“Bon apetit!” exclaims Julia Child. “Bon apetit!” echoes Julie Powell.
The feel good movie of the summer, Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia tells the dual tales of Mrs. Child’s eight year long struggle to write and have published her first cook book and Mrs. Powell’s year-long struggle to make every recipe in the book and blog about it.
There is no reason to expect that such a concept would work, but it does, thanks to exemplary performances of Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci as the Childs and Amy Adams and Chris Messina as the Powells.
The film’s greatest asset is the 60 year-old, 5′ 6” Ms. Streep, who through the magic of the movies believably plays the 37 year-old, 6’2″ cooking legend at the beginning of her culinary career. Streep’s penchant for accents is delightfully indulged as she emulates Child’s distinctive high pitched yet gravelly voice.
The film deftly captures the milieu of 1949 Paris as well as the post-9/11 atmosphere of 2002 New York and various other locations. It is also the first film to accurately and effectively portray the life of a struggling writer in the internet era which provides the potentially less interesting “Julie” section with almost as much heart as the beguiling “Julia” section.
Julie & Julia is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.
John Dillinger, the notorious Public Enemy Number One of the early 1930s has been the subject of numerous films including three biographical outings, 1945’s Dillinger, 1973’s Dillinger and 2009’s Public Enemies.
Michael Mann’s new film is certainly the most spectacular, made with an all-star cast headed by Johnny Depp as Dillinger, Christian Bale as G-man Melvin Purvis, Marion Cotillard as Dillinger’s girl and Billy Crudup as a smarmy J. Edgar Hoover. The supporting cast is loaded with familiar names and faces including Stephen Dorff, Stephen Lang, Channing Tatum, Rory Cochrane, Carey Mulligan, Giovanni Ribisi, Diana Krall, Shawn Hatosy, Lili Taylor and Leelee Sobieski, some of whom make more of an impression than others.
The film is filled with plenty of excitement surrounding its various bank robberies, prison breaks and shoot-outs, but is at its heart, like Bonnie and Clyde,the film it most emulates, a love story.
Public Enemies is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.
The Terminator franchise began a quarter century ago with 1984’s still thrilling James Cameron film starring Arnold Schwazenegger as The Terminator, Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, the expectant parents of the future savior of the world, John Connor.
Cameron came back seven years later to direct 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgmetn Day with Scharzenegger as a different model terminator, this one a good guy, Linda Hamilton back as Sarah and Edward Furlong as the teenage John Connor. The most successful film of the franchise, it was nominated for six Oscars and won four.
It took another twelve years for the franchise to return under the direction of Jonathan Mostow with Schwarengger once again playing a terminator and Nick Stahl now appearing as John Connor in 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It was neither as good nor as successful as the first two films.
Now we have Terminator Salvation, directed by McG, with Christian Bale as John Connor and Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, his father-to-be in this perfectly absurd time shifting tale in which John goes back to the past to save his would-be father if he himself is to exist in the present. But that’s not the problem with the film. No, the problem is that second lead Sam Worthingon as a convicted murderer brought back to life as half man, half machine has the meatier part and is the greater hero. Moon Bloodgood as Worthington’s love interest is also much more exciting than Byrce Dallas Howard who is as bland as Bale as his pregnant wife. Jane Alexander and Helena Bonham Carter are wasted in minor roles.
All four Terminator films are available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.
More satisfying than either Public Enemies or Terminator Salvation are two gems from yesteryear, both recently released in stunning Region 2 transfers.
An enormous hit in Great Britain where it won Baftas for newcomer Paul Massie and veteran Irene Worth in 1959, Anthony Asquith’s Orders to Kill balances its harrowing central story with typical tongue-in-cheek British humor despite the fact that its main characters are either American or French.
Massie’s mother (Lillian Gish) is concerned about her son’s safety after he is grounded following fifty successful missions as an Air Force pilot. She appeals to her friend, the General, to find him a nice cushiony job. Instead the powers that be train the young man, who is fluent in French, as an assassin assigned to kill a suspected French collaborator (Leslie French). Top-billed Eddie Albert is his trainer and Irene Worth is his French handler. The scenes between Massie and Worth, who he sees as a surrogate mother, are the film’s most moving.
The Nebraska born Worth won her Bafta as Best British Actress playing a Frenchwoman, so flawless was her British accent that she fooled even the British! Canadian born Massie who won the Best Newcomer award has since had a long, if undistinguished career in both British and American films.
Orders to Kill is available only as an import.
A film that long ago slipped under the radar, Ronald Neame’s 1966 caper comedy, Gambit proves to be a gorgeously mounted gem that justly won three Oscar nominations for its art direction, costume design and sound. Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine were nominated for Golden Globes for their performances. Both Caine as the mastermind would-be jewel thief and Shirley MacLaine as his not-so-dumb accomplice are terrific, as is Herbert Lom as their constantly surprising mark.
98 year-old Neame provides commentary for this film that hasn’t aged a bit.
Gambit is currently only available as an import but hopefully Universal will see fit to releasing it in Region 1 soon.
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