john maddente | midwestern clarity

J ulie & Julia is a new film starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. I watched the film yesterday alongside sixty or so other theater goers. For anyone who loves Julia Child (as I do) the film is worth watching. Meryl Streep's depiction of the late great gourmand, is stunningly good. It's easy to replicate the oft parodied high-pitch voice, but Ms. Streep's cadence and accent on choice syllables is so faithful to the real deal, it's almost unsettling. It was a great performance. The screen writer of this movie is Nora Ephron whose style I didn't care for before the film.  Before seeing the film, I listened to two separate Nora Ephron interviews. Her tone and lack of enthusiasm during both interviews left me with the distinct impression she felt she was doing us a favor by sitting for them. At least, that's how she sounded. However, while viewing the film yesterday I realized something else -- she takes cheap shots. Example: In this movie, Amy Adams plays...

C heck out this article by Michael Hirschorn in The Atlantic (July/August 2009) in which Mr. Hirschorn examines how a printed magazine like The Economist can thrive, while other printed weeklies it competes with -- notably Newsweek and Time -- are languishing. Print publishing success in the digital age may lay in what Mr. Hirschorn describes as "razor-sharp clarity and definition" and owning and knowing a particular niche instead of trying to replicate one owned elsewhere. In the case of The Economist, Mr. Hirschorn asserts that the magazine "...canvasses the globe with an assurance that no one else can match" and " ... prides itself on cleverly distilling the world into a reasonably compact survey .'' Mr. Hirschorn,  a contributing editor at The Atlantic, made a frank admission that his own magazine, "...has never delivered impressive profit margins."  Impressively profitable or not, his piece is worthwhile for anyone inter...