Near, Far, Wherever Comments Are...

I just wanted to take a moment out to publicly thank those of you who take the time to comment. I do read them all. Comments aren't exactly a reliable gauge of how popular a post or "series" is, but they're fun to read nonetheless and can help with motivation on darker days. Some time ago I had to switch to "moderated" comments for any article that's not on the front page to prevent the spambots from touching the film experience in its private places -- No means no! -- so I read all those, too. Just for fun a few notes on brand new comments from old posts.


Robert T is, like me, rattled that Disney is always trying to put Princess Aurora in a pink dress after the fact. It's just so wrong. Blue!

Sachin shared an alternative top 10 once confronted with the Top 50 Female Performances of the 00s. Hilary Swank shan't be denied her fans and Amy Ryan's Gone Baby Gone still has proponents. I've actually been thinking about the latter performance this week. I was wondering if anyone in Ben Affleck's The Town is going to seize awards traction by the balls the way Amy did in that earlier Affleck effort. [tangent] And I also saw the trailer to Jack Goes Boating wherein she romances Philip Seymour Hoffman. From the looks of the trailer she's playing this one in inverse noise proportion to her work on Gone Baby Gone. That's probably a smart move since PSH is directing and probably wants all the attention. He's purposefully making himself look even schlubbier than usual. Why must the cinema torture me with its sexism? They'd never let an actress equivalent of PSH anywhere near a camera, even if she was twice as talented as he. He gets lead roles and then purposefully looks worse than he needs to. If they need a woman to look "unattractive" they just hire someone breathtaking and forego makeup or they do prosthetic work to really drive the point home and win the gorgeous actress prizes for hiding her light under a bushel. (Nerve, touched.) [/tangent]

Finally, Derek added his voice to The Devil Wears Prada love from last Tuesday, calling Streep's work not just the best of 2006 but Best of the 00s period.

P.S. Hope you had a great holiday weekend or a weekend that felt like a holiday if it wasn't one for you.

P.P.S. Oscar prediction updates tomorrow.

P.P.P.S. Do you like the new banner? Now that it's up I'm totally wondering which of the six movie peoples will take my call. One Ringy Dingy. Two Ringy Dingy. Pick up!

Streep Nom #14: Miranda Priestley Forever

What we have here my friends is multi-tasking on fire!!! It's a tuesday top ten, it's a new episode of Great Moments in Screen Bitchery, it's the latest episode of "Streep at 60" which we're going to wrap up this week (at least in this format). It's all of these things simultaneously.

Ready? "Why is no one reh-dee?"


GIRD YOUR LOINS!

Ten Best Miranda Priestley Line Readings

10 "My flight has been cancelled... "
How incredulous and put out she sounds without even raising her voice. The way she says "school" when referencing her kids recital which she's desperate to attend is giggle worthy, too. So childish. Translation 'How could such a thing happen to the center of the universe... me?'

09 "There you are Emily. How many times do I have to scream your name?"
'Actually my name is Andrea.' Oh shut it Hathaway. She doesn't care. She will call you what she likes and you'll come running. Streep's double sided reaction to this interruption is A+ perfect. She's almost delighted that someone is talking back to her -- the novelty! -- stifling an awkard smile/laugh. But then immediately reasserts control with a list of demands. The silent hanging punchline is so choice "And Emily..."

[Great Moments in Screen Bitchery #211, The Devil Wears Prada]

08 "I agree. No business tonight. Enjoy"
I couldn't include only her bitchiest quips! Thrown by the appearance of her rival Jacqueline, Streep gives us just a peak at Miranda's vulnerability in the gala sequence. Her boss doesn't want to discuss her cryptic reference to a note. She acquiesces by pouring the charm on a little too thickly, a little too needily. Everyone has a boss... even bosses from hell.

07 "And you can do anything... right?"
She wants the Harry Potter unpublished manuscript for her twin daughters. Normally Miranda's bitchy lobs are masked as power displays or excusable from a certain kind of 'Do your job' angle. But this time she's pissed. This one is a direct and purposefully impossible challenge. It's a gauntlet thrown down. For once she doesn't pretend otherwise.


