In Contention

Tag: Meryl Streep

  • Cheer up, Meryl — you have your masterpiece

    Meryl StreepYou may well have spotted this very funny (and frequently accurate) Onion piece doing the web rounds today, in which a writer claiming to be Meryl Streep shoots down her career with all the withering disdain of Miranda Priestly.

    The gist of the argument is that, as fine an actor as Streep is, she has — whether through bad luck or bad choices — never made a truly great film.

    I can see the temptation to agree. Certainly the latter stretch of Streep’s filmography is spotty: even if you remove the outright embarrassments, (“Prime,” “Mamma Mia!”) or even the respectable-but-still-throwaway entertainments (“Julie & Julia,” “The Devil Wears Prada”), you’re left with a lot of worthily middlebrow titles engineered more as performance showcases than as vital, durable cinema.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 1 — Best in show so far, campaign strategies, festival preview and “the 10”

    Oscar TalkWelcome to the first installment of Oscar Talk, a (hopefully) weekly podcast between myself and Anne Thompson, newly of indieWIRE.  We spend some time getting our feet wet in this introductory kudocast, but among the topics on the rundown:

    • Films screened thus far with the best Oscar profile heading into the awards season, including “The Hurt Locker,” “Up” and even some discussion on “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

    • Meryl Streep’s performance in “Julie & Julia,” what Anne calls “the story of the summer,” and how Streep succeeds into her 60s where her contemporary actresses have not.

    • Oscar’s controversial move to 10 and what how we think it will affect the awards landscape.

    • The rise of indie studios such as Overture Films, Summit Entertainment and Apparition.

    • Shifting philosophies of Oscar campaign strategies

    • Paramount bumping “Shutter Island” to 2010.

    • All things “Avatar”: the new trailer, “Avatar” Day, etc.

    • A festival preview as Anne runs down her list of anticipations at Toronto.

    And then we ran out of steam.  For now.  I runs close to 40 minutes, but we had plenty to discuss in this first edition. We’ll whittle it down by half that in future installments, I’m sure.

    Have a listen below.  (Audio?  How novel!)  We’ll try to do another one from Telluride but the more consistent stuff will probably pick up in a month or so.

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  • New generation

    Apropos of nothing really, except this thin story about her being cast in the latest John Carpenter thriller, but for the first time this afternoon I took time to properly look at Mamie Gummer. You might know her better under the name of “Meryl Streep’s daughter.”

    Gummer has been cropping up in supporting parts for a couple of years now, notably in “Stop-Loss,” “John Adams” and now in “Taking Woodstock,” while she played a younger incarnation of her mother in the dismal “Evening.” I can’t say she’s ever particularly stood out to me, but on glancing at the photo accompanying the Screen Daily story, I was suddenly startled by the family resemblance. If she goes on to major things, this could get quite unsettling.

    Mamie Gummer

  • Did Michelle Monaghan just enter the Best Actress race?

    Michelle Monaghan in TruckerI haven’t seen James Mottern’s “Trucker,” which had a world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and was praised in many quarters, most agreeing that Michelle Monaghan’s lead performance was awards caliber.

    Ironically, the press release (published in part after the jump) quotes The Hollywood Reporter’s Roger Friedman front and center just a few days after he bemoaned what he perceived as a weak year for Best Actress contenders.

    The strongest contenders right now look to be Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia,” Carey Mulligan in “An Education” and, sight unseen, Hilary Swank in “Amelia.”  If enough voters see “The Burning Plain,” Charlize Theron certainly has a shot.  But the bubble is big on this race, I’ll give Friedman that.

    Monterey Media has decided to release the film up for an October 9 release, right in the middle of the awards season.  We all know surprise contenders show up sooner or later.  Maybe we’re looking at our first one right here.

    A snippet of the press release after the jump.

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  • Prescient

    (Courtesy: Media Decoder)

  • It’s not so dire, Mr. Friedman

    Shohreh Aghdashloo in The Stoning of Soraya MObviously Hollywood Reporter gossip hound Roger Friedman hasn’t been reading our Contenders section, or else he’d know there are plenty of lead actress hopefuls out there, not the dearth he apparently perceives.

    Friedman rattles off 12 contenders in a recent piece titled Shortage of “Best Actresses in the Coming Oscar Season,” but he misses some key possibilities.  Abbie Cornish in “Bright Star,” for one, who didn’t necessarily impress me much, but could certainly be in the hunt.  “Precious,” meanwhile, is considered a ripe opportunity for supporting contender Mo’Nique, but lead Gabourey Sidibe could certainly find her share of notices.

