Hi, this is Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, and I'm here with the Slate Spoiler Special podcast on Julian Julia, the new Nora Ephron film that's being released this week.

I'm here with Kathleen Collins. Hi, Kathleen.

Hi, Dana.

Who is the author of Watching What We Eat, The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows, a book that came out this year about the history of cooking on TV.

So, perfect podcast companion for this movie.

First of all, Kathleen, did you like the movie?

I loved it. I'm still glowing.

Same here. I absolutely loved it.

Just finished gushing about it in the Slate Culture Gabb Fest.

So I'm going to try to use your expertise here to do something besides just sort of coo over what a fun movie it is to watch. But do you want to just briefly talk about, well, if you want, you can sort of briefly

outline the story of the film.

All right.

Well, gushing aside, the movie's based on two books.

The Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, the blogger who became a book author, based on her

attempt to, well, her successful attempt to make all of the

recipes and mastering the art of French cooking. Julia Child's classic, she co-authored, her classic

French cookbook, and she attempted to make all the recipes in that cookbook over the course

of one year. The other book that it's based on

is My Life in France, that is Julia Child's basically her memoir written with her grand

nephew, Alex Prudhomme. So Nora Ephron wove these two stories together. And successfully so,

do you think?

I think it was very, very well done.

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