Months of Meryl: August Osage County (2013)

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

#45 —Violet Weston, the cancer-stricken, drug-addicted matriarch of an Oklahoma family.

MATTHEW: Tracy Letts’ high-octane, Pulitzer Prize-winning family drama August: Osage County was the toast of the 2007-2008 Broadway season, which made a cinematic adaptation all but inevitable and the star involvement of Meryl Streep an equally foregone conclusion. The vituperative, pill-popping Violet Weston is the crowning achievement of Letts’ play and arguably the meatiest dramatic role to come along for sexagenarian actresses in the past 15 years. The part has been previously interpreted on stage by the Tony-winning Deanna Dunagan (who originated the character in the initial Steppenwolf production), Estelle Parsons, and Phylicia Rashad, any one of whom could have bowled us over in an alternate film, as might have rumored candidates like Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, and Glenn Close. This isn’t to take away a single merit from Streep’s no-holds-barred work, but rather acknowledge that Streep herself is the rare and defiant exception who proves the rule that actresses over the age of 50 are anathema to Hollywood’s gatekeepers.

Before falling in love with the eye of the camera, Streep was first and foremost a creature of the theater...

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Stage Door: Bernhardt/Hamlet

by Dancin' Dan

It's a tall enough order to write a play about one of the greatest actresses the world has ever known. It's quite another to write a play about that same actress taking on one of the most famous plays ever written. But Theresa Rebeck has never been one to back away from a challenge. Her delightful new play Bernhardt/Hamlet imagines what it must have been like for the great Sarah Bernhardt to assay the role of none other than Hamlet, all the way back in 1897. To say the least, it was difficult.

Bernhardt (Janet McTeer), in her fifties, was past the point where she could believably play the dying ingénues that made her famous (and also far past the point where she wanted to). Out of money but full of ambition, she decides that Shakespeare's melancholy Dane will be her vehicle for a comeback after her last play, written by Edmond Rostand (Jason Butler Harner), flopped with audiences despite love from critics. But she is having difficulty "finding" the Prince, frustrated by his ease with flowery verse and his inability to take action.

Can a powerful woman play a powerful man? Bernhardt is absolutely sure of it. She says...

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Can You Ever Link Me?

• In Contention Alfonso Cuarón could tie Walt Disney's record this year for most nominations for a single person in one year (six). And he could break the record for most nominations for a single person from a single film (four)
• /Film Katherine Langford (Love Simon, 13 Reasons Why) added to the cast of Infinity War's sequel
• Variety Extremely sad to report that Filmstruck is shutting down next week. It had become the go to streaming place for cinephiles once Netflix started having such crappy movie selections
• Next Best Picture if you're not sick of hearing me rave about Can You Ever Forgive Me? yet, I'm the guest on this podcast doing that again.

• TFE in case you missed it, our podcast on the same movie
• The Daily Beast hateful conservatives now targeting Netflix's brilliant Big Mouth series which is all the more reason why all of you should watch it. It's awesome.
• /Film this is kind of non-news given the caginess of the statements but TriStar is still hoping to mount a Labyrinth sequel with Jennifer Connelly reprising her role 30+ years later
• MNPP 13 moustaches of Halloween - fun series, now with more Sam Elliott and Vincent Price
• /Film to celebrate Dario Argento a ranking of his features. His most famous film, Suspiria, is NOT number one!
• Next Best Picture on recent under 15 minute performances nominated for Oscars with some possibilities this year like Sam Elliott and Daniel Kaluuya

Off Screen or Behind the Scenes
• Wall Street Journal thinks there is an atmosphere of fear at Netflix with their quick firings
• Variety Boy George interview as Culture Club releases their first album since 1999. It's called "Life" -- ftr I think "Colour By Numbers," their 1983 album is one of the most perfect albums ever recorded
• Playbill 10 plays and musicals that only require 2 actors
• Playbill Wicked is about to turn 15. Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel are sharing two things they added to the musical that weren't in the original script/score.
• Fast Company examines the state of Hollywood's middle class. Turns out the proliferation of content isn't good for everyone and the reasons why aren't all that apparent from the outside (shouldn't more content mean more job opportunities?). Note: this website has annoying ads that are confusing to get out of in order to read the article (hint) scroll down without hitting that scroll down sign! 

Stage Door: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

by Dancin' Dan

You'd be forgiven for thinking, as I did way back in 2013 when it was first revealed a Harry Potter play was in development, that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was going to be an unmitigated disaster. The last time a stage show based on a billion-dollar book and film franchise requiring inspired technical elements opened on Broadway, it was Julie Taymor's legendarily disastrous Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, a production plagued by poor decisions and bad luck from the start. You'd even be forgiven for still being skeptical when Cursed Child opened in London in 2016, and reports from the West End were nearly all rapturous. After all, Rowling and Potter are national treasures, so surely the Brits might have been blowing this a bit out of proportion, right?

Well, dear reader, I'm here to tell you to believe the hype...

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Months of Meryl: Mamma Mia! (2008)

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

#39 —Donna Sheridan, a dancing queen, hotelier, and single mother of a bride-to-be.

MATTHEW: When it comes to motion picture musicals, the old adage certainly holds true — they really don’t make them like they used to. But when it comes to Mamma Mia!, the 2008 cinematic adaptation of the long-running jukebox stage show/certified cash cow that’s still chugging along on the West End and in numerous cities across the globe, one could justifiably say that they, thankfully, never made them quite like this.

Structured around the music of ABBA, the story is thin but not automatically dire, at least on paper: Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) is an unusually deceptive 20-year-old engaged to be married to Sky (Dominic Cooper) and living on the fictitious, picturesque Greek island of Kalokairi, where her mother Donna (Meryl Streep) owns and operates a modest yet crumbling hotel...

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