Review: Meryl Streep as "Florence Foster Jenkins"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

It takes a gifted singer to sing this horribly. Every other note is wrong. No phrasing goes unmangled by shortness of breath. No lovely moment meant to soar cannot be shattered by a flat ear-piercing decibel. The central conceit of Stephen Frears new comedy Florence Foster Jenkins is that Florence, a considerably wealthy patron of the arts played by Meryl Streep, lives for music but is ghastly at it. The inside joke, given the casting, is that we all know La Streep can sing with the best of them. She followed the "is there nothing she can't do?" revelation of Ironweed's tragic showstopper "He's Me Pal" (1987, Oscar-Nominated) with transcendent country crooner feeling in Postcards From the Edge (1990, Oscar-Nominated), and just kept on singing whenever a movie gave her the opportunity all the way up through last year's Ricki and the Flash which was practically a concert film there were so many scenes of Streep at the mic, rocking out.

Florence Foster Jenkins doesn't rock out. Florence is not that kind of girl and Florence, also, is not the kind of movie...

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HFPA Donates Half a Million Dollars to Renovate Historic Egyptian Theater, Site of First Movie Premiere

by Daniel Crooke

While known most casually as the Cool Mom of awards ceremonies – here, you and your friends can drink as much champagne as you want but make sure you do it under my roof, in front of my cameras – the Hollywood Foreign Press Association accomplishes much more every year than pulling off Oscar season’s liveliest, sloppiest party. At their annual Grants Banquet last week, the HFPA awarded over two million dollars worth of grants to non-profit arts organizations, higher education fellowships, professional trainings, and other film-centric or adjacent projects and spaces.

To Angelino cinephiles, film history buffs, and fans of landmark cultural sites, one additional grant announcement might spark some interest: a $500,000 grant to renovate and restore the legendary movie palace, the Egyptian Theater. Home to reams of Golden Age Hollywood lore and, contemporarily, the encyclopedic repertory organization American Cinematheque – the recipients of the grant, and masterminds of the theater’s first major renovation in 1996 – the Egyptian has held a special place in the past, present, and future of Hollywood film culture since its construction in 1922 by film exhibition (and cultural appropriation) impresario Sid Grauman. While Grauman’s Chinese Theater would go on to secure higher iconography in the pantheon of movie palaces and cemented handprints, the Egyptian arguably influenced the practices of the Hollywood hype machine more integrally and with more longevity; after all, it hosted the first ever movie premiere in history, for Allan Dwan's Robin Hood starring Douglas Fairbanks.

Which is all to say, where we see movies matters. Whether it’s a packed AMC with the comfiest seats and strongest air conditioning, a local independent theater with roots in the community, or a trusted repertory house with a taste-expanding slate, the environment in which we watch has the capacity to add a special new flavor to your filmgoing experience.

Do you have a favorite theater around where you live that makes you feel warm and fuzzy when the lights dim? Personally, The Neon in Dayton, Ohio makes me as bubbly inside as one of their homemade Italian sodas.

Golden Globes 77. A Look Back

Editors Note: Nathaniel is running behind on the Cinematography Special - but don't miss yesterday's installment or Tim's huge ongoing post at Antagony & Ecstasy so we'll resume tomorrow night. In the meantime enjoy Eric's look back at the Globes in '77, since its our Year of the Month.

Peter O'Toole with Globe winners Jane Fonda (Julia), Richard Burton (Equus), and Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl)

Globe/Oscar comparisons are always fun to see because though the  groups have different sensibilities, inevitable industry hype influences both. Yet the Globes are rarely revisited outside of their years since Oscar is the one people obsess on when they look back, "the one that matters" as it were. Let's correct that as we gaze at 1977... 

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156 Days Until SAG Nominations !

Premature you say? Well, they just sent out a press release. The Awards Season Calendar just keeps filling in. It currently looks like so:

2016
Aug 31st-Sept 10th Venice Film Festival
Sept 2nd-5th Telluride Film Festival
Sept 8th-18th Toronto International Film Festival
Sept 18th -The 68th Annual Emmy Awards
Sep 30th-Oct 16th New York Film Festival
Nov 10th-17th AFI Festival
Nov 12th Governor's Awards (Honorary Oscars)
Nov 17th-Dec 11th SAG Nomination Balloting
Nov 25th-Dec 9th Golden Glob Nomination Balloting Begins
Dec 12th Golden Globe Nominations
Dec 14th SAG Nominations
Dec 19th-Jan 27th Final SAG Voting

2017
Jan 5th-13th Oscar Nomination Balloting
Jan 8th -The 74th Annual Golden Globe Awards
Jan 24th -Oscar Nominations
Jan 29th -The 23rd Annual SAG Awards
Feb 4th -The 69th Annual DGA Awards
Feb 6th Oscar Nominee Luncheon
Feb 11th Sci-Tech Oscars
Feb 12th - The 59th Annual Grammy Awards
Feb 13th-21st Final Oscar Voting
Feb 26th -The 89th Annual Academy Awards

YES, THIS MEANS I NEED TO START THOSE FREQUENT OSCAR CHART UPDATES. SOON DEAR ONES, VERY SOON.

