It’s no secret that I think Eat, Pray, Love looks like a turd of a film, and that I’m not really looking forward to Julia Roberts’ big promotional tour. Well… I should put it this way: the promotional tour could be kind of interesting, just because Julia hasn’t had a big starring role in a long time in a movie that seems to be a little gift-wrapped package to the self-help-loving Oprah viewership. Here’s what I didn’t realize: Eat, Pray, Love doesn’t come out until the middle of August! Usually, that’s where films go to die. The way the studios figure, it’s too late for a summer blockbuster and too early for the Oscar-bait autumn releases, plus everyone is on vacation or getting ready for school. But – it might end up working. After spending the summer watching the big, action-packed blockbusters with their sons/boyfriends/husbands, I imagine many women will want to go see their Julia, and make it a summer treat for themselves with their girlfriends or something. It could work.
Anyway, Julia wants to make sure she has a hit on her hands, and she wants to ensure that everyone still remembers that she’s The Biggest Star In The World. I sincerely don’t mean to denigrate Julia on that count – she once was the biggest star in the world. A decade ago. But these times, they are a changin’. So to ensure her superstardom and the success of the film, Julia has worked out a deal with Elle Magazine:
Julia Roberts’ press campaign for her upcoming chick-flick, Sony’s “Eat Pray Love,” will be aggressive. We hear she’ll be shooting three different covers with three different photographers for the September issue of Elle. Roberts will also grace the cover of more than 20 international editions of the magazine.
The movie, out in mid-August, just secured a “PG-13” rating after producers convinced the MPAA that its “brief strong language, some sexual references and male rear nudity” didn’t warrant the “R” rating it had initially been given.
[From Page Six]
Good Lord. Twenty covers? That’s a whole lotta Julia. My guess is that she’ll probably also do a big August cover, maybe Vogue or W Magazine or something (I think the August Vanity Fair cover is going to Angelina Jolie). And then we’ll get to sit through hundreds of television interviews in which we are assured, of course, that JULIA! is back and that she demands that we pay attention to her.
By the way, here’s the new poster for Eat, Pray, Love. Eh. I mean, it’s not nearly as bad as it could be. I was expecting just Julia’s big head, but this photo/promotional image just seems like a throwaway, or an ad for gelato. Because after seeing this is, I don’t want to see the movie, but I would like a tasty frozen treat.
And here’s the trailer once again. God, this just looks like she spends two hours whining.
Header: Julia on February 8, 2010. Credit: WENN. Poster courtesy of The Bosh.
“eat pray love” sounds very goopy to me
Go away Julia, it’s not 1990 anymore.
Even the super fantastic Javier Bardem and James Franco do not cancel out the super awful Billy Crudup and Julia Roberts. this is a skip for me!
If this didn’t have Julia Roberts in it I wouldn’t watch it, as it does it would take the very real threat of violence to get me in that cinema. Hopefully female audiences are too smart to accept this kind of self-help pablum anymore – especially from Miss. A. Low Vera” – and it’ll tank like a Panzer driving off a cliff.
Why do women eat this crap up?
This movie is best suited for the Lifetime Movie Channel, instead of the big screen.
I thought the book was very self indulgent, and I think Julia herself is very self indulgent.
I watched the trailer, it is Julia Roberts playing Julia Roberts, trying to convince the public she is playing a character, and can actually act.
This is a miss. The movie will bomb.
As for her interviews she will talk about her fantastic husband, and her near perfect kids…and of course her perfect role as wife and mother.
Yikes, she scares me, she really does
@LUCY – I think these movies usually do OK is because there are few and far between “chic flicks” Most of the movies are made for men and teenage boys.
I’m with YeaRight!, I was very surprised that they bothered with a movie on this book; I also found it way self indulgent, and by the end I really quite disliked the “heroine”! Why does Hollywood insist on bombarding us with overdone publicity for their mistakes?!
@miranda: June 7th, 2010 at 8:11 am
“Miss A Low Vera”. I remember Julia pulling that immature sh*t, and thinking what a complete B*tch she really is. And “it’ll tank like a Panzer driving off a cliff” is hilarious and true!
She plays the SAME character in everything she does, and it’s Julia Roberts.
YeaRight!: Definitely Lifetime movie material.
This will be a showcase for Roberts obnoxious, phony, braying donkey laugh, at least ONE scene with her doing a teary-eyed bit of self-discovery, and she’ll change outfits and hair-do’s every 30 seconds.
damn, why you bitches gotta hate on the the horsey homewrecker
Well. I won’t be buying many magazines this summer then.
I love it when you make me laugh, Kaiser. Yeah, that pic absolutely does not make me want to see the JR film, but I could go for some frozen yogurt!
@YeaRight!- Spot on!
that book sucked. can’t imagine the movie will be any better but you know some women are just going to be all over this.
