Julia Child’s life is partially depicted in the new foodie film Julie & Julia, and while it’s as much fun to see Meryl Streep portray the famous chef as it was to watch Dan Aykroyd and Bill Cosby do her back in the day, we can’t help but wish the real Child had lived long enough to star in the film herself. We also wish the whole movie was based on her autobiography, My Life in France, rather than share-adapted from both that book and Julie Powell’s blog-turned-memoir Julie & Julia.
There’s a reason Child was a hugely popular TV personality and there’s a reason why Powell was an Internet writer. Just as you’d rather only watch Sean Penn as Gene Shalit in a movie and not bother with Michael Pitt’s portrayal of lowly film blogger Christopher Campbell, you could probably do without the Amy Adams as Powell stuff in Julie & Julia.
Outside of playing herself as a foodie heroine in a chick flick, what other kinds of movies could Child have acted in? Given her OSS background, we would have loved to see her fill in for Judi Dench in the Bond films as M. Alas, that will never happen, but if our gastronomical dreams come true, perhaps we might see one of the following TV personalities in his or her own blockbuster film someday:
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I really hope that the new trailer for I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is playing ahead of prints of Julie & Julia this weekend. After all, they’re both about bloggers-turned-authors-turned movie characters. The one problem might be that the audience for a foodie chick flick has less than 1% crossover with the audience for a lewd and misogynistic dude comedy. Of course, the only other appropriate placement for this spot is ahead of the similarly themed The Hangover, but that would surely just make this thing look even worse than it is.
Based on Tucker Max’s book of the same name, or at least one story from it, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell will without a doubt be to Julie & Julia what How to Lose Friends and Alienate People was to The Devil Wears Prada. But at least How to Lose Friends featured Megan Fox, and it still couldn’t draw a crowd. So is there any hope for this? Considering how popular the trailer is on the web today, there may actually be some interest. Though we’re going to guess that after everyone has actually seen the trailer they’re not going to want to see the movie, even if they’re fans of Max’s “gonzo” tales of debauchery.
Check out other film blog responses after the jump:
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A new Zooey Deschanel movie came out last weekend. But is it the one where she plays a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” opposite Paul Dano or the one where she plays a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt? It’s the former, and it’s called Gigantic, which is also not to be confused with this coming week’s new DVD release, Yes Man, in which she plays a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” opposite Jim Carrey.
Sure, Deschanel has range and talent (see this fan-made montage of some of her more varied performances), but she also has a certain repetitive nature to her characters. And this “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” nature became all the more confusing recently when trailers for Gigantic and (500) Days of Summer (the Gordon-Levitt one, which is actually her second romantic pairing with the actor) appeared online around the same time. Maybe instead of worrying about people confusing her for Katy Perry, the actress should worry more about people confusing her characters and films for each other.
Or, maybe not. Plenty of us can’t get enough of Deschanel’s quirky, free-spirited performances. In his Yes Man review, Roger Ebert noted that two critics proposed marriage to the character at the end of the film. We wouldn’t go that far, but we have crushed on the actress since All the Real Girls and haven’t yet gotten sick of her or her similar, typecast roles. In fact, to us, the problem is not that indie films too often employ the MPDG character; it’s that they don’t cast Deschanel for every such part. So, instead of wishing she’d broaden her career to include other types of characters (it didn’t work well for her with The Happening, after all), we’ve selected ten MPDG characters that she should have additionally played.
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Late last month, Nike unleashed the latest movie-themed sneaker, a yellow shoe with brown fur coming out of the top inspired by Teen Wolf (never mind that in the film the title character wears Adidas). Between this and the recent Back to the Future Part II tie-ins, Michael J. Fox seems to be a big influence on the world of sneaker collecting, and so it may only be a matter of time before we see Nike unveil a Doc Hollywood design.
Actually, it may only be a matter of time before we see a lot of film-inspired shoes we wouldn’t expect. Already, Nike has sneakers tied to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Goodfellas, The Empire Strikes Back and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Add to these Adidas’ Tron shoes, Puma’s The Goonies and Japanese Monster shoes and Slip-Off’s custom-designed Vans inspired by Fight Club, Star Wars, Napoleon Dynamite, Anchorman, E.T. and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou .
So, in order to beat the shoe companies to the punch, SpoutBlog has picked ten movies that deserve their own sneaker design. Most of these are quite literal and obvious, but it’s just a starting point. What other movies would you like to see make their way to your feet?
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While watching Zack and Miri Make a Porno, it is possible to occasionally forget that you are watching a Kevin Smith movie. Mainly because he doesn’t show up in the film, a rare and appreciated move for the guy who has played “Silent Bob” in 6 out of the 8 theatrical releases he’s directed. Then there’s the cast that is involved, which makes Z&M seem like the offspring of Judd Apatow and John Waters. But there are a number of things that do make it clearly a Smith joint, such as the obligatory employment of Jason Mewes — in the role he was born to play, even moreso than “Jay” — and the potentially pitying use of Jeff Anderson, who may have been the only actor to agree to receiving that accidental Hot Carl.
And then there’s the most recognizable element: Smith’s inability let the poop jokes go in order to concentrate on his characters, and the relationships between them. It’s the filmmaker’s Achilles heel, and it’s one of five we at SpoutBlog have noticed are holding back the esteem of five would-be better directors.
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