Lukewarm off the Presses: Hamilton, Banks, Anastasia, Cloak & Dagger. Plus Tony Buzz!

Nathaniel, back from the Nashville Film Festival where I juried on the "New Directors" competition. More on that once our awards are announced. Until then, I'm under hush order. But let's catch up on all sorts of movie & entertainment news that happened over the past handful of days that we didn't cover here.

• Lin-Manuel Miranda won the Pulitzer for his Broadway smash Hamilton and, giddy squeal, The New Yorker's television goddess Emily Nussbaum won the Pulitzer for criticism. If you haven't read her, you must. She's just wonderful.
• The Golden Globes have clarified their rules for what drama and comedy mean in a probably futile attempt to get campaigns to stop trying to game the system.
• I forgot to mention that teen superhero duo Cloak and Dagger are getting their own TV show (yay! always loved them in the comic books) but Kate Beaton has two words for you "tit windows"
• Elizabeth Banks plans to direct a revival of the Charlie's Angels franchise and she's also playing the villain in the new Power Rangers movie resulting in a horrifying photo.
• Beloved bossy TV mom Doris Roberts has died. The supporting actress won 4 Emmys for her role on Everybody Loves Raymond and also had memorable roles on St. Elsewhere (another Emmy win), Remington Steele, and Angie. She was not only well loved by audiences but co-stars too.
• Carrie Fisher has officially blamed George Lucas for inspiring her writing career because his Star Wars dialogue was so terrible
• Johnny Depp and Amber Heard made some sort of weird apology video for that dog business in Australia
• Adapting animated features into Broadway musicals isn't just for Disney anymore. Anastasia (1997) becomes a stage musical this summer in London and is eyeing the 2016/2017 Broadway season
• There are some who are suspicious that this news is not really official but Nicole Kidman is supposedly returning to Broadway this fall with Photograph 51, after its London run
• Industry people got really excited about 3D high frame rate footage from Ang Lee's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk at a Future of Cinema Conference
• The Academy is STILL trying to explain their new voting rules. So do we get it now?

RANDOM CASTING & DATE SHIFTS
No links just news ICYMI: Daisy Ridley will headline a new film from Marielle Heller, director of Diary of a Teenage Girl called Kolma, a 'mystical' romance; Willem Dafoe joined Justice League (role unknown); Walton Goggins has replaced Joe Manganiello (they're so alike. um...) in History Channel's forthcoming Navy SEALs series Six; Naomi Watts will headline the Netflix psychological thriller series Gypsy (not the musical!) in which she plays a therapist who gets mixed up in her client's lives; Kurt Russell & Kate Hudson will star in the TV series Barbary Coast, a period drama about the gold rush in the 19th century; Kate McKinnon may star in the new back-to-school comedy Senior Year; Nicole Beharie, who was so amazing in Shame (2011) and then starred in TV's Sleepy Hollow, will play the lead female role in the remake of 90s thriller Jacob's Ladder; The Golden Globes will take place on January 8th, 2017 this coming awards season. 

THIS JUST IN
Slightly fresher news before we go

Two of Broadway's Funniest Ladies: Laura Benanti & Jane Krakowski, in "She Loves Me"

• Doug Kraner, a production designer on TV's "Gotham" and several movie hits including Uncle Buck, Sleeping with the Enemy and Enough, has passed away.
• A24 is on board a new James Ponsoldt (Spectacular Now) project a true story drama based on the book "I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution"
• The Tonys are coming. The Tonys are coming. That means precursor madness. Yes, as with the Oscars there are many precursors to the Tony Awards. The Outer Critic Circle Nominees and Drama League have already announced their nominees (with Drama Desk to come next week). Since all the groups have slightly different rules for eligibility Hamilton is out of the way for some of the precursors (though obviously not for Tony) since it was eligible while it was Off Broadway last season. With the 800 lb gorilla caged (for the moment) that means good news for other musicals: She Loves Me, American Psycho, Bright Star and The Color Purple all appear strong going into the Tony nominations. The schedule is as follows:

April 28th. Drama Desk Nominations
May 3rd. Tony Award Nominations
May 20th. Drama League Awards (Hosted by Megan Hilty & Zachary Levi)
May 26th. Outer Critics Circle Awards 
June 5th. Drama Desk Awards (Hosted by Michael Urie)
June 12th. Tony Awards (Hosted by James Corden)

P.S.
Meryl Streep also recently spoke at the "Women in the World" summit and at the end of her speech she sings a snippet from Hamilton making this an even better week for Lin-Manuel Miranda and the upcoming Tony Awards.