Will she be on the cover of “Horse World”? If she were younger, she could enter the Belmont Stakes
The poster doesn’t pull me into the idea of seeing the movie. Looks like she’s enjoying an oral fixation while waiting for the bus. The character gets chubby in Italy in the book-I wonder if she’ll wear a fat suit? Best part of the book was the food descriptions in Italy-yummo!
Yet another reason why fashion mags are falling in sales. Instead of featuring great fashion photography and fashion models we get overrated has beens marring the covers to plug the latest pics. JR’s mug is better suited for the label of a container of horse dewormer at the local feed store, not on Elle or Vogue (can Anne Wintour please stop ruining what was once the flagship US fashion mag).
Eat, Pray for Love from someone else’s husband.
julia needs to just stop. she’s a great movie star not an actress and she got an oscar because of that not because her acting was so special in erin brokovich (she was good in it but oscar worthy, please). just accept it julia.
I used to really like Julia Roberts, back in the very early days of Steel Magnolias but she wore out her welcome long ago when her ego went out of control. The A Low Vera t-shirt was a horrible thing to do. She also irritated me to no end when she presented the Best Actor award to Denzel Washington (another reputed egomaniacal a-hole). She was on Oprah to promote this Eat Pray Love movie and came across as just so smug and entitled and privileged…she actually complained about having to live on location with her family for five months because they had to keep wearing the same clothes over and over…for 5 MONTHS.
To those who call her horsey…anyone remember Notting Hill when Hugh Grant has to pretend he’s a journalist and the magazine he comes up with is Horse and Hound? Wonder if that was a dig in disguise…
The thing about Gwyneth Paltrow is, she’s self righteous and holier than though but she owns it and doesn’t pretend she’s not. That’s the difference between her and Julia…Julia still thinks she can pretend she’s down to earth and relatable and we’ll all fall for it when really…she just comes across as shallow and very unlikable.
Yawn, Scratch, Ignore
Read the book and would love to see the movie however, I won’t! Since this b!tch is in it…….no way.
Am I the only woman on the planet that hasn’t read this book?
Pretty woman
And they call Aniston a manipulating media whore… this is way worse. BLEH Julia Roberts, Bleh. Hasn’t done an honest role since Mystic Pizza.
I haven’t read it either, but I keep hearing how everyone disliked it. But I guess it sold a lot and got the Oprah seal of approval, so instantly a movie must be made. Blah.
Julia was good in the beginning of her career, but at some point she seemed to buy into her own hype and now I find her really obnoxious. For the most part she seems to live pretty low key and spends a lot of time with her kids – it’s when she’s out in public that she bugs me. She tries to make everything about her (the Denzel example is a good one) and seems to think everyone just adores her.
I think it looks like a really good movie. Yeah Julia Roberts seems like she could be a bit of a bitch in real life, but i love her as an actress.
hate hate hated EPL,the book. incredibly self-indulgent, precious and whiny. elizabeth gilbert is not at all clever. there are many wonderful books about self-reflection and travel -walden, pilgrim at tinker creek, out of africa, down the nile, just to name a few. if you haven’t read EPL don’t bother and try one of these instead.
I won’t see it-but I bet it will do very well….Julia and the topic of the book, are definitely things that women seem to relate to…
Christ, no.
This title is very misleading. It’s the same magazine in different countries. Everybody is going to see one cover no 20. It would be completely different if it was 20 covers of different magazines in one country. That too much. Julia annoys me sometimes but the movie doesn’t look bad to me. Also I think the last two weeks of August and September aren the biggest dumping weeks. Some big movies were released in August last year(Julie and Julia and Iglourious Bastards). With so many kid movies and blockbusters being released in the summer, most chickflicks are not released since they get lost in the shuffle.
I dread the next weeks until this movie comes out. I was so happy not to have Roberts horse face around lately, and now it is going to be everywhere! UGH!
i wonder if sandra bullock will unintentionally upstage her in all 20. lol
Actually I think this movie might work in the way that dope Michael P King thought SATC2 would: as a vicarious travelogue for broke female moviegoers in search of a staycation.
While I find Julia Roberts unbearable (she’s no longer capable of acting as anyone other than herself… a spoiled, egomaniacal celebrity), the movie’s location shoots do look appealing! Maybe I will go roll my eyes at the self-help & La Julia, but enjoy the scenery.
(I haven’t read the book. Oprah’s favorite philosophies in general tend to be horse puckey for brainless well-to-do ladies.)
I really loved the book – I admit it. I laughed, I cried, I didn’t put it down. At the end I felt hopeful, I could relate to the hopelessness of a bad marriage. I watched every interview with Elizabeth Gilbert I could find. And through it all I could not have been more crushed to hear the casting. Such a waste.
Aggressive press campaign means they are trying to get as many people into the theaters in the first week as possible, before word spreads nationally that it is the garbage we know it is destined to be. Buy the book. Put the money into Elizabeth Gilbert’s pocket, not Julia’s.