Entertainment

BORN TO BE CHILD

Guys, let’s all raise a glass to our fallen heroes. We mourn Chris, whose estrogen levels rose to toxic levels after being forced to watch “Bride Wars” with his wife. We shed a tear for Tom, who somehow sat through every minute of “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” — and it wasn’t even on an airplane. We keep in our prayers Kevin, who insisted that, yes, he would love to see “The Notebook,” simply because it was a second date, the girl was hot and he didn’t want to seem contrary.

Heroes all, now destroyed.

So as “Julie & Julia” prepares to open on Friday, you’ll have to forgive men for being wary. Isn’t this just another chick flick with

cutesy musical montages and some guy (usually Gerard Butler) finally professing his love for a woman as she stands in the rain?

Warning signs are lighting up inside men’s heads.

Warning Sign No. 1: It’s written and directed by Nora Ephron, and wasn’t she the one who did that Tom Hanks movie during which my girlfriend bawled and I read the sports page?

Warning Sign No. 2: “Julie & Julia” stars two women in the leads, Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. Note: Vin Diesel is nowhere to be found.

Warning Sign No. 3: It tells two parallel stories about cooking, for God’s sake. Julie Powell (Adams) is a Queens woman who decides to cook all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in a single year and blog about it. In 1948, Julia Child (Streep) is living in Paris with her civil servant husband (Stanley Tucci) and wondering what to do with her free time when she enrolls in a cooking school.

Classic chick flick, right?

“This is so not a chick flick,” says Adams. “I’ve been really fortunate to be involved in a lot of movies that have really great female characters, and not a single one of them would I consider a chick flick. I think this is more about the human experience. It just happens to be two women telling the story.”

Ephron agrees — and she should know. She helped perfect the modern chick-flick template with films such as “When Harry Met Sally” and “You’ve Got Mail.” She also played a part in launching the term.

“I almost feel guilty about it,” she says. “I feel as if that scene in ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ brought that term into widespread use. It was a scene where Tom Hanks and Victor Garber make fun of Rita Wilson for liking the movie ‘An Affair to Remember’ and Tom calls it a chick flick.”

To Ephron, calling anything a chick flick is an insult.

“I’m very proud to make movies that women like, but the minute someone calls something a chick flick, they’re just trying to flick it away,” she says. “They’re just trying to say this isn’t about all the important things men make movies about, like war or, at the moment, farting.

So what exactly makes “Julie & Julia” not the c-word?

For one thing, it doesn’t adhere to that tried-and-true structure.

“When a film is trying to appeal to a larger audience, which I think ‘Julie & Julia’ is, it doesn’t necessarily include all the elements of a chick flick, unlike something like ‘The Ugly Truth,’ ” says Kim Adelman, author of “The Ultimate Guide to Chick Flicks.”

True chick flicks, Adelman says, feature a quirky female lead and a male love interest who “has not yet been redeemed but will be redeemed by the end of the movie.” The writers often throw a dance number into the mix and a break-up at the end of the second act that then leads to a desperate third-act rush for the characters to declare their love for one another. Often while soaking wet, because there’s evidently nothing more romantic than pneumonia.

“Your classic romantic comedy ends long before this film begins,” Ephron says. “This isn’t ‘two people meet and hate each other then get over it and break up and then get back together.’ This is a movie that’s very much about real life. Each story is about a marriage and not about falling in love. And both stories are about career, writing, changing your life, transforming yourself, inventing yourself. It felt as if I hadn’t made this movie in any way.”

The Julie Powell character works at a government job and shares her Queens apartment with her husband (Chris Messina), who is forced to tolerantly eat all of her dishes. Child, despite being middle-aged, 6-foot-2 and not exactly feminine, enjoys a robust love life with her husband.

“Men could learn a lot from this movie, like patience and supporting a woman,” Adams says. “Both of these women succeed because they have amazing men that stand by them.”

“Julie & Julia” looks to tackle larger issues than just, “How do I get this guy to marry me so I can be a pretty, pretty princess at my wedding?”

“If you step beyond the genre and you have something else added to it, like ‘Thelma & Louise’ did, a movie can become a cultural phenomenon,” Adelman adds. “Remember, way back when, Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis were on the cover of Time magazine. That’s a bigger story than ’27 Dresses’ or ‘Bride Wars’ are ever going to get.”

Besides marriage and ambition and finding what you’re good at, “Julie & Julia” is also about food. Glorious, butter-drenched food. And gourmet eating is certainly something that has been steadily growing in popularity among Americans, both male and female.

