we scouted in Paris

"You have no real talent for cooking, but the Americans will nev-air know the difference!"
That was the parting statement of the lady in charge of the Cordon Bleu Cooking School where Julia Child earned her diploma.
--------------- When Julia Child (Meryl Streep) speaks of her to another woman, the answer is, "Sheez ay beech."

I hardly go to any movies, or rent any, because there's so much stupid violent stuff, and so little quality; however, I note the ones I think I want to see in a little blank book I have, on my dresser in my bedroom, and then can rent whenever I'm ready.
And I have the luminous luxury of having a friend I can call to ask if a movie is any good before I even spend the money to rent. ("Hi! Julia and Julia -- do I want to see that??") She and her husband and her mother go to many movies: their standard is different from mine -- if it's awful, I'm like, "That's two hours of my life I'll never get back." But my friends go to a lot of movies, with lower expectations -- just to relax. They have good taste & they know my taste. Money couldn't buy a service that valuable. (Maybe I should dedicate my first book to them...)

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I loved the Commentary on the Julie and Julia DVD. Writer-director Nora Ephron has a little explaining - describing - wondering - digressing, going on the full-length of the film. She doesn't talk every minute of it. So it's a different way to "watch the movie" -- to experience it and let her tell you stuff.

(Nora Ephron also directed When Harry Met Sally... and she was married for a little while to Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein, who did the investigative reporting on Watergate, with Bob Woodward, before it was even called "Watergate".)

Nora Ephron tells us, "We scouted in Paris"...to find restaurants that looked like French restaurants in the 1950s, but actually had better luck finding settings that would work for the movie, in New York. One of their "French restaurants in the
1950s" was in Brooklyn in 2009.

In the movie, there's a scene in a Paris train station, and another scene later in a Boston train station. They used a beautiful train station in Hoboken, New Jersey for both -- one angle for "Paris," and a different angle for "Boston."

Of the film's main characters, Ephron says, These are people who, if they're eating and at the same time discussing some deep crisis or terribly urgent or stressful situation, would say, off to the side in the middle of it, "The oysters are good!"

She "talks food," like a pro -- (like Julia Child, she has copper pots which she bought in Paris [hard core]) -- but also sort of brings you (us) back to modern-day "reality" when commenting on a couple of the recipes:
Aspics. Director Ephron thinks aspics are one thing which should be removed from ongoing editions of Mastering the Art of French Cooking: "Who are we kidding? No one wants to eat an aspic, much less make one."
Kidneys. "Who would ever make kidneys? And they don't look good either."
She kills me -- she speaks in a calm monotone.
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The movie has the scene where, on live television, the French Chef dropped a fish on the floor (she dropped a fish on the floor! - the story went): except, not really -- she dropped a potato on the stove (while attempting to flip it). One of those stories that grew as it got repeated.

The meeting at the publishers: Julia Child and her French cooking co-author on one side of big table, on other side three publishing people, two suited men & one woman.
Man: "Ladies, you have 700 pages of poultry and sauces alone!"
"Well we thought you could publish it in volumes."
"Uh -- "

------------------------ I guess the thoroughgoing delight I take in this movie is because it lays out the results and transformations that are possible from the
force, and
power
of Enthusiasm and Excellence.

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