Nora Ephron’s latest film, "Julie & Julia," is half of a great movie. As she’s proved over the last few years, especially in "The Devil Wears Prada," Meryl Streep is in the midst of a second act career renaissance. And she has a field day here playing the larger than life Julia Child. Streep is delicious and zesty as the billowy, big-boned chef who brought fine cuisine to the masses decades before Top Chef turned slicing and dicing into a populist, couch-friendly spectator sport.

In the multi-Oscar winner’s hands, Child’s love affair with life, butter-rich food and her husband Paul (played by a wonderful Stanley Tucci) is infectious. Seriously, you’ll want to whip up a crème Brule the second the movie’s over. The problem with the film, though, is that the Paris-set story of Streep’s Julia keeps getting interrupted by Amy Adams’ Julie Powell, a whiny drip who battles the boredom of her dreary day job by blogging about her quest to cook her way through Child’s doorstop masterpiece Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She’s got an understanding husband and a group of foodie pals who egg her on, but there’s no getting around the fact that Julie is a self-absorbed shrew with an almost creepy obsession with her idol.

I know this is meant to be cute, but it just felt cloying. I kept fighting the temptation to skip Adams’ scenes to get back to Streep. In the end, Ephron’s film feels like a soufflé that winds up collapsing under the weight of its own gimmicky structure.

Now for a look at what else is new on DVD: in "Terminator Salvation," Christian Bale takes the Schwarzenegger-free franchise into the future; in "A Christmas Tale," Catherine Deneuve plays a dying matriarch in a French import; and in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," Ben Stiller stars in a comedy sequel.