“Julie & Julia” also has Meryl Streep and, with the exception of “Mamma Mia!” she’s not the kind of performer who screams chick flick. She more frequently appears in emotionally wrenching, Oscar-oriented fare, such as last year’s “Doubt” and 2002’s “The Hours.” Her half of the film, a period piece (awards clue No. 1) set mostly overseas (awards clue No. 2), supplies heft to a film that might have devolved into a frothy chick flick if it had merely focused on Adams’ character.

Even the movie’s poster has been designed to look weightier than a romantic comedy.

“It’s not a picture of Amy Adams with a chef hat on and a goofy smile,” Adelman says. “It’s being marketed more as an Academy Award-nominated thing, and those always do well with mixed audiences. With Meryl Streep, people think, ‘This seems more important.’ “

Adams says she’s not sure what genre the film falls into, and she has little interest in classifying it.

“I don’t go into it thinking, I’m making a movie for women about women. I just wanted to tell the story,” she says. “It’s just sad that we live in a world that men don’t want to watch stories about women. I’ve been to so many blow-’em-up movies, watching the male-driven movie, so it would be nice for men to come to this.”

Just don’t go alone, guys. That might be weird.

reed.tucker@nypost.comuys, let’s all raise a glass to our fallen heroes. We mourn Chris, whose estrogen levels rose to toxic levels after being forced to watch “Bride Wars” with his wife. We shed a tear for Tom, who somehow sat through every minute of “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” — and it wasn’t even on an airplane. We keep in our prayers Kevin, who insisted that, yes, he would love to see “The Notebook,” simply because it was a second date, the girl was hot and he didn’t want to seem contrary.

Heroes all, now destroyed.

So as “Julie & Julia” prepares to open on Friday, you’ll have to forgive men for being wary. Isn’t this just another chick flick with

cutesy musical montages and some guy (usually Gerard Butler) finally professing his love for a woman as she stands in the rain?

Warning signs are lighting up inside men’s heads.

Warning Sign No. 1: It’s written and directed by Nora Ephron, and wasn’t she the one who did that Tom Hanks movie during which my girlfriend bawled and I read the sports page?

Warning Sign No. 2: “Julie & Julia” stars two women in the leads, Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. Note: Vin Diesel is nowhere to be found.

Warning Sign No. 3: It tells two parallel stories about cooking, for God’s sake. Julie Powell (Adams) is a Queens woman who decides to cook all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in a single year and blog about it. In 1948, Julia Child (Streep) is living in Paris with her civil servant husband (Stanley Tucci) and wondering what to do with her free time when she enrolls in a cooking school.

Classic chick flick, right?

“This is so not a chick flick,” says Adams. “I’ve been really fortunate to be involved in a lot of movies that have really great female characters, and not a single one of them would I consider a chick flick. I think this is more about the human experience. It just happens to be two women telling the story.”

Ephron agrees — and she should know. She helped perfect the modern chick-flick template with films such as “When Harry Met Sally” and “You’ve Got Mail.” She also played a part in launching the term.

“I almost feel guilty about it,” she says. “I feel as if that scene in ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ brought that term into widespread use. It was a scene where Tom Hanks and Victor Garber make fun of Rita Wilson for liking the movie ‘An Affair to Remember’ and Tom calls it a chick flick.”

To Ephron, calling anything a chick flick is an insult.

“I’m very proud to make movies that women like, but the minute someone calls something a chick flick, they’re just trying to flick it away,” she says. “They’re just trying to say this isn’t about all the important things men make movies about, like war or, at the moment, farting.

So what exactly makes “Julie & Julia” not the c-word?

For one thing, it doesn’t adhere to that tried-and-true structure.

“When a film is trying to appeal to a larger audience, which I think ‘Julie & Julia’ is, it doesn’t necessarily include all the elements of a chick flick, unlike something like ‘The Ugly Truth,’ ” says Kim Adelman, author of “The Ultimate Guide to Chick Flicks.”

True chick flicks, Adelman says, feature a quirky female lead and a male love interest who “has not yet been redeemed but will be redeemed by the end of the movie.” The writers often throw a dance number into the mix and a break-up at the end of the second act that then leads to a desperate third-act rush for the characters to declare their love for one another. Often while soaking wet, because there’s evidently nothing more romantic than pneumonia.

“Your classic romantic comedy ends long before this film begins,” Ephron says. “This isn’t ‘two people meet and hate each other then get over it and break up and then get back together.’ This is a movie that’s very much about real life. Each story is about a marriage and not about falling in love. And both stories are about career, writing, changing your life, transforming yourself, inventing yourself. It felt as if I hadn’t made this movie in any way.”

