Watched Julie & Julia with my daughter, Wisteria, tonight. Her kung fu loving 9-year-old self was put out at the prospect of seeing a movie about cooking. We both got into it however. Meryl Streep was warm, wonderful voice and mannerisms dead on. Or so they seemed to me & brought back memories of watching Mrs. Child demonstrate recipes with a guest or co-host. This was in her later years, when a solo effort seemed taxing. One time she had on a baker from LaBrea bakery in California & they discussed measuring (her way) vs weighing flour (his way). I liked very much that she made herself available to be an observer and a student. She also seemed a little testy & very human.

One pleasing/novel/alternate universe thing about the movie: I noticed was that the men were definitely supporting characters and ideal husbands: loving, attentive, supportive, encouraging. I guess that would put the film into the minority "chick flick" category robust populated by romantic comedies. Disconcerting that would be so noticible. The previous movie Wisteria & I watched the beautiful female lead unstuck the knife she had been stabbed with in a blood-gushing, heroic effort to save her true love. She sacrificed herself like so many of her filmic sisters. Le sigh.

I hate the custom of starting an action movie with a female being killed dead to serve as the catalyst for setting the grieving hero into motion. In Mad Max it took a long, agonizing while for the lives of the hero's wife and child to come to a tragic end. I remember the tortuous, drawn out suspense of the motorcycle gang zeroing in. (MM is probably the reason I'm not taken with steam punk fashions as well.) More recent movies don't bother with the foreplay. They dispense with the whacking off prelimaries right away. Revolting convention.