Julie & Julia

This movie is based on TWO true stories :)
It covers some highlights of married working womens' lives - cooking, writing, husbands and having a GOAL :D (ok, I really hope no working married woman reads this blog).
So the Julie-part of the movie is a little lame story-wise, but the julia part is a delight to watch. How did a 40yr old Julia Child go on to write the famous "Mastering the Art of French cooking", and then went on to host "The french chef", a very popular and first-of-its-kind cooking show on American television? I admit I never heard of her, her book or her show earlier, but it was nice to watch.
Its the small things in the movie that make you laugh - like "Whenever you eat a fantastic dish and wonder WHAT made it so tasty, you should know it is BUTTER" :) (Pav Bhaaji was the first thing that came to Jatins mind), or when Juia tells her Cooking teacher that "All my friends at the embassy, including my dear friend the Ambassador, would be extremely surprised if I do not give my cooking test", though she does not know the Ambassador :)

[Spoiler ahead]
I liked the undying optimism of Julie and Julia - both never stop believing that they can publish their own book. Way to go girls! :)

Network (1976)

This movie was engrossing from the start. An old news reporter plans to commit a suicide on national tv in front of millions of viewers, because he was fired and had nothing going for himself other than the job! I was hoping it was not another hero hiralal! :) Far from it actually - it was more like a Madhur Bhandarkar film in many ways* - it had a STRONG female lead and mocked the commercialization of news.

Faye Dunaway won the best actress academy award for this one, and I think she completely deserved it. Peter Finch won the Best Actor award, and was the first one to receive a posthumous award for an acting category, and he so deserved it too. I think any film in which the lead actors bag an academy award is completely worth a watch! (ok, the only other example I can think of is As good as it gets).

No spoilers for this movie, because I liked it as a whole :)

* Qsn to all those Madhur Bhandarkar haters - how come you liked Network huh?