SOUTH DAKOTA STRAIGHT TALK

Saw the movie “Julie and Julia” this weekend. A real treat!

When I left the theatre I was light hearted and had completely forgotten about looming Democrat power grabs and un understandable so called health care reform. It was another great performance by Meryl Streep. As I pondered the movie, the real star became the screenwriter (and also director) Nora Ephron.  

Don’t get me wrong Streep was flawless and perfect for the role. She keeps putting notches in her six shooter adding yet another accent to her repertoire. Meryl Streep’s career is amazing. She still has star power and box office pull at 60. Most actresses lose it at 40. I think it has something to do with their waistline. Watching Streep in “The Bridges of Madison County” make you love your wife even more and when watching her recent performance in “Mama Mia” you just lose your real world in her emotion and upbeat joy of life.

Amy Adams too was heart warming. The movie was very comfortable. It begins with the sight of Child arriving in Paris and the unloading of her car, a post WWII (probably a ’47 or ’48) vintage Buick Roadmaster Station Wagon woody. The sweetness of the characters, the determination of the women, the understanding of the husbands, and what could be more comfortable than people enjoying good food.

Nora Ephron stole the show. She will win a couple of Academy Awards for this one, certainly Screenwriting (Original or Adapted as the case may be) and Directing. Perhaps as a long shot the film might win Musical score. Julie and Julia capture Ephron’s style and stagecraft.

Ephron is great at whatever she does. She juxtaposes the trials (and the trivial sagas) of daily life against what we wish to be the best of human nature. Further she has the power of timing and (at least to me) understands the nuances of changes in the popular culture. Some of her outstanding prior works that I will watch over and over are: “When Harry Met Sally”, “My Blue Heaven”, “Sleepless in Seattle”, and “You’ve Got Mail”.

Ephron often highlights the Internet into her works as she did using email as the romantic conduit in “You’ve Got Mail” (an update to the old movie, “The Shop Around the Corner”) and as she does with the Amy Adams character (Julie) in “Julie and Julia.” Julie connects with Julia Child by blogging about her.

“Julie and Julia” is a well developed story. Following are outtakes from the movie’s website that explain the genesis of the screenplay and the story.

Synopsis – “Meryl Streep is Julia Child and Amy Adams is Julie Powell in writer director Nora Ephron’s adaptation of two best selling memoirs: Powell’s Julie and Julia and My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme. Based on two true stories Julie and Julia intertwines the lives of two women who, separately by time and space, are both at loose ends…until they discover with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.”

“Julie and Julia” - Nearing thirty and trapped in a dead end secretary job. Julie Powell resolved to reclaim her life and cooking in the span of a single year everyone of the 524 recipes in Julia Child’s legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her unexpected reward: not just a newfound respect for calves liver and aspic, but a new life – lived with gusto.

“My Life in France” – Indeed when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into the French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever with her new found passion for cooking and teaching. Julia’s unforgettable story – struggles with the head of the Cordon Bleu, rejections from publishers whom she sent her now famous cookbook, a wonderful nearly fifty-year long marriage that took them across the globe unfolds with the spirit so key to her success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of the most enduring American personalities of the last fifty years.

More on Nora Ephron – Ephron has had an interesting life – to say the least. Ephron comes by her writing and the movies very naturally. She was the daughter of two screenwriters. Nora grew up California and is a graduate of Beverly Hills High School.

She interned in the White House for John Kennedy and recently suggested that having been given the chance would have like to had an affair with him. I take this as extreme literary license.

Ephron has been married three times. Her second husband was Carl Bernstein of Watergate and “All the President’s Men” fame. At Bernstein’s and Bob Woodward’s request, then wife Nora, rewrote the screenplay for the movie. The Producer did not use it but doing the (attempted) rewrite resulted in Ephron getting her first screenwriting job.

Very interestingly, Wikipedia reports that Ephron was told by then husband Bernstein who Deep Throat was. As reported by Wikipedia, she alluded on occasion the name to others and when asked about his identity, which was often (after all she slept in the same bed with Bernstein). She would reply – My Friend. When it was revealed who Deep Throat was, it was Mark Felt.

Ephron must like writers as her third and current husband of more than twenty years is writer and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi. Pileggi wrote the books “Wiseguy” (that he wrote into the movie “Goodfellas) and the book and movie “Casino.” (BTW Casino is a very good book.)

I purchase very few DVDs (DVDs are going the way of newspapers, and 8 track tapes – we’ll just subscribe to an Internet service) but for the time being “Julie and Julia” is going next to my television when it is released.

DVDs aside – Do not miss this one on the big screen.