saw: julie & julia
In recent years Nora Ephron has veered disastrously into big-B broad comedy. What she's always excelled at is a specific kind of comedy of manners—populated with fussy, privileged white people in scenes and states of intimate anxiety. This return to smaller-b "broad" comedy is therefore a qualified success—a double-fisted biopic that's breezy and generic in many of its details but undeniably crowd-pleasing and ultimately ingratiating. The cast itself is a stacked deck, in the best sense. Grade: B