and sad world, there is a way that everyone, no matter your race, seize, age, colour or gender, can live happily ever after – for the purpose of this movie I want to call it a Cinderella syndrome...

“I think the key is for me to figure out what went wrong. Do you ever do this? Go back and think about all the things you did together. Everything that happened. Replay it over again in your mind, looking for the first sign of trouble.” – Tom

The beauty with this movie is that EVERYONE, at one stage or another is Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel). The story can be traced back to the beginning of human kind. I, personally, fell in love with Joseph in 10 Things I hate about you, for my generation we were introduced to stars like the late Heath Ledger and Julia Styles, but the shy, small and nerdy Joseph is the one that I knew will brake out into the world in a movie like this and become a instant star – I almost want to say that we grew up together!

Tom is a inspired architect, realistic hallmark card writer, who seems witty and almost unbelievably naïve. Summer is the new piece of meat in the office, she is the artistic P.A.; and when you were introduced to her in failure to launch, you just knew that this natural beauty has more to offer than meets the eye. Needless to say, Tom does the inevitable, he pursues a relationship with Summer. Summer, however, is not the typically “title” girl.She does not want to be labelled as someone's girlfriend/wife. He falls passionately, head-over-heals and over-the-top in love with Summer. From this point on, you know that this poor guy is going to end up with a broken heart. You almost get the suicidal love pattern, completely unhealthy for the realist.

Tom's life is a whirl wind of emotions. You feel from time to time like watching a hormonal teenager. Then again, that is the exact point the director tried to create, I believe that when one can get to a stage of loving whole heartedly, not holding back in any sense, and end up hurt, there comes a sense of maturity, responsibility and wisdom, which in no sense can be bought for any amount of money. Through this relationship, getting hurt and experiencing a complete feeling of death, Tom found himself. He grew up, this pain almost made him a man, which is inevitable – almost like looking at the wizard of Oz, when Dorothy got to the other side of the rainbow – colour began to flow with the story. It becomes part of the telling. Tom's utter depression forms him as a man. I would like to quote: “Better to love and lost, than never to loved at all.” One almost experience with him growing up, he gets rid of that smack look on his face, he becomes mature.



I think it is untrue to say that Summer does not believe in love. She is a interesting character, I sometimes feel that people deny what they feel for fear of fear – that only means that she is not interested in labelling and believes in the certainty of natural events in life. She says in the end: I knew it was different cause I know something I always wondered about with you. I think she was looking for a defining moment in time in their relationship. I feel she searched for something profound, something real, not necessarily with Tom, but more with herself. I applaud her for taking the courage to do so. So many women fall in love and stay in love for the wrong reasons, if you ever have the chance to get out before making the wrong decision do it, you made have saved a lot of heart ache even though you caused it...

The movie is edited in a way of forwarding/rewinding, and you basically always end up in the middle, getting very few ideas of what happened in the beginning or the end. Usually, I don't like this wayof editing, but with the style of the this specific movie, (please all other directors: don't use this if it does not complement the style!), it works amazingly. The movie does turn out, not to be a typicalromance.

When I look at Joseph in the above photo, I am amazed at how he grew up. I can actually see he is a man and not a boy any more. He became attractive over night, and in this movie, his presence is tangible.The movie promotes premarital sex, (with all the different positions, ways and colours), which leads up to a promiscuous life style. I believe that this is why Tom ends up devastated, his whole world almost ends because his relationship with Summer was so unhealthy. I cant repeat myself enough that there needs to be some form of stability and balance.However, it is a movie you think about after wards. You do walk away with a sense of ease. The director really got the message of the story across, which is for his first feature film, a huge accomplishment. I am very much looking forward to his next movie, I think this is just the beginning of Marc Webb. Congratulations Marc!!

I am giving it a very easy 6.5/10.

See you at the movies!