Afternoon Piss: Bitch, I Stole Your Book! What's the Problem?

Amy Adams portion of Julie & Julia is off, Steep is near perfect

By Ted Casablanca Aug 07, 2009 7:20 PMTags
Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Julie and JuliaSony Pictures

Pop-culture/movie rant: Miscast again (too old) like just like she was in Mamma Mia!, Meryl Streep is so perfectly, well, Julia, as the weird and wonderful cooking legend Julia Child, in Julie & Julia, out today. It doesn't matter. She's that good.

So is her far-younger hubby Stanley Tucci, hot in his furriness and spectacles. But it's the Amy Adams arc of the film, which has real-life loser Julie Powell cooking her way through Child's famous book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, that makes the lively soufflé of a story fall flatter than pounded veal.

Adams as Powell is raving on and on in the flick about living with her "imaginary friend," i.e., Julia Child (whom she never even met), while she posts cooking attempts of Child's hard-won recipes in her blog, The Julie/Julia Project. Julie, in the movie, doesn't even pay Julia a friggin' one-time royalty for buying a damn copy of the book she poaches: Powell stole her own mother's copy of the book! And then in the end of the flick, it's glossed over and never really elaborated why Child dissed Powell's efforts and never took to her blog—or Powell.

Maybe it's because unlike other more respectful bloggers who have cooked their way through beloved cookbooks, Powell never bother asking Child if it was all cool to begin with? Regardless, Julie Powell the movie character is so self-involved, hyperventilating, grasping and clueless, it just makes you want to throw her in a pot with a lobster and see who claws out first. My guess? Powell.

But by all means, see Julie & Julia for Streep alone. She makes you forget all about the red-faced silliness that is Ms. Powell.