06 "The truth is there is no one who can do what I do."
This line is uttered in the middle of her final monologue in which she is both rationalizing her own actions and chastising Andie on her holier than thou perch. The line is true enough of the character. But it's also not directed at the woman she's speaking too but to herself. It's a pep talk for a narrow escape from the competitors nipping at her heels.

And yes, the line is also true enough of the actress.

05 "You have no sense of style or fashion... No, no. That wasn't a question."
This isn't the first laugh Streep wrings from the lengthy opening act interview scene which introduces all four principals but it's her first "joke" in the movie as Andie's (Anne Hathaway) interview wraps up. I still remember the peals of laughter in the theater.

04 "Why is no one reh-dee?" AND "By all means move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me."
So quotable. These two lines are fraternal twins though they are separated by the bulk of the movie. They both spin their comedy from Miranda's exasperated and exasperating impatience. The second impatient quip is uttered when she is at her weakest, determined to work and succeed even in the face of another divorce. The breathy weariness that she employs when annoyed is suddenly not an affectation but the reality.


03 "This...stuff?" (aka the "Cerulean" monologue)
This whole speech, in which Priestley schools her clueless new assistant, is gold. We've written about it before. What's truly remarkable about the scene, which I'd name as the best in the film, is that it's madly multitasking. It brings all four principles together and underlines their place in the narrative while showing us not just workplace politics but actual work (a rare site in movies!). It's a showboating monologue that doesn't interrupt the flow of the storytelling but is the story.


We already know that Miranda Priestely is an über bitch and a major success, but suddenly we're forced into reconsidering our own ideas about the value of what she does and why she's so good at it; it's not just Andie's education but ours. Miranda is working during the whole speech -- "I think we need a jacket here" -- and teaching us the business. The speech, beautifully written and exceptionally delivered, is actually full of hostility and condescencion but somehow we emerge from the other end of it not hating being dressed down but enjoying our own comeuppance. Plus it's "sort of comical" to borrow from the fashionista headmistress herself.

02 "That's all."
It's not that it's her signature catchphrase. It's that each and every time those two syllables slip from her mouth, they carry different weight and meaning. And yet, it's never so simple an actor's trick as varying the punctuation mark. "That's all" is always quiet and simple like a period. It's never an exclamation point, question mark, or even ellipses. So how does she do it? We don't know. It's a magic trick from a seasoned confident showman. Professional magicians don't give away their best secrets.

01 "So often they turn out to be dissapointing and... stupid." AND "I said to myself 'Go ahead. Take a chance. Hire the smart fat girl.'"
These twin lines in which she brutally crushes both Emily (stupid) and Andie (fat) are SO mean. But the brillance of Meryl's delivery is that though the text is actually about Miranda admitting fault the delivery is anything but that. She's coddling herself throughout, gently coaxing herself to 'take a chance' and forgiving herself by blaming both assistants. The self regard is as tall as the office building and as transparent as the glass behind her. It's funny, too.

[Great Moments in Screen Bitchery #12, The Devil Wears Prada]

Listen, it's true that any number of actresses would have been great fun in this role. But Meryl Streep isn't just playing the caricature but a character. She's finds abundant shade and multiple gradations of color. Other actresses would have been blue; Meryl Streep is turquoise, lapis and cerulean.

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Which brings us to Oscar nomination #14. We're almost done surveying the Streep Oscar fields, how about that?

And the nominees were...

• Penélope Cruz, Volver
• Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
• Helen Mirren, The Queen *winner*
  
• Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada *Nathaniel's vote*
  
• Kate Winslet, Little Children
  

Other women for context
Probably Came Close: none; Traction Trouble: Maggie Gyllenhaal (Sherrybaby)... but what a performance! Her best outside of Happy Endings I think. I wish I'd nominated her for my own awards.; Low Impact (Not Necessarily Their Fault): Annette Bening (Running With Scissors), Kirsten Dunst (Marie Antoinette), Ivana Bacquero (Pan's Labyrinth), Gretchen Mol (The Notorious Bettie Page), Laura Dern (INLAND EMPIRE), Naomi Watts (The Painted Veil); Box Office Queens: Beyonce Knowles (Dreamgirls), Jennifer Aniston (The Break-Up) and Toni Collette (Little Miss Sunshine)

What's your favorite Streep moment in Prada? And now that we have four years worth of hindsight, what do you think of the 2006 field but more specifically, what do you make of the absolute lack of competition both in who the final five would eventually be and in who won?

if you liked this post, try also... Streep at 60 or 10 Best Pfeiffer/Catwoman Line Readings
return to full blog for fresh posts

Meryl Streep's "Iron Lady" and Her Political Films

Received a message on Twitter this morning requesting my thoughts on Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher. Seems she's in talks to star as the Iron Lady herself in an early 80s set film about the lead up to the Falklands War. [src]

My thoughts, eh?

