AmyAdams Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Movies with food-related themes at their core have always appealed to me: I like eating, I like watching movies, why not combine the two? Julie & Julia does so quite deftly, resulting in a lighthearted comedy that's very easy to like. And these days, a movie with intelligent humor and masterful comic performances is hard to find, so that should be enough to satisfy me. And it very nearly was, although I didn't feel quite appeased afterwards.

Nora Ephron directed the comedy, adapting two stories and squashing them together: Julie Powell cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 2002 as detailed on her blog and in her book Julie and Julia; and Julia Child going from bored housewife in Paris to cookbook co-author, as detailed in the book My Life in France.

Sometimes being a journalist is a pretty sweet gig -- literally. Bear in mind that before the folks at Sony filled the bellies of a handful of film and foodie writers, I had already written about Julie and Julia for another publication in anticipation of a strong movie written and directed by one of Hollywood's funniest and smartest rom-com directors, Nora Ephron, starring two formidable talents, Amy Adams and Meryl Streep.

Julie and Julia is two parallel stories about blogger-turned-memoirist Julie Powell and her hero Julia Child. Powell, an NYC writer fed up with her day job and yearning for a way to get back to her creative writing roots, starts The Julie/Julia Project, a blog chronicling her adventures cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's classic cook book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Streep transmogrifies into Julia Child for her half of the story, which follows her transformation from a French foodie in Paris to chef and author as detailed in her bio My Life in France, which she co-wrote with Alex Prud'homme.

The event I attended included cooking demos by chefs from Le Cordon Bleu and Julie Powell, juicy details from food stylist Susan Bode, and a roundtable with Ephron and Powell. And food. Let's not forget the food. Questions and answers from Nora and Julie, plus an exclusive photo from the movie, after the jump.

No, this isn't a look into gals who drink mass amounts of booze on film. This is a look into Julia Child. (Although, of course, the chef had a definitive love of libations.) Julie & Julia is finally making its way to theaters on August 7, and as early reviews and responses come in, one thing is certain: Meryl Streep steals the show.

This is no surprise. As loved as Amy Adams is, it's hard to live up to the powerhouse -- especially when Streep has so perfectly embodied a woman most could never hope of mimicking. Every clip that comes out (see a good collection of them here), is practically Child on the screen herself. Streep's got the iconic voice, the spunk, and even -- somehow -- the stature. (Meryl Streep is 5'6", and Child was 6'2".)

Adams, dare I say it, almost seems out of her element -- and not in an "everywoman learning to cook" sort of way. Where her exuberance and charisma usually seeps out of her -- in everything from Drop Dead Gorgeous and Psycho Beach Party to Sunshine Cleaning and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day -- the Julie-centric clips don't hold the same magic.

Perhaps the magic ties together in the full feature, but this just leaves me thinking about those times when wonderful female performances are stuck in films that don't live up to their acting achievements.

Hot Hollywood star Amy Adams is negotiating to star in The Fighter, along with Terminator Salvation's Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg. David O. Russell is directing the biopic of the boxer "Irish" Micky Ward, which will call for Marky Mark to dust off his tough-guy Boston accent and don boxing gloves to fight his way to the championships with help from his trainer and brother Dick Eklund, who will be played by Bale. Multiple Oscar nominee Adams will be playing Ward's love interest, a tough-talkin' bartender in Lowell, MA.

The Fighter, which will be distributed domestically by Paramount, is supposed to begin filming this summer, although with Russell's track record, whether that will really happen is anyone's guess. The project has been through several incarnations, which you can read about here, and Russell is infamous for his on-set outbursts, as is Bale. Russell's last project, Nailed, is in a holding pattern indefinitely.

So will The Fighter make it to the ring? Will Bale and Russell have a shouting match that will find its way to YouTube? Will Mark Wahlberg say "how's your mother?" And will Amy Adams, star of the upcoming Ephron flick Julie & Julia, be totally awesome? I'm voting yes on all counts!

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Let me make this clear: when I say that I'm compiling a list of the most contrived rom-com scenarios, I'm not saying that they're automatically the worst -- although a glance at the titles doesn't exactly stray far from that correlation. Tomorrow's The Proposal finds Sandra Bullock forcing Ryan Reynolds into marriage for the sake of holding off immigration authorities and keeping her/their jobs (I guess it's not too soon to remake Green Card and Picture Perfect after all), so we're talking about seven plot points along those lines of high-concept, close-quarters thinking, with some (dis)honorable mentions along the way...

Like its predecessor, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is a mix of genuinely funny performances and highly lazy storytelling. You know how it goes: the plot is inane, but a lot of the dialogue makes you laugh. It's hard to respect a movie like that -- but, then again, I'm pretty sure "respect" isn't really what they were going for anyway.

