My take on Julie & Julia

Yesterday I went to the movies. Think that's not a big deal? It isn't, really, except it was the first time I'd stepped foot inside a movie theater in about 5 or 6 years. I have been watching all my movies on DVD and totally ignoring the fact that theaters existed. Until now. I was supposed to meet a friend, but she never showed up. I have to thank her, though, because without her prompting I probably would not have gone, even though I had heard from several people that Julie & Julia is a fun, uplifing movie, and I was keen to see it.



What no one had mentioned was that it was shot at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens. I used to live near there in Sunnyside, Queens, so a lot of the New York images were so familiar to me. They brought me back to that time when I lived in New York. And that was fun for me.

But what I also enjoyed were the shots of Paris (I've never been, but that city resonants with me), the interior shots (I would just die to have an apartment like the one Julia Child and her husband had in Paris), and the vintage clothes. I used to wear lots of vintage clothing when I was in my 20s, and I even sold it for awhile, and so I was tickled to see all the period fashions in the flashbacks to Julia's life. But what I thought was quite clever was the way they had the modern-day Julie wear vintage pieces. And her pins! In just about every scene, she was wearing some sort of funky little pin. Whoever styled the clothing for this movie really did a good job of creating a personal style for Julie. I'd love to know how she dresses in real life! But even if this was simply the work of one designer's imagination, I got a big kick out of it and thought it really worked for the character.

Of course, no discussion of Julie & Julia would be complete without a mention of blogging. You probably know already that Julie was a blogger. I won't tell her story here -- you need to go out and see it on the big screen -- but it does bring home the point that blogging can lead to big things, in the same way it led to big things for Petite Anglaise. We think we're just chatting to ourselves -- but who knows! Maybe one day the world will be reading our words.

For a peek at the movie, and a link to various cooking blogs, check out the movie's website.



[Note about photos used here: Before today, I had never used any photos but ones I had taken myself. However, on the movie's website they included photos that could be downloaded as wallpaper, so I decided it is probably OK for me to use those photos to talk about (promote) the movie.]