Big Screen: Julie & Julia

I’ve beyond sick of hearing people whine about this movie and how much they don’t like Julie Powell. Particularly since that really ain’t the point at all. Also: Amy Adams is fantastic in this but isn’t getting credit for her performance due to the aforementioned wendy whiner whinging.

Yes, Meryl Streep is fantastic, as is Jane Lynch as her sister. Both are almost unrecognizable they’re so fully sunk into character here.

And while it’s great to honor Julia Child with her current resurgence of popularity, as my friend GirlDetective reminds people, this movie would not exist without Julie Powell (and her book)*. I like how this article puts it as well.

You know, Julie Powell didn’t have a well-off diplomat for a husband (and didn’t come from money either). She didn’t get to learn to cook on her leisure during the day, gallivanting around. She had a shitty job and a shitty apartment in a hard city to live in and frankly I say more power to her.

I loved the blog / didn’t like the book (had a very different tone / style than the blog. Maybe too heavily edited?) / loved the movie.

*I left a long comment there you can peruse as well.

Big Screen: District 9

Yes, it’s a little ridiculous to be writing about this now when I saw it back in September! And anyone who wants to has seen it already. I’m just trying to whip through things and close out Snip PROPERLY for the year although why I feel I MUST do that, I really can’t say.

Anyway…. it was a really great movie. Effects were great, acting was great, intense storyline, very satisfying. My #2 movie of the year. (Hurt Locker was #1.)

I’m so pleased there is quality sci fi being made again. There’s just nothing like seeing it on the big screen.

Big Screen: An Education

Really yicky in some ways. But ends better than it seemed it would.

And it is just filmed in such a classy way. The clothes, the sets, the music. You want to visit this world only NOT with Sarsgaard and NOT with all the idiots who never step in to address a situation that is clearly bad from the very beginning.

The lead, Carey Mulligan, has a very Audrey Hepburn-esque quality. Lovely performance by Olivia Williams, nice to see her somewhere other than Dollhouse.

Nicely done but sometimes hard to watch. In the way 13 is a well-done movie but something I never, ever, EVER want to see again. This isn’t as harsh as that, but it’s in that vein.

Fiction: This Is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper

Have looked at it in the bookstore a few times so picked it up when I saw it at the library the other day.

Three brothers, sister, insane mother all in different stages of romantic mess-ups sit shiva for their dad for a week and contretemps ensue.

Occasionally a bit crass but entertaining. Both funny and sad in parts, I liked the main character and I really loved Penny.

At some point you lose sight of your actual parents; you just see a basketful of history and unresolved issues. …

Penny’s honesty has always been like nudity in an action movie: gratuitous but no less welcome for it. …

You can’t let your dog crap on the sidewalk, but it’s perfectly acceptable to blow carcinogens down other people’s throats. Somewhere along the way, smokers exempted themselves from the social contract.

SciFi: Doubleblind, by Ann Aguirre

The third book in the Sirantha Jax series. I really love this character and this world but I felt a little disjointed for the first bit. I guess I didn’t remember clearly enough what happened at the end of Book 2… And it’s going to suck when Book 4 comes out and I can’t go back and look at the end of this one again since I checked it out of the library! Oh woe is the unemployed student.

Love the action, love the world, love the Vel character. Really into this series.

SciFi: Marcher, by Chris Beckett

Very cool sci fi that I picked up on a whim at the library. A little further ahead in a grimier version of our modern world, where the immigration problem has become “shifters”, people who take a mysterious drug called “slip” that slips or shifts them into other, parallel universes. Charles is one of the immigration officers involved. Lots of cool thoughts about identity and choices and time and linearity. Very cool!