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Buzz Gift Guide: Mommy Dearest

BuzzSugar — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:30:44 -0800

What to get the woman who raised you? She may not be as hard to shop for as grandma or dad, but I still have a few ideas. Mine is a Dancing With the Stars fanatic, so I'm snatching up their new workout DVD. Also on the list: Valerie Bertinelli's memoir and a cute Liz Lemon tote to take to the grocery store. I'm considering a TiVo, too - that way, she doesn't have to decide between The Amazing Race and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on Sunday nights anymore. (Really, it's like Sophie's Choice.)

But if my suggestions don't strike your fancy, check out all of the gift guides across the Sugar network. You're sure to find something!

Caption It: Which Caption Should Win?

BuzzSugar — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:30:32 -0700

When Ms. Julia Child gets cooking, y'all start talking.

For this week's Caption It challenge, I chose a picture from Julie and Julia. There are a lot of hilarious captions, but here's what the finalists have to say:

"Just 3 easy payments of $19.99 for your very own 'Lean Turkey' exercise DVD guarantees you won't gain a pound this Thanksgiving!"
"Julia Child gives new meaning to the 'chicken dance.'"
"It is a little known fact that Julia Child briefly considered writing a Kama Sutra for poultry book."
"I love cooking THIS much!"
"Y-M-C-A!"

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

G.I. Joe: A Real American (Box Office) Hero

BuzzSugar — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:00:58 -0700

Did you know that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra posted the highest opening for an August non-sequel on Friday? Well, now you know, and knowing is half the battle. Over the weekend, the movie grossed an estimated $56.2 million domestically, and, combined with overseas numbers, took in an estimated $100.3 million worldwide. As Variety points out, Paramount is having a stellar Summer this year: "Not only has the studio launched another franchise in G.I. Joe, it has reenergized the Star Trek franchise and continued successfully mining the Transformers property."

Julie and Julia also opened over the weekend and grossed just over $20 million, coming in second place. The animated guinea pigs in G-Force pulled in about half that but still came in at No. 3 at the box office. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince followed closely behind at No. 4 while Judd Apatow's Funny People "fell a steep 65 percent" in its second week, rounding out the top five with an estimated $7.9 million.

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Julie and Julia: One Amazing Story . . . and Another One

BuzzSugar — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:45:29 -0700

Julie and Julia markets itself as being based on "two true stories": one of Julie Powell, a secretary-turned-blogger who endeavors to cook every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year; the other of Child herself, also a secretary-turned-writer and chef who brought French recipes to American cooks. But what happens if one of the two true stories just doesn't deserve equal time?

The trouble with Julie and Julia is, quite simply, that it would be a better as just Julia. Not that I blame anyone for trying to merge these two lives: Powell's original blog and book, which combines her story and Julia's, seem like good fodder for a big-screen adaptation. If anything, the trouble is more a tribute to Meryl Streep, whose big, boisterous Julia Child sweeps onto the screen and demolishes any other story that might try to rise around her. Once you meet her delightful Julia, it's hardly surprising that Julie's story pales in comparison.

Julie and Julia flashes back and forth through time, splitting its time between Julie's 2002 life in a tiny New York apartment and Julia's Parisian life in the late 1940s and early '50s, where a passion for French food led her to learn to cook. To be fair to writer/director Nora Ephron, who put the stories together for film, Julie and Julia's lives do have plenty of parallels: Both are (or have been) secretaries looking for something more to do. Both love food and find solace in cooking. And both are shown in the film pre-fame - before Julia became a household name, before a New York Times story helped turn Julie's blog from a side project into a published book. But that's about where the similarities end. To talk more about it, read more.

It shouldn't be surprising that Streep shines, but I was floored by how much I loved her Julia. Streep herself isn't particularly tall, but as Julia, she takes up the whole screen, towering over her doting husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci). She's dominating and inappropriately loud, but ultimately, she's irresistible. Whether she's whacking away at a lump of dough, gleefully starting a cooking school, or drawing stares from the French when her equally tall and magnetic sister (Jane Lynch, in a brilliant piece of casting) comes to town, she's a joy to watch. She seems to know that any defeat she might suffer - like failing her cooking school final or having her cookbook rejected- is just a speedbump on the way to something bigger. By the end of the film, I wanted to be Julia Child, or at least be her best friend - not necessarily for the cooking (though that would be nice) but for the resilient and loving spirit she brought to life.

The movie's Julie Powell, on the other hand, is harder to love. She's more passive, more concerned with what others think, and more self-deprecating. And more selfish, too - her cooking project nearly ruins her marriage on more than one occasion. Some of the Julie stories work well: her attempts to kill her first lobster or create and eat a disgusting plate of something en gelee get plenty of chuckles. Amy Adams is a good fit for the role, which calls for a tricky blend of vulnerability and anger, and on some level, it's wonderful to see Hollywood embrace a female protagonist who's deeply flawed and deeply stubborn. But she suffers in comparison to Julia, who handles greater obstacles with more grace. In the end, the Julie sequences feel like something to get through so we can hang out with Julia again.

