Julie Julia

“Julie & Julia’’ is the easiest thing Nora Ephron has ever done with a movie. There’s not much to argue with. Half the film is spent with Meryl Streep as Julia Child in France in 1949. Half is spent 50 years later with Amy Adams as Julie Powell, a Texan living in Queens, who devotes a year (and a blog) to exploring the recipes from the tome Child spent a decade completing, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.’’ Ephron has adapted two memoirs: Child’s “My Life in France’’ and Powell’s “Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.’’ And the movie she’s built out of them...

There's a teaser online for "Fairhaven," the movie that was filmed in the real town of Fairhaven this past winter. The footage - which highlights some fantastic local scenery - features star and director Tom O'Brien , his costar and longtime friend Chris Messina (of "Julie & Julia"), Rich Sommer (of "Mad Men"), and actresses Alexie Gilmore and Sarah Paulson . The story focuses on O'Brien's character, who begins to question the meaning of life and happiness after hearing Tom Brady talk about his Super Bowl wins.

NEW YORK - Julie Powell’s new book is not for the squeamish, in more ways than one. It opens with her in the back of a butcher shop, flecked with blood and reeking of meat. She’s busy slicing a raw, slippery liver with a foot-long knife. By the end of the book, another internal organ - her heart - has been filleted: Powell dissects the pain caused by her two-year affair with an old college flame that sent her into an emotional tailspin and almost sunk her marriage. It’s all a bit messy.

NEW YORK - Julie Powell’s new book is not for the squeamish, in more ways than one. It opens with her in the back of a butcher shop, flecked with blood and reeking of meat. She’s busy slicing a raw, slippery liver with a foot-long knife. By the end of the book, another internal organ - her heart - has been filleted: Powell dissects the pain caused by her two-year affair with an old college flame that sent her into an emotional tailspin and almost sunk her marriage. It’s all a bit messy.

ROUEN, France - Dining at the restaurant that introduced the late Julia Child to French cuisine feels a little like striking a match on the site where humans discovered fire. I only feared that the flame might fizzle. After all, it had been more than 60 years (Wednesday, Nov. 3, 1948) since Julia dined at La Couronne as she and her husband, Paul, drove from the ferry landing in Le Havre to his posting at the American embassy in Paris. In “My Life in France,’’ she describes the experience as “the most exciting meal of my life.’’ You can see Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci,...

There's a teaser online for "Fairhaven," the movie that was filmed in the real town of Fairhaven this past winter. The footage - which highlights some fantastic local scenery - features star and director Tom O'Brien , his costar and longtime friend Chris Messina (of "Julie & Julia"), Rich Sommer (of "Mad Men"), and actresses Alexie Gilmore and Sarah Paulson . The story focuses on O'Brien's character, who begins to question the meaning of life and happiness after hearing Tom Brady talk about his Super Bowl wins.

La Boniche 143 Merrimack St., Lowell 978-458-9473 www.laboniche.com Open for lunch Tuesday-Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., dinner, Tuesday-Thursday, 5 p.m.- 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 9:30 p.m. Major credit cards accepted Handicapped accessible With a viewing of the movie “Julie & Julia’’ fresh in our minds, my review team was happy to try an evening at La Boniche, a bistro in downtown Lowell, which promises...

New releases Adam A kind of romance between a lonely New York toymaker who has Asperger’s syndrome and the woman who moved in downstairs. The movie, which Max Mayer wrote and directed, also flavorlessly combines romance, sitcom, and television drama in the hopes of entertainment. It’s probable that this movie will bring Asperger’s to an audience that’s never heard of or experienced it. It’s also likely to bore them. (99 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

"Fairhaven," a movie that was shot in Fairhaven last year, will have its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival next month. Local director-star Tom O'Brien, who recruited actors such as Chris Messina of "Julie & Julia" (and Ben Affleck's upcoming movie "Argo") and Rich Sommer of "Mad Men" to join him in the film, confirmed yesterday that his movie will have its screening on April 20. "Fairhaven" is about a guy who reevaluates his life after coming home for his father's funeral. Based on what we saw during a shoot at Fairhaven Town Hall, there's a lot of actor improv, and some lovely New England...

Just about every actor who appears in the Massachusetts movie "Fairhaven" attended its Tribeca Film Festival premiere in New York on Friday evening. The actors - who include Chris Messina ("Julie & Julia"), Rich Sommer ("Mad Men"), and Sarah Paulson ("American Horror Story") - sat with the crowd, cheered each other on when their names appeared in the credits, and took questions from the audience about what it was like to film in freezing Fairhaven in winter 2011. Most audience members (some of whom showed up in Red Sox hats)

ROUEN, France - Dining at the restaurant that introduced the late Julia Child to French cuisine feels a little like striking a match on the site where humans discovered fire. I only feared that the flame might fizzle. After all, it had been more than 60 years (Wednesday, Nov. 3, 1948) since Julia dined at La Couronne as she and her husband, Paul, drove from the ferry landing in Le Havre to his posting at the American embassy in Paris. In “My Life in France,’’ she describes the experience as “the most exciting meal of my life.’’ You can see Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci,...

La Boniche 143 Merrimack St., Lowell 978-458-9473 www.laboniche.com Open for lunch Tuesday-Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., dinner, Tuesday-Thursday, 5 p.m.- 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 9:30 p.m. Major credit cards accepted Handicapped accessible With a viewing of the movie “Julie & Julia’’ fresh in our minds, my review team was happy to try an evening at La Boniche, a bistro in downtown Lowell, which promises...

New releases Adam A kind of romance between a lonely New York toymaker who has Asperger’s syndrome and the woman who moved in downstairs. The movie, which Max Mayer wrote and directed, also flavorlessly combines romance, sitcom, and television drama in the hopes of entertainment. It’s probable that this movie will bring Asperger’s to an audience that’s never heard of or experienced it. It’s also likely to bore them. (99 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

“Julie & Julia’’ is the easiest thing Nora Ephron has ever done with a movie. There’s not much to argue with. Half the film is spent with Meryl Streep as Julia Child in France in 1949. Half is spent 50 years later with Amy Adams as Julie Powell, a Texan living in Queens, who devotes a year (and a blog) to exploring the recipes from the tome Child spent a decade completing, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.’’ Ephron has adapted two memoirs: Child’s “My Life in France’’ and Powell’s “Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.’’ And the movie she’s built out of them...

It's not about the mayonnaise. Even as she wrestles with eggs and oil that refuse to meld and gel é e that "tastes slightly of hoof," trying to follow all 524 recipes in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," young Julie Powell -- dissatisfied temp turned blog goddess -- senses that her struggle is not really over plating the perfect meal. Powell is cooking up a plan to rescue herself from depression by taking on a quest. And if her quest compels her to reproduce recipes from a 40-year-old cookbook within one year in a crappy New York City apartment kitchen,...

There’s nothing rational about obsession, and Julie Powell knows that she is a slave to hers - the man she’s having an affair with, D. “I’m familiar with the landscape of addiction,’’ she writes in her new memoir, “Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession.’’ “I recognize that I’ve built up a habit for him, no less real and physical than my habit for booze.’’ Married to her childhood sweetheart, Eric, she binges...