Critic's Corner

I have made a couple of recent forays into the entertainment world that I would like to share.

Movie Review
We rented "Julie & Julia" at the magic RedBox. Amy Adams and Meryl Streep star as, respectively, Julie Powell--a woman who cooks her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking and then wrote about her experience in her blog--and Julia Child who wrote the cookbook Julie follows.

I loved this movie. These two women lived vastly different lives, yet both were affected by food and the enjoyment they found in cooking. I enjoyed watching Julie fritter around trying to find something to fill the personal void she felt from a job where she found no joy. She struggled, like we all sometimes do, with the relationship she has with her husband and finding a balance between her home life, her work life, and her friend's lives.

Julia was fascinating. I learned things about her I never knew. In fact, there were few things I knew of her personal life beyond the PBS cooking show and the parodies of that show on Saturday Night Live while I was growing up. She is a interesting lady who led an interesting life.

Watching this made me curious about the cookbook Julia wrote. Though not enough to purchase one, and certainly not enough to cook like that cookbook would require, but it was a little spark of curiosity.

One caveat: There was one F-bomb that was totally out of place and really, rather shocking, but otherwise the language was not offensive.

TV Review
The first episode of Return to Cranford aired on Masterpiece Classic on Sunday night. I watched it Monday as I folded laundry. Before we reached the halfway point of this first episode, I was loving it. I thoroughly enjoyed the original Cranford miniseries aired last year on Masterpiece. And this was a lovely reminder of that. The stellar British cast is just tremendous to watch. The story unfolds at a rural, 19th century pace. The interaction between neighbors and friends is the focus of this story. The women of this village are charming and overall they make me wish I could live there--at least, for a little while. Seeing this kind of entertainment makes me hopeful that there is still a place for quality programming on TV, even if it is only found on public television.

I can't wait to see the next two episodes, and have already put this DVD set on my wish list.