Steve & Steven

Films: Julie & Julia
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

I first started contemplating the 1001 Movies project in the last half of 2009, perhaps a month or so after the release of Julie & Julia. The editor of the 1001 books is a guy named Steven Jay Schneider, which immediately led to a number of people being clever and asking me if I was attempting to replicate the plot of the movie. Honestly, nothing more than a happy coincidence.

Anyway, Julie & Julia is two stories that play out simultaneously. The first story is that of Julia Child (Meryl Streep). This story takes us through a good portion of her life, following her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) on various embassy postings, the most important of which turns out to be in Paris. Wanting something to do, she tries a few hobbies until she decides to take classes at the Cordon Bleu. This leads to her teaching cooking and eventually collaborating on the cookbook that made her famous.

Try Lunesta

Film: Sleepless in Seattle
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on The Nook.

Off the top of my head, I can think of three movies that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan made together: the terrible Joe Vs. the Volcano, the derivative You’ve Got Mail, and today’s viewing, Sleepless in Seattle. It wouldn’t be saying much to say that this is the best of the three. Sleepless in Seattle follows a lot of the romantic movie conventions as well as makes a good deal of hay with referencing An Affair to Remember. But it was also co-written by Nora Ephron and directed by her as well, which gives it immediate credibility.

It’s also a hard movie to classify. IMDB calls this a “comedy, drama, romance” and I agree only with two of those labels. Certainly there are comedy moments here, but this is not a film I would specifically label as a comedy. It’s heavy on the drama, heavy on the romance, and as with a lot of Ephron’s best work, the comedy comes naturally from the situations and from the characters, and never feels forced.