Kim's Thoughts

The Time Traveler’s Wife stars Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana.  Bana portrays Henry, a time traveler who randomly, and without any warning, shifts around through various times during his lifespan.  It starts with a young Henry, I think about age 6, in a car with his mother on what appears to be Christmas Eve.  They are singing and having a great time, when they are suddenly involved in a horrible accident that kills his mother.  Henry is time shifted out of the car just prior to impact – he travels back to two weeks prior and then shifts back where he is standing in the street watching the accident.  An older Henry shifts to the same spot and tells him to not be afraid and he’ll understand it all when he gets older.  I wasn’t crazy about Bana in this role – he seemed……well……”weird”, but then, his character was strange and did suffer from a rare genetic disorder…….

Henry continues to shift in and out of times in his life with no apparent reason for when and why he travels to the times and places he does.  Each time, he leaves his clothes behind, so he arrives at his new destination naked and vulnerable.  He steals the first set of clothes he can find and ends up having to get himself out of a very uncomfortable situation.  This part made no sense to me at all — I had a difficult time figuring out what the point was!  I would have preferred it if there was a purpose for him traveling or if he had to accomplish something when he got there.  In fact, some of the travels lasted no more than a few minutes – he would shift in, get dressed, and shift out!  I understand the book explains all this, so I guess I need to go read it – but, they really should have filled in those gaps in the movie, as much as possible!  There were some time travels that seemed to have a purpose, like when he traveled out of the car accident, when he traveled there to comfort his younger self, and when he traveled to spend time with a young Clare.  He also had brief interactions with various family members and friends – past, present, and future – that help him through his senseless travels.

Enter, Clare — Rachel McAdams!  Clare is first visited by a 40-ish Henry when she is about 6 years old.  He comes back often and they meet and become friends in the meadow near her home.  She leaves clothes in the woods for him to wear when he comes to visit.  She falls madly in love with him (childhood crush and teen age attraction, at first).  They meet later in life when they are both in the same time and get married.  Their life is interesting, to say the least, as they never know when he will leave and how long he will be gone.

The movie is funny and touching — a very good love story and story line.  I only wish they had filled in the blanks about his time travel better – it left me wondering what the point was.  I think I need to get the book because I did find the story to be very endearing! 

I deducted a little for all the things they should have included, but didn’t, for the fact that I didn’t really like Bana in this role, and for the lack of good chemistry between Bana and McAdams.  But the story and concept were so good, I ended up rating this one a B+ overall.  I recommend seeing it, but I think you’re probably better off if you read the book first – which is not usually something I recommend, because it tends to leave you disappointed about the differences – but, in this case, might be a good idea…….not sure…….just saying……

Julie & Julia was a much anticipated movie for me!  Right from the first clip I saw many months ago as a preview in another movie I was seeing….I was sure this was going to be a winner!  How could it not be?  It had everything:  Meryl Streep, who I love and strongly believe is incapable of a bad performance; Amy Adams, who I think is simply adorable and a delightful actress; Stanley Tucci, who I adore – what a marvelous character actor; Nora Ephron, who’s movies have always ended up on my “loved them” list; blog theme, well, you know I love blogs; food theme, ditto!  It was a sure bet!

All the elements I mentioned above were there and each one did live up to my expectations!  So, why did the movie fall flat for me?  How can a movie with everything going for it not come together as a perfect whole?  Well, I’m not really sure how it happened, but it did!  But, to say it was a total disappointment is not true, either.  So, I’ll break it down….

This is a movie based on TWO life stories and is told as TWO separate stories in TWO separate eras on TWO separate continents……and, in my opinion, they should have made it into TWO separate movies.  They intertwined them and it didn’t work!  The two just didn’t mix.  It might have been different if the two women were to come together at some point – meet and physically connect somehow, but they don’t, other than a brief mention that Julia may or may not have made some comment in an interview that a publisher heard about that implied she didn’t like that Julie was capitalizing on her.

The “Julia” part:  Meryl Streep is incredible (of course) as food icon Julia Child during her time living in post WWII France with her husband, Paul.  Paul is played by the wonderful Stanley Tucci.  Both characters are colorful and enduring.  Streep and Tucci have a fascinating chemistry that worked great in “Devil Wears Prada” and is even stronger as Julia and Paul Child.  They brought the characters to life and did them true justice!  They were the best part of the movie.  I found myself instantly paying closer attention and sitting up straighter whenever the scenes about Julia’s life began.  The telling of Julia’s attempt to find herself that brought her to decide to build on her love of food and attend the famed Cordon Bleu culinary arts school was interesting and funny.  The same can be said about how she got her start as a writer.  The relationships in her life – her husband, her sister, her co-authors in France, and a life long pen pal that she finally meets on a trip to the US to visit a publisher are all genuine and speak volumes to her character.  I would have loved to have had the whole movie devoted just to Julia’s life so they could expand on several aspects they only briefly eluded to.  Like, for instance:  there were at least two scenes where Julia got extremely emotional about seeing a baby or hearing of a dear friend being pregnant.  I got the impression that she couldn’t have children of her own – perhaps a deeper dive into her relationship with her beloved husband might have provided a touching aspect to the story line.  It would have been interesting to also get more information on the impact of the McCarthy Era on Paul Child and their life together – there was a lot of reference to their political views and Paul was called to Washington where he was investigated.  I really think there is a full two hour movie in there and that they missed out on a wonderful opportunity by cutting it so short and mingling it with another story.