Me think about Streep? Never! But with Great Hope Springs and this one, it seems that the two-time Oscar winner will just keep reaching for the bait until a third is hers.

Though I can already sense that the rest of the internet will be gung-ho about this idea, I would urge caution. Perhaps it's silly to get caught up in any "Meryl will win her third Oscar for Thatcher" speculation.

The rest of the internet seems to have forgotten that this film will supposedly reunite Meryl with her Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd. Since Lloyd couldn't even manage the basic building blocks of film in Mamma Mia! (camera placement, editing, etcetera) and since there'll be no buoyant ABBA tunes to gloss over film weaknesses, and since Thatcher won't give Streep the opportunity to win shocked/amused hearts by jumping around with boundless 'can-you-believe-I'm-practically-a-senior-citizen?' energy ... well, I can't really see this as a crowd pleaser or a serious Oscar bait project. Yet.

The cynicism comes from another more political place, too. Though I greatly admire Meryl Streep's political activism offscreen and love it when she gets political in her acceptance speeches at awards shows, I'm not sure she's a true fit for political films. The last time I saw Streep playing a conservative politican (The Manchurian Candidate) I found it to be one of her hammiest and most predictable performances. And the great actress's other recent political films Lions for Lambs and Rendition didn't interest the public or Oscar voters. In point of fact, none of her political films have.

from left to right: The Seduction of Joe Tynan, Plenty,
The Manchurian Candidate, Rendition, Lions for Lambs

Zero Oscar nominations for a movie set in the political world probably doesn't sound that shocking until you stop to consider this second fact: Meryl Streep has appeared in 43 pictures and she has been nominated for 16 of them. That 37% nomination ratio beats just about anyone in any field (save James Dean of course). Yet, this seems to be the genre that wins her no love.

But then there's the biopic factor. And that's significant. That could change things.

I am sad to imagine that Streep would have to resort to mimicry to win (For all that she's given the cinema, to use a commoner's tactic?) but it may come to that since they never have time for her as a "winner" and they always have time for biographical performances. Thatcher is certainly a well known figure with an instantly recognizable voice that people will love hearing Streep nail in the same way people loved those flouncy vowels from Julie & Julia. [Note: Julia could, come to think of it, destroy my thesis since she plays a government official's wife in that one and was nominated. But the kitchen is that film's true location, not the government.]

Here's a few pie charts I whipped up about the past decade in Oscar acting winning character trends: real people in blue, fictional characters in red.


One could argue that the Academy voters can only choose from what films are made and released and women are the leads in fewer pictures than men. It's possible (though I'd like to see statistics) that they get more "true story" opportunities than not because you can't exactly change someone's gender in a biopic for better bankability (let's leave the hugely depressing 'men are more bankable' factor out of the conversation). But regardless, it's clear that when it comes to the Best Actress category itself, The Academy values character creation less than character recreation. That totally disturbs me though I readily admit it disturbs me far more than it does your average Oscar watcher and more than once I've been told to shut up about it already. Maybe it's just a personal hangup.

So this is why I was rooting so hard for Meryl Streep to win in 2006 for The Devil Wears Prada and Johnny Depp to win in 2003 for The Pirates of the Caribbean. Creating a perfectly realized instantly classic character that people will obsess about for years to come, even if you're creating it from bits and pieces of real life figures of your choosing, is far more of an imaginative creative feat for an actor than recreating the vocal cadences and posture of a famous person.

"I said to myself. 'Go ahead, take a chance. Hire the smart fat girl'"

That's all.

Are you excited to see Streep as Thatcher or do you wish she'd hook up with a true auteur who would challenge her mightily. Was Adaptation (2002) the last time?
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