    Gwyneth Paltrow in “Two Lovers” and Zooey Deschanel in “(500) Days of Summer” are two extreme longshot contenders whose films have already been released, but Penelope Cruz deserves to be in the discussion for “Broken Embraces,” surely, as does Tilda Swinton in “Julia.”

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  • Great performers at their best

    Tom Cruise in MagnoliaAfter spending some time this summer watching some excellent films on DVD, I was inspired to write this piece about the great actors’ (living, with one exception) greatest performances.

    Narrowing it down to one each (brutal, believe me), I think have come up with a list of actors, young and old, that represents some of the finest talent working in film over the last 40 years, and selected the performance I believe each will be remembered for. This is obviously a subjective endeavor, so if you feel different, tell us why.

    Let’s dive in…

    Jack Nicholson
    Jack is not often given the credit for being the brilliant actor he is because we far too often expect him to be “just Jack.” But when he puts his actor’s hat on there simply may not be a greater actor in film history. For me he was never better than he was as Randall Patrick McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which is a breathtaking piece of work. Watch him when he’s not speaking and see the emotion he packs into this astonishing piece of acting.

    Meryl Streep
    There is no question here for me. As concentration camp survivor Sophie in “Sophie’s Choice,” Streep gave not only her best performance, but the single finest performance ever given by a woman, in my view. That terrifying silent scream paralyzes the viewer with heartache and dare I say, shame. Sophie may have survived the camp, but she walks through her life more dead than alive because her soul was left behind and somehow Streep conveys that to the audience.

    Robert Duvall
    This is a tough call because Duvall was so good in “Apocalypse Now,” but I think his best work was in “The Apostle” as a preacher challenged by his own flaws and forced to atone for his sins. A volcanic performance in which Duvall never seems to stop moving or speaking.

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  • Streep sells

    Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!I may have said a while back that Meryl Streep is the most bankable actress in the business at the moment (despite her lowly ranking on the Forbes 100), but I didn’t quite mean it in this way.

    “Julie & Julia” may not be performing at quite the same level as “Mamma Mia!” or “The Devil Wears Prada,” but it still marks the third time in four years that Streep has successfully spearheaded a healthy piece of mainstream counter-programming amid the testosterone-fueled dross of summer.

    With Nancy Meyers’s “It’s Complicated” looking to apply that same populist Midas touch to the Christmas season, that’s a pretty remarkable track record for any woman in the business, much less one in her sixties.

    But this article by Jonathan Romney in today’s Independent takes Streep’s commercial viability even further, and outside the movie theater, by pointing out the peripheral economic effects of her recent hits, in departments ranging from the music industry to the leisure sector.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festivals beckon, ‘District 9’ opens

    Sharlto Copley in District 9• The New York Film Festival unveiled a decidedly foreign lineup, with Alain Resnais and Pedro Almodovar at either end.

    • Speaking of festivals, the long-awaited “The Road” was among the titles added to the Toronto slate this week.

    • With everyone excited about “District 9” this week, we took time to chat to the film’s breakout star Sharlto Copley.

    • Best Film Editing was the subject of this week’s installment of Tech Support.

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  • Nathaniel Rogers boards the Mulligan express

    Carey Mulligan“An Education” and its breakout star Carey Mulligan continue to slay bloggers wherever they go. Chief cheerleader Jeff Wells hasn’t stopped talking about the film since its Sundance bow in January, and you’ll remember that Kris joined the fan club (with added props for Alfred Molina) in June.

    Sasha Stone was sufficiently dazzled by Mulligan’s work to place her at the top of a list of today’s finest young actresses. Now The Film Experience’s Nathaniel Rogers, the guy for whom Best Actress is the most holy of all award categories, has seen the film, and is rendered virtually speechless by Mulligan’s performance:

    just… WOW

    We’re still five plus months away from nominations but, for the moment, it looks like a Carey vs. Meryl showdown on March 7th, 2010.

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  • Streep on the Oscars: Preempt other awards shows already

    Meryl Streep at the 81st annual Academy AwardsAs we all are well aware, one of the assumed reasons for the Academy’s recent decision to expand the Best Picture category to 10 nominees is the potential for the inclusion of popular films, which, the thinking goes, could help with the telecast’s ratings woes.

    I’m less and less convinced that, had films like “The Dark Knight” and “WALL-E” been nominated, viewership would have been much better.  And the dirty little secret of the animated feature film category is that it wasn’t a field pushed through by animators wanting their work to be selectively rewarded but, in actuality, an earlier attempt to widen the net to more populist entertainment.