The biggest letdown of Julie and Julia is that we may never get another shot at a glossy, gorgeous, commercial big-screen biopic of Julia Child. From Streep's performance here, I would have gladly bought a ticket to that movie. I'll settle for this one, which certainly has its moments, but that won't stop me from wondering what could have been.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures

Caption It!

BuzzSugar — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:00:27 -0700

Welcome to the Caption It game on BuzzSugar! Every Wednesday, I'll post a photo still from a TV show or movie here and challenge you to think of the most hilarious caption possible. I'll announce the finalists the following Tuesday, and you'll get to vote for the best caption!

Let's see who won the poll for last week's challenge before we take a look at this week's photo. In the poll from yesterday, c4rolin3 was winning with this caption:

""I bet you ten matzos you can't beat my top score!"

Nice job, c4rolin3! Now for this week's picture from the upcoming Julie and Julia:

Leave your captions in the comment space below before 5 p.m. PDT on Monday, Aug. 10 to be considered for a spot in the voting round. Have fun!

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

Funny People or Julie and Julia: Which Interests You More?

BuzzSugar — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:30:47 -0700

In my poll last week, many of you expressed interest in seeing the Judd Apatow-directed Funny People in theaters. Next weekend the Meryl Streep-Amy Adams movie, Julie and Julia, about one woman's quest to try every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering The Art of French Cooking opens in theaters as well. One focuses largely on two men (played by Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen) along with issues of mortality, comedy and male friendship, while the other is based on the lives of two women who, at the very least, shared a love of good food.

These are some of our only options these days for mainstream (and widely released) adult comedies-with-heart, so I ask you: Which are you more interested in seeing?

Funny People one-sheet courtesy of Universal Pictures, Julie and Julia one-sheet courtesy of Sony Pictures

Julie Powell on Meals, Maggots, and the Julia Child in Her Head

BuzzSugar — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:30:52 -0700

In 2002, Julie Powell was a secretary who blogged on the side. Now, she's a bestselling author whose first book, Julie and Julia - a former Buzz Book Club pick - has been adapted into a film starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. Along the way, she's stirred up some controversy (including having her dedication to cooking questioned), and so when she stopped in San Francisco earlier this week, I was curious to chat with her about the book, the movie, and what comes next. Here are highlights from our chat:

So who feeds you better: book tour or movie tour?
Movie tour! Well, yes and no. The thing with the movie tour is, it's so fast. Everywhere I go, I have someone always ask, "Where are you going to go when you're in [whatever city]?" I'm always like, "Room service." The movie tour puts you up better, but the book tour gives you more time so you can actually go to a restaurant.

We all play those games where we think about who would play us in movies of our lives. Who were those people for you? Did you ever think Amy Adams?
One of my good friends from [Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, her former employer], he - I don't know what the event was that made him do this, but he was talking about "LMDC: The Movie," and he got everybody and he would put their face beside who he decided he wanted to cast . . . and he had me as Kate Winslet. And I thought, you know, that works. She looks like she can curse like a sailor. She looks like she could eat a good meal. When they proposed Amy, it took me a moment, because she's just so tiny! She's this teeny tiny little thing! . . . But she's such a wonderful actress, and I've been a big fan since Junebug. I think she's just lovely.

How involved were you in the process of making the movie?
Not terribly. When Nora [Ephron] first came on and started working on the script, we met a couple of times. We met for lunch, and she had printed out the entire blog on pink paper - a very Nora touch - and it had the whole thing just marked all to hell, and she went through and she would ask, "This, this here? This didn't happen, did it? This is bullsh*t, right?" She's this incredibly smart, incisive, terrifying woman, totally unlike me, and she asked me all sorts of questions and she took that information, and a lot of the details that are in that movie, I'm sort of shocked that she remembered. . . . I visited the set once, when Meryl was shooting the Paris parts, and got to talk with her for two minutes, which was lovely. But . . . Chris [Messina, who plays Julie's husband] and Amy and Nora got together and said, "Let's wait to meet until we've got it in the can." . . . So they were able to develop the characters based on the script, which is fiction. And it's not me. So, you know, putting the real me in there would just be like there's some weird, faulty 3-D thing going on.

To find out how Meryl Streep's Julia Child matches the Julia in Julie's head and hear about some scenes she wishes had been included in the film, just read more.