In the sequel, Larry Daley, the hapless former security guard played by Ben Stiller, is now a successful TV pitchman, having invented such handy products as the glow-in-the-dark flashlight. It's been a couple years since he visited his pals at the American Museum of Natural History -- you know, the exhibits and models that come to life after dark, thanks to the magic of an Egyptian artifact -- and when he does, he's alarmed to learn that most of them are being shipped off to the Smithsonian archives in Washington D.C., where they'll sit in storage crates for the foreseeable future.

This is progress, it seems. Dr. McPhee (Ricky Gervais), Larry's old boss, tells him that people are bored with dioramas and wax figures. They want holograms and robots. All these old-fashioned pieces are going to be replaced with state-of-the-art technology like a talking Teddy Roosevelt -- which, strangely, speaks with the same voice as the waxwork Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) from the first film. What, did the graphic artists who created the computer program see him come to life late one night and record his voice? (Sorry. I'll try to keep that sort of thing to a minimum for the rest of the review.)

"I can write a blog. I have thoughts!"

The first trailer for this summer's Julie and Julia has just arrived online (courtesy of our friends at Moviefone), and the thing simply looks sweeter than a piece of pie. With this film, writer-director Nora Ephron brings us two adaptations for the price of one: Julie Powell's Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homm. Amy Adams plays Powell, a struggling cubicle worker looking for purpose in life, while Meryl Streep plays legendary chef Julia Child who, though separated from Powell by time and space, is going through a similar crisis in her life. The film, Julie and Julia, then intertwines the lives of these two women as they embark on a journey of self-discovery ... and lots of tasty eats. Remind me not to go into this one on an empty stomach.

I happen to think this looks delightful, funny and more charming than anything arriving in theaters this summer. Could Meryl Streep land another award nod for this role, or is that a stretch? What do you think? Despite the fact that people will constantly fudge the title ("Is it Julia and Julia? Julia and Julie? Julie's Julia?) -- do you think this one has the potential to keep you entertained for a couple of hours? Check out the trailer below; Julie and Julia hits theaters on August 7.

(We're reposting this review from Sundance to coincide with the film's theatrical release this weekend)

By: Kim Voynar

It's not a bad idea for an indie film: Two sisters, still dealing as adults with the aftermath of their mother's suicide when they were children, are stuck in dead-end jobs. Then one of them gets the idea to stop cleaning rich people's houses for a living, and to start a business cleaning up crime scenes instead. That's the basic idea behind Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin.

Adams plays Rose, head cheerleader back in the glory days of high school, now stuck raising her son Oscar (Jason Spevack) alone. Rose cleans houses for a living, a job she's not crazy about, and she's having an affair with her high school boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zahn), who likes Rose enough to have sex on the side, but not enough to leave his wife for her. Her sister Norah (Blunt) lives with their father Joe (Arkin), who's always got a scheme going for finally getting rich. When Oscar keeps getting in trouble in school, Rose decides she needs to make more money so she can put him in private school, and cleaning houses for a living isn't going to get her there.

My good pal Kevin over at Moviefone just sent over a link to a blog that's posting what they claim is a list of this year's Academy Award winners -- saying, "We don't know who leaked this, but thanks a bunch! Enjoy folks." Of course there's a very good chance it's a fake, but as Kevin noted in our AIM conversation: "I mean, it looks right... the fact that Best Supporting Actress is outta nowhere somehow lends it credibility." He's referring to Amy Adams, who this site says is the winner of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

But she's not the only surprise in the lot -- both screenplay awards seem a bit fishy, with Best Adapted going to The Reader and Original Screenplay going to In Bruges. Don't get me wrong, I think In Bruges is fantastic -- but will it win the Oscar? Doubt it. And what about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button winning Best Costume Design? As far as the big awards, they claim Slumdog Millionaire wins Best Picture and Best Director, while Mickey Rourke and Kate Winslet take top acting honors and Heath Ledger, of course, slides away with the Best Supporting Actor win. Those are all expected wins, though.

Check out their full list after the jump and let us know what you think. (Please note that in no way do we advise you to throw a bunch of money down on these picks. You'd be a giant moron if you did. Just sayin' ...)

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin. The film follows a down-on-her-funds mom (Adams) who, in order to raise money to send her son to private school, listens to the advice of her father (Arkin) and starts up a crime scene cleaning business with her sister (Blunt). Adams and Blunt together seems like a recipe for success, and advanced buzz on the film -- which comes to us from the producers of Little Miss Sunshine -- is pretty positive so far. Directed by Christine Jeffs and written by Megan Holley (nice female duo at the top there), Sunshine Cleaning hits theaters on March 13th.

Click below for a larger version of the poster.