    I have always been of the mind that it’s not the films in the mix that necessarily affect the ratings (though that certainly has an affect), but the fact that the Oscars air after months and months of awards shows that essentially numb the public to kudos fests by the time the big daddy ceremony finally rolls around.  And it seems 15-time nominee (and soon-to-be 16-time nominee) Meryl Streep agrees with me, going so far as to suggest the Academy move it’s telecast all the way up to January 1st.

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  • 8/10 Web Round-up

    Hayao Miyazaki• Charles Burress chats up legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki. [Los Angeles Times]

    • John DeVore goes fly fishing in Vermont for the “A River Runs Through It” Blu-ray junket. [Premiere]

    • A.O. Scott wraps up the summer with a tired old argument against the dumbed down summer movie season. [New York Times]

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  • 8/7 Web Round-up

    Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar on the set of Broken Embraces• Patrick Goldstein revisits a collection of filmmakers’ tributes to John Hughes, “the Tolstoy of American teenagers.” [The Big Picture]

    • The irrepressible Pedro Almodovar talks aging, Cruz and “Broken Embraces.”  On a side note, how sweet is the photo to the right? [Daily Telegraph]

    • Meryl Streep has a problem with male bloggers. Love you anyway, Meryl. [Salon]

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  • ‘It’s Complicated’ trailer

    Looks frothy. Of course. But the way Alec Baldwin delivers the line “I like it” at the beginning kind of cracks me up.  Added ammunition for Meryl’s forthcoming lead actress nomination for “Julie & Julia”:

  • 8/6 Web Round-up

    Nation's Pride• Nikki Finke takes umbrage with the “Nation’s Pride” trailer being used to promote “Inglourious Basterds.” [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

    • Graeme McRanor sits down with “District 9” composer Clinton Shorter. [Jawbone.tv]

    • Top 10 movie pregnancies. [The Film Experience]

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festivals, foxes and funny people

    Adam Sandler in Funny People• In the week’s most dramatic news, Universal rather cleared its awards slate by bumping both “The Wolf Man” and Paul Greengrass’s “Green Zone” to 2010.

    • Against expectations, we were won over by Meryl Streep’s latest bid for that elusive third Oscar, “Julie & Julia.”

    • The Venice Film Festival unveiled a typically well-planned lineup, with “The Road” and Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” leading the American charge.

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  • Back East with the ladies of ‘Julie & Julia’

    Meryl Streep in Julie & JuliaEarlier in the week I offered up my (surprisingly) positive assessment of Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia,” a shrewdly adapted narrative that features two of my favorite performances of the year from Meryl Streep (as famed chef Julia Child) and Stanley Tucci (as her loving husband, Paul).

    Today in the pages of USA Today, Susan Wloszczyna has caught up with Ephron, Streep and co-star Amy Adams for a frothy little interview from New York.  She even sets the quaint mood early on with a lead describing “a picture-perfect summer’s day at the Blue Hill restaurant at Stone Barns, a bucolic foodie mecca about an hour’s drive from Manhattan in Westchester County.”  She then proceeds to structure the piece like a recipe (but of course), including the proper asides from the conversation here and there.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Julie & Julia” (***1/2)

    Julie & JuliaIt’s probably a little cliche to lead a review of Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia” with a phrase like “I’m not wired for movies like this.”  It ends up being a back-handed compliment to the film and doesn’t exactly illuminate why it’s a successful piece of work, but that is, nevertheless, the first thought that popped in when, to my surprised delight, I found myself falling in love with it.

    Cleverly adapted from two novels by Ephron (Julie Powell’s “Julie & Julia” and Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme’s “My Life in France”), the film moves along at an airy but focused pace for an hour and a half or so before losing that momentum going into the third act, but along the way, it provides the expected showcase for a controlled Meryl Streep performance that couldn’t have been more “on.”

    In some ways, it’s becoming almost unsettling, the acute level of precision with which Streep can flesh out a character.  Almost as if something’s off, like the paranoid feeling that seeps in when things are too “good.”  As chef Julia Child, Streep manhandles the role and makes it her own, exuding passion, dedication and a well-rounded personality that we’ve only truly known as a performance of sorts on TV throughout the years.

    The film parallels the story of Child’s culinary awakening in Paris (accompanied by her loving husband, Paul Child, played by Stanley Tucci) with that of Julie Powell, living a modest but unfulfilled life in Queens and stumbling onto a raison d’être in Child’s cookbook.  Powell, annoyed at her knack for never finishing what she sets out to do, commits to cooking every recipe in Child’s book over the course of one year.

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