How does the Julia that Meryl portrays in the movie compare to the Julia in your head?
Julia of course lives on in so many people's heads, and each Julia is a little bit different. And I think a lot of people's Julias are kind of like your favorite aunt, or who you'd love to have to be your mother, just endlessly warm and giving and generous. And I think she was kind of this salty broad. I think she could be a little tough, and I think she could be a bit of a b*tch. And I like that about her. I don't want her to be this saintly, warm thing! And I think that Meryl as Julia really got that across, that she was this life-loving, strong woman, but part of that strength was standing up for herself and not taking any sh*t from anybody. And I also love that this is the period that they cover, before Julia becomes Julia, and that Meryl manages to get in - even in this hugely ebullient woman - that there is some vulnerability there and there is uncertainty and doubt. She had to have that. I think there's a temptation to believe that Julia kind of burst forth fully formed from the head of Zeus, and she had to work to become who she was, and I think Meryl does a lovely job of very subtly finding those moments of vulnerability and those tiny, tiny defeats that she allows herself to feel before, "Right! On to the next thing."

Are there any scenes or meals - either good ones or disasters - from the book that you're sad weren't in the movie?
They didn't get any of the really disgusting stuff in there. I was talking to some friends last night and they were like, "I missed the maggots!" It's a Nora Ephron movie! We're not gonna get maggots.

And you have another book coming soon - about butchering?
It's called Cleaving and it's another sort of food-oriented memoir coming out in December. The armature of the book is about a six-month stint I spent in a butcher shop in upstate New York learning to butcher. I've always been fascinated by butchers, and so when I had this opportunity to learn the trade I was really excited to do it, and so many amazing characters that you meet - the people up there at Fleischer's are crazy and great. So it's about that, and, of course, like Julie and Julia, it'll address other things. Julie and Julia was about turning 30, it was about being a woman in New York, and getting lost, and this is sort of about what happens a little later - what happens to a 35-year-old woman who's at a different stage in her marriage and different stage in her life. It's sort of a sequel, but mostly it's about cutting up animals.

It's funny, because I'm sitting here looking at you and yet all I can picture is Amy Adams with a giant cleaver and a leg of lamb.
So there's the question for Amy Adams: Is she thrilled at the notion of spending the rest of her life portraying Julie Powell at various stages in her life? That would be awesome. She could be my Daniel Radcliffe!

Photos courtesy of WireImage and Sony Pictures

Movie Preview: Julie and Julia

BuzzSugar — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:30:56 -0700

Ever since I read Julie and Julia, the story of a New York woman working and blogging her way through Julia Child's Mastering The Art of French Cooking, I've been curious to see how the movie would translate to film. We got a brief glimpse after this year's Oscars, but today the first full trailer is out, and it looks charming.

It appears that writer/director Nora Ephron has beefed up the Julia Child portion of the story, showing her life in France and her own early cooking ventures to go along with Julie's modern kitchen foibles. There's also more physical humor than I was expecting - whacking at things with rolling pins, running from lobsters that escape from pots - and both Streep and Adams seem to pull it off with ease.

Hmm, what would be the appropriate movie theater snack for watching Julie and Julia? The film hits theaters on Aug. 7, and to check out the trailer, just read more.

Source

Oscar Gives Us a Look at Sherlock Holmes, Amelia, and More!

BuzzSugar — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:30:21 -0800

One of the best parts of this year's Oscars ceremony was . . . the very end! As the credits rolled, we got a brief look at many of the new movies coming to a theater near us in the coming months. A good handful of the first-look clips are from movies I'm personally excited to see, including: Hilary Swank in costume for her upcoming biopic Amelia; Robert Downey Jr. and gang in Sherlock Holmes; an adaptation of one of my favorite reads in recent memory, Julie and Julia; one of this year's Sundance favorites, An Education; and even the remake of Fame.

These sneak peeks were mixed in with highly anticipated movies that already have trailers, like Terminator Salvation and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and unfortunately there's music dubbed over the entire thing so we don't actually get to hear anything. Still, it's pretty fun to finally get a look at movies I've been reading and writing about all year.

I grabbed the clip for you to watch again or check out for the first time. Just read more.

Source

Buzz Book Club: The End of Julie and Julia

BuzzSugar — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:30:43 -0800

Hey Buzz Book Club readers! Have you finished Julie and Julia? I'm excited to chat about this final section, even though I'm still in a food coma from feasting yesterday. I have to say, I can't believe Julie really pulls this thing off!

Here's how the Book Club goes if you're new: Every week I suggest chapters to complete by the next post (which, in this case, was every Friday in November). In these weekly Book Club posts, I posit a few questions to prompt discussion in the comment section.

I'll fill you in on my December book soon. For now, to discuss the final section of Julie and Julia, in which we read from the chapter titled "Sweet Smell of Failure" to the end of the book, just read more.

In the last section, the connection between Julie and Julia finally clicked for me. If you were Julia Child, how do you think you'd feel about what Julie was doing? Would you feel honored, or would you think it was a sham?
Are you surprised Julie got so much attention and fame from the blog?
Also on the topic of the attention she garnered: Do you think celebrity changes things like this? When her face is out there and she's no longer so anonymous, do you think there's something lost?
Can you picture Meryl Streep as Julia and Amy Adams as Julie? What changes do you think you'd make to the book to make it a successful movie?