Leave it to Nikki Finke to find the most corrosive way to spin a rash of foodie stories. Proving she has lost none of her bile under new ownership, Finke flamed the NYT for excessive coverage of “Julie & Julia,” snarking about director Nora Ephron’s movies and cozy relationship with the paper in the process.

The Times has indeed gone to town on the movie – it’s been hard to miss the multiple tie-ins – but the paper hasn’t been the only one to use “Julie & Julia” as an excuse to whip up food features. The L.A. Times ran a similar story about cooking in Ephron’s kitchen while the New Yorker ran a feature about the director, a convivial hostess in her own right.

Granted, yesterday’s front-page Arts & Leisure story about happy marriages on film , Maureen Dowd interview with Ephron on the op-ed page and magazine cover story about Julia Child’s influence on American cooking was a bit much, especially after the earlier story about culture editor Sam Sifton’s misadventures concocting a meatloaf for Ephron and another on food in film, but it seems a stretch to tar a front-page story about poor conditions in reality shows with the same brush. Yes, the story led with anecdotes from “Hell’s Kitchen,” but then went on to address conditions in “Project Runway” and other reality shows; there was no mention of Julia Child or “Julie & Julia” in the story.

Reality cooking shows are very popular, after all. (This was part of Michael Pollan’s point in his NYT mag cover story, but oh, never mind.)

But back to the clear tie-ins: Why so many? As Finke’s own readers suggest, the coverage prolly has as much to do with Child’s iconic status as Ephron’s insider status. The fact that Ephron, a former journalist, also cooks and is willing to collaborate with reporters also helps. There’s a third news peg to the movie: the fact that it had its origins as a blog; the Chicago Tribune went with that angle, visiting Julie Powell in her kitchen.

The massive buildup for “Julie & Julia” reminds me of the explosion of Judd Apatow stories before “Knocked Up” opened. Apatow, who had been in the business for a while before breaking through, knew about the dangers of media overkill, and stopped giving interviews for a while after the movie opened.

He’s long since resumed, and has been all over the chat show circuit for “Funny People.” That movie has had a much more mixed reception than “Knocked Up,” however. Film pundits have been chewing over its opening weekend box office, and what it might mean for the prolific writer-producer. The movie actually came in slightly lower than Sunday’s projection, possibly due to word of mouth or low desire among femmes to see the movie. (The LAT noted yesterday that women were much less satisfied with the movie than men.)

While some analysts have given Apatow the benefit of a doubt, suggesting the initial take wasn’t that far below “Knocked Up,” Time’s Richard Corliss points out the obvious difference between this movie and some of Apatow’s earlier low-cost comedies: “The new movie will be hard pressed to duplicate that word-of-mouth salesmanship,” Corliss writes. “For most audiences, Apatow’s 2-hr. 24-min. attempt to encase a James L. Brooks–style comedy-drama in an overflowing condom of penis jokes didn’t work. Instead of a’Terms of Endearment,’ it’s more like Brooks’ last flop movie. Yep, ‘Spanglish.’”

Anne Thompson, blogging at her new IndieWIRE home, suggested that the movie would never have been released at the current length had Stacey Snider still been at Universal’s helm. She asserts the studio’s current woes began when Snider left with DreamWorks.

However, some pundits have been reluctant to read too much into “Funny People’s” opening. THR’s Steven Zeitchik, who only yesterday blogged that the movie’s opening weekend was “cold proof that Judd Apatow’s hot streak is over,” today backtracked to report that the filmmaker’s stock is still very high in Hollywood.

A lot of people in showbiz have staked future projects on Apatow. Here’s hoping his next movies are more successful creatively and financially.