The “Julie” part:  Amy Adams portrayed Julie Powell, a budding author who just couldn’t seem to get published.  She decides to just write for herself by starting a blog devoted to cooking her way through Julia Child’s “The Art of French Cooking” cookbook and her experiences along the way.  Sounds like a great blog and like a really cool concept for a movie.  But, for me, it was an annoying distraction to the “Julia” part.  Amy Adams is adorable and brings a lot to her character – that’s not the problem – the problem was the story and the other characters.  There were some really funny scenes – like when she has to touch and kill live lobsters for the first time in her life and scenes where, despite following the recipe and instructions to the letter, the food still did not turn out well at all!  But, for the most part, the scenes felt rushed and incomplete.  The most irritating part for me was watching her, her husband, and her friends eating!  They ate like pigs that were on the verge of starving to death and were given a meal that may be their last one ever!  They rapidly crammed more food in their mouth than could fit in one bite, chewed with their mouths wide open, and laughed and talked with their mouths crammed full while they continued to cram more in!  It was disgusting to watch!!!  Yes, I know, they were trying to convince us that they were in ecstasy over the wonderful food Julie cooked for them — but, you can show how much you love the food without being obnoxious about it!  The scenes in the “Julia” part where Julia and Paul were savoring some wonderful offering of French cuisine told it all in the looks on their faces and the joy in their eyes!  Overall, the “Julie” part had a couple brief moments of viewing pleasure, but it was fragmented and could have been left on the cutting room floor with little impact to the rest of the movie (except that the title wouldn’t have made much sense….).

Again – I would have liked the movie much more if it had dropped the “Julie” part and expanded a lot more on the “Julia” part.  Putting them together just didn’t work – they didn’t meld at all and didn’t even do much to compliment each other.

Rating:

The Julia part:     A

The Julie part:    D+

All together:        C+

Too bad they will probably never go back and take advantage of the missed opportunity to make a full feature film with Meryl Streep as Julia Child and tell the whole story!  Now that is a movie I would really enjoy seeing!

I took in the 5:10 showing of The Ugly Truth this weekend.  This is a romantic comedy starring Katherine Heigl (Gray’s Anatomy) and Gerard Butler (PS I Love You, 2007).

Heigl portrays Abby Ritcher, a neurotic control freak who is looking for the perfect mate by matching prospective suitors to a checklist of desired qualities.  She is also the producer of a local morning show that is struggling with ratings.  To raise ratings, her bosses bring on Butler’s character, Mike Chadway, and his “The Ugly Truth” segment to spice up the show.  Chadway’s local cable show focuses on telling the ugly truth about the relationships between men and women – he is crude and obnoxious, but has a huge fan following.  Of course, he immediately rubs Abby the wrong way and a series of hysterical interchanges ensue – Abby is bound and determined to prove to him that his outlook is totally wrong and he sticks to his guns by pointing out why her approach is exactly why she is still single with a cat for a room mate! 

Enter Abby’s new neighbor — an absolutely drop dead gorgeous doctor played by former model Eric Winter who she soon finds out meets 9 out of 10 points on her check list!  Abby is well on her way to ruining her chances with the Doc with her enthusiasm.  Mike notices and when she tries to show him that the perfect man DOES exist, he talks her into taking his dating advice.  She does and it WORKS! 

The interactions and relationships between the three and the morning show back drop make for a very funny movie!  There are at least two scenes that are so funny they can be described as “laughed out loud, tears ran down my cheeks, all I could do to keep from peeing my pants” hysterical!!!  There were other laugh out loud scenes, as well — but those two are worth the price of admission alone!  Abby and Mike also discover they both have another side that shows them they have more in common than meets the eye, which creates a major conflict in their goals to prove each other wrong!

Overall, the movie was very funny and enjoyable.  The part I thought didn’t fit was that they had Abby stooping to Mike’s level in a way that just didn’t make a lot of sense.  She also over-did the “desperate love sick” female bit.  BUT – both those downfalls made for good comedy – so I was torn as to whether or not to take points off for them.

I recommend this movie if you want to laugh and if you just want to be entertained.  HOWEVER – if you take offense in blatant sexual innuendo and sexual comedy, this movie may not be for you and I would recommend some caution if you plan to take young children with you.  I give this one a solid B and recommend it for a fun date movie!

Now – on a side note – I usually go to the matinee shows because it really irritates me to pay full price for a movie!  Yesterday I planned to go to the 12:45 show, but got tied up with some things and didn’t make it.  So, I went home and did some things waiting for the 3:10 show, but relaxed and ended up falling into a little nap and missed that one, too!  I went to the 5:10 show, which is the first of the full price time slots of the evening.  I was shocked and very disappointed to find that Spring Lane Cinemas has raised their prices to $9.00 a ticket!  That is just way too much!  The matinee price also went up to $6.75.  Actually, all their prices were increased 25 cents.  25 cents doesn’t sound like much, but if you take a family of 4, that is a dollar more than it cost you before — which was already pretty high!  So — I give Spring Lane Cinemas a big THUMBS DOWN for raising prices in this economy for families that are already struggling to find affordable entertainment choices!