The movie is worth seeing for Streep's performance. She accurately captures the endearing goofiness of Julia, even down to the awkward body language and that weird voice that sometimes would drift into an unmodulated screech. Stanley Tucci is excellent as well. I found the structure of the movie a tad strained, though. Putting those two stories together--well, the parallels seemed artificially strained at times, or at the very least unbalanced. The portion of the movie dedicated to the lives of a couple of struggling NYC yuppies just isn't as interesting as the story of a diplomat and his feisty wife (who will soon revolutionize American cuisine) living in postwar Paris. If the Streep scenes are fresh figs and Sauternes, the NYC scenes are Fig Newtons and skim milk. And, when the movie drifts away from cuisine into some political/social commentary, it does so in Hollywood's typical preachy hectoring tone. But that's a minor cavil. Fred Astaire movies weren't known for consistency and logical plots, either, but they were enjoyable. Have a glass of decent bubbly before the show and enjoy this confection. As Julia would say, "Bon..." oh, you know the rest.

I just watched "Trade" with DH last night....he complained that I am always on the computer and wanted me to watch a movie with him. So I did....it was good. A little slow, but scary to think it really happens. It was based an a NY times magazine story about international sex trafficking. A brother looking for his 13 year old sister who was kidnapped and was going to be sold into sexual slavery. Very scary to think about all the kids that are caught up in this nightmare.

The movie trailer where Angelina hits her chest and screams "I want my son back" gets to me every time. Didn't realize it was not only a true story but a local So. Calif. story as well. Jodi-

They are often totally different, which I think is sometimes necessary, to change what is an interior experience to a moving one. Sometimes the essence of the book is retained very well. But sometimes not and sometimes the movie becomes something totally different. One example of a fail, IMHO, was "The Orchid Thief" which was a movie about trying to turn a book into a movie. I hated the distortion by the movie of what that book was about. I hope Susan Orleans got a hefty check for that one! My dislike for the movie, "And Then She Found Me" caused me to get and read the book by Elinor Lipman. Wowza, not even in the ballpark with the plot of the movie vs the book. However, I didn't much care for the book either. My next attempt will be "Republic of Love" which I sort of liked as a movie but it was sorta weird so I'm gonna try the book by Carol Shields. Two books that I love both the movie and the book are "Dr. Zhivago" which benefits some from the 3D fleshing out of the story, and for me, "The Great Gatsby." The one with Robert Redford, not the newer one. Both books are a totally different experience from the movie, but it is cool to have both the exterior setting and real people living out the experiences in front of you, and then also the experience of their interior lives that you get from the book. In that vein, I liked the movie "Cold Mountain" better than the book. The book got a little too much for me and I didn't have much sympathy for the characters but I did in the movie. Oh and I adore both the book "Auntie Mame" and the movie with Rosalind Russell, even though they are quite different. As a side note, when I was a kid, I ended up enjoying Dr. Doolittle and Mary Poppins as books way better than movies, but the movies did get me into the books. And both Willy Wonka movies were kind of let downs, but the Tim Burton one was especially bad IMHO.