Months of Meryl: The River Wild (1994)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

 

 #21 —Gail Hartman, a rafting expert whose distracted husband and disgruntled son will soon turn out to be the least of her problems…

MATTHEW: The River Wild opens with the rather surprising sight of Meryl Streep rowing a kayak with steely determination and brisk athletic prowess down the lengthy expanse of the Charles River. Watching Curtis Hanson’s waterborne caper for the first time in 2018, I asked myself with stunned curiosity the same question that surely rolled through the minds of ‘90s audiences upon the film’s release: How exactly did she get here? The River Wild is a light rip-roarer that could have easily ended up as little more than a forgettable IMDB entry in the filmography of Sigourney Weaver or Geena Davis or Linda Hamilton were it not for someone’s out-of-the-box idea to transform one of our most famously worldly and erudite thespians into a hard-bodied, take-charge action heroine...

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Interview: Director Haifaa al-Mansour & Actor Douglas Booth on "Mary Shelley"

by Murtada Elfadl

Douglas Booth and Elle Fanning as the Shelleys in "Mary Shelley"

The new biopic Mary Shelley is about the famous writer, played by Elle Faning, while she’s in the throes of writing the Gothic magnum opus Frankenstein, at only 18 years of age. The film tells the story of the events that led her there. Those include her tempestuous relationships with renowned romantic poet Percy Shelley (Douglas Booth) who would become her husband, and with her half-sister Claire (Bel Powley). The film takes us to the trio’s fateful stay at Lord Byron's (Tom Sturridge) house at Lake Geneva, where the idea of Frankenstein was conceived.

This is Haifaa al-Mansour’s second directorial project after the 2013 festival hit Wadjda. Wadjda was the first feature shot entirely inside Saudi Arabia, and the first ever directed by a Saudi woman, making al-Mansour a true trailblazer. It''s not surprising then to find her drawn to the story of Mary Shelley, another pioneer. I found a through line, despite the period setting and different locations, between the two films. Both stories of young women determined to chart their own destiny. So that was where I started my conversation with al-Mansour and Booth when they were in New York last month for the Tribeca Film Festival. THE INTERVIEW IS AFTER THE JUMP...

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Pretty Linky

• /Film Jake Gyllenhaal lands the villain gig in the next Spider-Man movie. He'll be playing Mysterio so let's hope they don't go with the comic book costume because enough with hiding gorgeous actor faces behind masks or in this case a whole opaque globe
• The New Yorker has a long read profile of the great filmmaker Claire Denis
• Deadline Andy Karl has replaced Steve Kazee in the Richard Gere role in the Broadway bound musical adaptation of Pretty Woman

• The Village Voice profiles Betty Gabriel of Get Out and "no no no no no" gif fame
• Vulture A Quiet Place has racked up a stunning $300 million worldwide
• Cartoon Brew BC is becoming an animated feature. What's BC you ask? It's that syndicated comic strip that's been running in newspapers forever about cavemen.
• Variety a report on the reshoots of Solo and Ron Howard taking over and shooting 70% of what's now on screen (unfortunately everyone is vague on details! Perhaps someday we'll get a juicy oral history)
• The Muse Björk makes her first TV appearance in years and years
• Towleroad the major studios get "insuffienct / poor / failing" ratings from GLAAD in its annual report. 
• Broadway World apparently the 50th anniversary of Hello Dolly (1968) is sparking a six month long celebration in Westchester and Putnam County along the Hudson River where filming took place. Who knew people were this into that Babs film? 

RIP
• NYT Patricia Morison, Broadway's first Kate in "Kiss Me Kate" and a movie actress in early franchises has died at 103 years of age 
• The Atlantic Philip Roth, literary giant, has died. Feels like the end of a particular literary era
• My New Plaid Pants Gorgeous beefcake Clint Walker, originally envisioned by the studios as a Rock Hudson rival, has died at 90

Exit Video
Sarah Paulson does a Drew Barrymore impression. And then runs into Drew Barrymore. 

Soundtracking: "Burlesque"

by Chris Feil

Much as we love it, isn’t Burlesque one of our least distinct recent original musicals? The genre is no stranger to borrowing tropes that have worked in the past and Burlesque is no exception - dreams of stardom, vague romance, putting on a show to save the barn. The real culprit here the film’s mishmash assemblage of tunes, populated with high peaks and easily ignored plains.

But I should shut up because really: who cares? It’s Cher, bitch!

And oft repeated quotables aside, the presence of a singing and dancing Cher on screen is a now rare delight that shouldn’t be taken for granted (soak up those Mamma Mia! 2 rays of sunshine this July, kids). Some are quick to forget that Cher is always in on the joke, or that her lack of pretension makes opulence where more self-serious performers would be trapped in chintziness...

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Q&A: Actors Who Should Be More Famous, Broadway Crossovers, and Animal Horror

Hello everyone!

Nathaniel, eternally cat-sittingWe haven't done a Q & A in so long so let's jump right in. In order to actually do these more often I'll answer just five or six questions at once. Hopefully this will stir up more focused comment parties, too!

PAR: Julianne Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Annette Bening enter the thunderdome. Only one leaves. Who? - par

A: LOL! I hope you aren't being cruel and just making me sacrifice two of my all time favorites at the altar of, well, my Pfavorite. But if we're talking about cage matches in post-apocalypse desert landscapes my answer is The Bening. Moore would break down into crying jags in no time, becoming too vulnerable. Pfeiffer would seem like easy prey put up a very spirited and scary pfight but you know that The Bening is all wile and steel and surprise maneuvers. How else did she conquer Hollywood and Warren Beatty and continue to become even more incredible as an actress the older she got despite being brilliant right out of the gate?

STEVE G: What film out of Cannes 2018, that wasn't previously on your radar, are you most excited to see?

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