The Julie Powell character works at a government job and shares her Queens apartment with her husband (Chris Messina), who is forced to tolerantly eat all of her dishes. Child, despite being middle-aged, 6-foot-2 and not exactly feminine, enjoys a robust love life with her husband.

“Men could learn a lot from this movie, like patience and supporting a woman,” Adams says. “Both of these women succeed because they have amazing men that stand by them.”

“Julie & Julia” looks to tackle larger issues than just, “How do I get this guy to marry me so I can be a pretty, pretty princess at my wedding?”

“If you step beyond the genre and you have something else added to it, like ‘Thelma & Louise’ did, a movie can become a cultural phenomenon,” Adelman adds. “Remember, way back when, Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis were on the cover of Time magazine. That’s a bigger story than ’27 Dresses’ or ‘Bride Wars’ are ever going to get.”

Besides marriage and ambition and finding what you’re good at, “Julie & Julia” is also about food. Glorious, butter-drenched food. And gourmet eating is certainly something that has been steadily growing in popularity among Americans, both male and female.

“Julie & Julia” also has Meryl Streep and, with the exception of “Mamma Mia!” she’s not the kind of performer who screams chick flick. She more frequently appears in emotionally wrenching, Oscar-oriented fare, such as last year’s “Doubt” and 2002’s “The Hours.” Her half of the film, a period piece (awards clue No. 1) set mostly overseas (awards clue No. 2), supplies heft to a film that might have devolved into a frothy chick flick if it had merely focused on Adams’ character.

Even the movie’s poster has been designed to look weightier than a romantic comedy.

“It’s not a picture of Amy Adams with a chef hat on and a goofy smile,” Adelman says. “It’s being marketed more as an Academy Award-nominated thing, and those always do well with mixed audiences. With Meryl Streep, people think, ‘This seems more important.’ “

Adams says she’s not sure what genre the film falls into, and she has little interest in classifying it.

“I don’t go into it thinking, I’m making a movie for women about women. I just wanted to tell the story,” she says. “It’s just sad that we live in a world that men don’t want to watch stories about women. I’ve been to so many blow-’em-up movies, watching the male-driven movie, so it would be nice for men to come to this.”

Just don’t go alone, guys. That might be weird.

Dinner & the Movie

onsider a viewing of “Julie & Julia” the anti-diet. One producer said he hoped the audience would leave the theater “wanting to eat something.”

Actually, instead of “something,” you may want to eat everything.

The on-set cuisine was prepared by culinary consultant Susan Spungen and chef Colin Flynn, so when you see Amy Adams eating Julia Child’s beef bourguignon, she was actually eating beef bourguignon.

For some cast members, scarfing all that food posed a challenge. Chris Messina “had to eat something like 32 bruschetta in one day,” Adams says. When he began to fade, director Nora Ephron yelled, “Robert De Niro would do it!”

Adams needed no similar encouragement.

“This food was pretty amazing,” she says. “Butter came back into my life.”

Adams says the French onion soup was her favorite, while cooking live lobsters made her swear off eating the crustaceans forever. Feel free to try these at home.

French Onion Soup

In a large saucepan, slowly

sauté 2 quarts thinly sliced onions in 3 tablespoons butter and 1 of oil for about 20 minutes, until softened. Stir in 1-2 teaspoon each salt and sugar; sauté 15 to 20 minutes more over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until golden brown. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons flour over onions and cook slowly, stirring, for 2 minutes. Off heat, whisk in 2 cups hot beef stock or canned beef broth and 1/4 cup cognac or brandy. When well blended, stir in 2 quarts more stock or broth and 1 cup dry white wine or dry white French vermouth. Simmer, loosely covered, for 30 minutes. Season to taste, and serve.

Steamed Lobster

Approximate cooking times: 10 minutes for 1-pounders; 12 to 13 for 1 1/4- pounders; 14 to 15 for 1 1/2- pounders; 18 minutes for 2-pounders. Fit a rack in a 5-gallon pot and fill with 2 inches of seawater, or tap water with 1 ½ teaspoons salt per quart. Cover and bring to the rapid boil, then quickly drop in 6 live lobsters headfirst. Cover the pot and weight down the lid to make a firm seal. As soon as steam appears, begin timing as indicated. A lobster is probably done when the long antennas pull out easily. But to be sure, turn the lobster over and slit open the chest to see the tomalley [liver] — if all black, cook several minutes more, until tomalley is pale green. Accompany with melted butter and lemon wedges.

(Reprinted from “Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom” by Julia Child, Knopf)

reed.tucker@nypost.com