Double Feature

Our original list contained twenty two movies. At the project's inception, we had already seen three of the movies leaving only nineteen to go. Since last weekend we have narrowed the gap to thirteen. I refuse to write about all that I have seen so far (The Blind Side, Coraline, Crazy Heart, District Nine, Inglourious Bastards, Julie and Julia, The Princess and the Frog, and Up). That will take more time, energy and memory than I possess.
Instead, I plan to write about today's double feature, Crazy Heart and Julie and Julia.

Crazy Heart.
My little brother lives in San Francisco. His wonderful girlfriend is a graduate student here in Massachusetts. While this is horribly inconvenient for them, from my self absorbed perspective it's smashing. I get to see two of my favorite people way more often than normal. One of the things that I love about my brother is his unpredictability. He is a politically conscious, soccer playing foodie. So when I introduced this project to him and proposed that we double date on February 13 (traditionally Stupid Cupid day) I figured he would select either Invictus or Julie and Julia. Imagine my surprise when he expressed fervid interest in Scott Cooper's touching adaptation of Thomas Cobb's novel Crazy Heart.
While I would have initially preferred to increase my faculty lunch table cred with an intellectual movie such as Precious or The Hurt Locker, I acquiesced to his suggestion.
It pains me as much as any big sister to say this, but the kid was right. Jeff Bridges' portrayal of what could easily be a boilerplate washed up musician hanging on to the fraying threads that remain of his career is refreshingly honest. Cooper and Bridges tackle the various tropes of the has been star and instead present a performer who can still enjoy his work even after a precipitous fall from grace. Maggie Gyllenhal's portrayal of the young reporter struggling with her attraction to the singer and her personal responsibilities brings depth and breadth to this character driven story of love in its many forms and redemption. What makes the movie so heartbreaking is the complete absence of guile, duplicity, and frankly, snark. Instead it is just a snapshot in time of one man's life and relationships at a pivotal transition. An excellent choice for anyone making a life changing decision.

Julie and Julia
Today was, for us, a rare double feature. My husband suggested that we keep to the pattern that we have held so far-alternating between radically different movies. For example, last week we saw Inglourious Bastards one night and The Princess and the Frog two days later. His suggestion was dinner at the Olive Garden and Avatar. While I don't mind run of the mill Italian food, and I know I will have to succumb to the national craze for the blue tinted, I just couldn't swallow it tonight. Instead, we paired dinner from our local Italian restaurant and the gourmet treat Julie and Julia.
The dinner was great (if overly large). The movie on the other hand was nothing special. Amy Adams was her usual perpetually worried self, and Meryl Streep reminded me more of Dan Aykroyd's Saturday Night Live portrayal of The French Chef than the redoubtable Mrs. Childs herself. While I understand that it is meant to be true to life, I found it particularly pointless to have Adams character face the many little set backs (she cannot kill the lobster, the publisher does not come to dinner, her husband leaves her) only to emerge unscathed in the end. Also, Child's animosity towards the blogger is never explained which I found dissatisfying. As far as Julia's storyline, her transition into the author of the premiere French Cookbook for American's was interesting if not riveting, but the tangential bits about her sister and her barren status felt tacked on. The whole movie gave the impression of a writer trying too hard to integrate two disparate stories, like a high school student stating that their evidence supports their thesis, rather than showing through the evidence that the thesis is correct. The only truly good thing to come out of those two hours was my own inspiration to write. Maybe I will get a book deal too.