In Contention

Tag: Mike Nichols

  • AFI honors Mike Nichols

    Mike NicholsScreen International reports that veteran film, TV and theater director Mike Nichols will be the next recipient of the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award, to be presented next summer:

    “Genius is a word oft overused in our world, but surely not in the case of Mike Nichols,” [AFI board of trustees chair Sir Howard] Stringer said. “His artistry has spanned the mediums of modern storytelling – movies, television and the stage – and his gifts across five decades continue to inspire artists and audiences alike.”

    No argument there from me. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” “The Graduate,” “Carnal Knowledge,” “Silkwood” and “Closer” all continue to hit me where it hurts, every time I see them. For others, it’s “Angels in America.” Or “Working Girl.” Or even his brave attempt to make cinematic sense of “Catch-22.” Forget the duds … mainstream American cinema doesn’t have many (or any) like him today. Congratulations, sir.

  • 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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