I made such a big deal on Oscar night about how I didn’t want to spend time watching movies outside of my comfort zone, yadda yadda, blah de blah, and what did I do shortly thereafter? Why, I sat my happy ass down and watched a chick flick.
I am not the chick these flicks are directed at. We know this. I love mindless, plotless action movies! The more violence, the more adrenaline, the better! But I also love BB, and she came over last week bearing Julie & Julia. So I decided to give it a go. And guess what? I actually enjoyed it!
Now, first things first. Meryl Streep is simply glorious. She’s truly one of the most talented actors of our time, and as far as I’m concerned no one can hold a candle when she’s onscreen. Her portrayal of Julia Child was spot on (at least as far as I can remember from watching her cooking show with my grandma). Stanley Tucci was an excellent complement as Julia’s husband, Paul.
According to my husband, the character Julie was the weak link. She was admittedly whiney and selfish and rather obnoxious at times. However, I must disagree. The real weak link here was Julie’s hair. Oh, how I adore Amy Adams. She’s sweet and precious and I love her in everything I’ve seen (which, admittedly, is not much since she doesn’t tend to do action and/or horror movies). But for this role her hair was a hot mess. Holy crap. It was very distracting, and there were points in the movie where all I could think about was getting the poor girl a comb.
Overall rating on NonSoccerMom’s Completely Arbitrary Movie Rating Scale, Which Sometimes Consists of Stars and Other Times Thumbs, Depending On My Mood: 3 stars out of five. Cute and worth the watch? Absolutely. Do I need to see it again? Nope.
The other movie I watched last week is well within the ol’ action movie comfort genre: Hancock. N had DVRd it a while back and surprise – actually intended to watch it with me. So watch it we did.
It wasn’t bad at all. I had low expectations going in, because I’d heard from several people that it wasn’t quite what they had thought it would be. And I have to agree. The trailers make it out to be one thing, where in actuality it is something quite different, with several massively glaring plot holes. It probably needed to be a bit longer, really. Now, I’m all for movies with run times of less than two hours. But this one was just too short. Note to Hollywood producers: You need to make the movie long enough for viewers to understand the various plot points – we didn’t have access to the script, you know.
But! Plenty of action, and I do love me some Will Smith. And don’t worry, there’s plenty of eye candy for everyone – Charlize Theron is breathtaking as usual (I may or may not have a bit of a girl-crush on her). And I hadn’t realized that the always-adorable Jason Bateman was in it, so that was a nice surprise.
Overall: Thumbs up! Worth the watch, as long as you like fancy-pants special effects and don’t require too much of a well-developed plot. Check, and CHECK! And even N agreed that it was a decent use of an hour and a half. So there you have it – a definite win-win.
I loved Julie & Julia
I agree about Amy Adams’ hair, though…
Which reminds me – not everyone can pull off a pixie cut. I am considering one, but I thought super-cute Amy Adams couldn’t pull it off, so clearly I (not as super-cute) could probably NOT pull it off.
I liked Julie & Julia because it had so much of Meryl as Julia. DO NOT READ THE BOOK, it is all Julie no Julia, and she is just as annoying…..this is one case where I liked the movie MORE than the book
I also enjoyed Hancock more than I thought – I went in with low expectations due to the crappy reviews, but when it was over I thought it was just fine. However, I also have a high tolerance level for action/superhero spoof movies.
My mom is trying to get me to read J&J. I generally don’t read or enjoy chick lit and so far the book is no exception, I’m totally stalled out about 30 pages in. My husband actually laughed out loud when I told him my mom had given me J&J. Ugh. Don’t care about Julie and can’t make myself read more. Too easy to get side-tracked by zombie/post-apocalyptic/totally escapist books. Sounds like the movie might be better, but there’s no chance in hell I’ll ever convince my husband to watch it with me, so it’s not likely I’ll ever see it.
Thanks for making the exception for J&J. I am sure N was so excited to see it too, hahah! I thought it was pretty good but I do tend to like chick flicks… what can I say? And yes her hair was awful! The wine was at least distracting me from it
I need to see this movie, I keep telling myself I need to see it, but then I choose something else.