Julie Powell's new book is painfully unreadable. "Julie and Julia" must have been

[Redstone]

a fluke, because it was pretty good (I've read the book but not seen the movie).

However, there are some books that should never have been written. Ms Powell's pathetic "Cleaving" is one of them. Avoid it at all costs.

Redstone

[kentauros]

1. I would love to see the movie without the Julie part.

I have literally less than zero interest in her. A full-blown movie just on Julia Child with Meryl Streep would have been the best food movie in recent memory :D

[valerief]

2. Me, too. I also would have preferred to see 'Dumb and Dumber' without the Dumb part. nt

[kentauros]

3. Well, I haven't even seen the movie.

The movie-theater preview was enough to tell me what I would like and would not like. Then our local weekly did a review of it, and came to the same conclusion after seeing the whole thing. One thing they mentioned at the end of their review was to watch for the "fan edit" once the DVD comes out. That is, an edited movie with all the Julie bits removed :D

[valerief]

4. I'll have to wait for the fan edit! nt

[Redstone]

5. No kidding? She's THAT obnoxious in the movie? Why am I not

surprised...I pride myself on never giving up on a book before finishing it, but "Cleavage" is, as I said, just TOO painful to slog through.

Redstone

[kentauros]

6. I've never read her book nor her blog, so I don't know how true to the material

was the movie. But, I've read it was pretty close. The movie preview was enough to tell me her side of the whole story was nothing more than a stunt or gimmick. I just don't have much respect for someone that does such a thing. I have Julia Child's book "The Way to Cook" but I've never had the thought that I should try and make every single recipe in the cookbook. It would be a colossal waste of food, time, effort and money, including money spent on cooking tools I may never use again.

Now, watching an expert cook and chef like Julia Child is a real treat and a movie just on her would have been worth seeing a baker's-dozen times :D

[Redstone]

8. Oh, yes. The one recipe from Julia that Mrs R and I have cooked is

the lengthy-but-worth-it 40 cloves of garlic mashed potatoes. Though we figured out afterward that it was a hell of a lot easier, and just as tasty, to boil the cloves of garlic instead of going through the breading-and-sauteeing process...

Redstone

[kentauros]

12. 40 cloves?!?!?!

I don't remember that recipe, but it sounds "intense" ;)

Now, I remember watching another chef do roasted garlic bulbs and then proceed to simply squeeze the soft garlic out of the bulb like toothpaste. Maybe that would be an even better method for that mashed potato recipe :)

[Redstone]

19. Yes, 40 cloves. And as per Julia, sauteed in butter.

Redstone

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

14. The Julia Child story is much more compelling than the blogger one.

It does make you (me at least) wish for the film to have been entirely about that without the gimmicky blog.

[gratuitous]

18. But you did

Most folks called it the Bush administration, so that might have thrown you.

[Book Lover]

7. Same here

Any day Hollywood wants to print some money, they should just produce the full Julia Child biopic with Streep in the lead.

[kentauros]

10. And there's no reason why they couldn't "revisit" it that way.

Look what they did with the Green Giant... uh, I mean The Thing... no, that's not right... uh, what is the name of that green super-duper hero? Oh yeah, The Incredible Hulk. Two movies in as many years because no one liked the first one.

Can you tell super-hero comics are not the kind of comics I read? :P

[grace0418]

15. I enjoyed both parts of the movie. But that's just MHO.

I think it was a pretty cool way of telling the stories.

[mnhtnbb]

9. Julia's memoir--My Life in France--was a delicious read.

[kentauros]

11. I'm going to go look that one up right now

since I got a gift card for Christmas :)

[Flaxbee]

13. I was just wondering if she did a follow up, since I rented Julie & Julia

a few weeks ago.

Loved the movie when it was Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci. Really wasn't interested in "Julie". At all. Streep was wonderful, as she usually is.

But in the movie Julie's going on and on about how she's a "writer!" and I wondered if she had anything in her to follow up her blog-book. Sounds like perhaps not. I hope she invested her money wisely.

I will say that the hype around the "Eat, Pray, Love" author is more well-deserved. With reservations, I started the book and thought it was very well written. Elizabeth Gilbert is definitely a "writer!".

[JoDog]

16. I think Julia Child

had Julie Powell nailed--the chef identified it as little more than a stunt while the blog was going on, and I agree with her. Powell used Julia's book as a gimmick. She wasn't looking to learn how to cook better or explore food. In the blog, she rarely discussed what the food was like; its taste and textures. That is the heart of French cooking.

For my money, I'm more interested in the current blog "The Jew and Julia" where a brave cook tries to adapt French recipes to fit kosher rules. It is an experiment probably doomed to failure, but one worth trying nonetheless.

[kentauros]

17. "Jew and Julia" looks like an interesting blog.

However, that layout of black text on medium-gray doesn't work for my eyes! Luckily, I can switch to "user mode" and cancel out all website formatting so it's legible :)