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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Oh, 2008 … where has the time all gone to? It seems like just yesterday that we were cringing at the faux Golden Globes, learning about Sweding, and seriously debating Juno’s chance at winning Best Picture. What fools we were! Perhaps we ought to head into the last year of The Aughts with a better game plan.
With that in mind, I’ve devised a list of films that I’m excited to see (for the first time or not) and talk about in the coming 12 months. Later in the week, we’ll take a look at some movies we saw at festivals in 2008 which now have a release date in 2009, and also films which have no release date, but which we expect to see show up on the festival circuit in the coming months. But we’re going to get the macro out of the way first: after the jump, you’ll find three Big, Stupid Hollywood Movies which I’m assuming will be awful, but possibly in an interesting way. Do share the titles you have your own eyes on in the comments.
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