Julie and Julia Movie Reactions

Okay, so I just got back from Julie and Julia, rather pleasantly surprised. It was fun to see Meryl Streep do her head-on Julia Child impersonation for a couple of hours. I enjoyed all those scenes of French kitchens, and New Look dresses, and food, food food.

But I have a quibble or maybe a query for the set dressers. Tell me, please, exactly how many donations Julie Powell was receiving via her Paypal button? 'Cause I was salivating over her kitchen utensils in the film, particularly that flame-coloured Le Creuset dutch oven. You know, this one:

I happen to know for a certainty that one of those bad boys will set you back a cool $300 plus tax. And on the rack opposite the stove I thought I saw one or two more. The plates in the final dinner scene look restaurant quality to me (albeit '90s vintage). Plus those knives she was waving around didn't look like they came in no Crackerjack box, if you know what I mean.

So I want to know whether Julie Powell actually managed to assemble such a pricy set of kitchen tools before starting her project, whether her fans paid for it, or whether it was just filmmakers' fantasy like the giant spider in the Harry Potter movies and girls who are shorter than Tom Cruise. (Enquiring minds also want to know whether they used two different ones, or whether it was the same one in both "Julie's" and "Julia's" kitchen.)

I do notice that Katey Rich at CinemaBlend got her hands on the same colour and model when she recreated the Julie/Julia experiment for one meal. Which leads me to the next question: am I the only one who's missing out on all the Le Creuset bargain sales? (And here I thought I was so smart spotting one half off at Winner's...)

By the way, you can also see a fortune in Le Creuset on the stove in the newest Woody Allen movie Whatever Works. It's a nice pale gold colour.