Months of Meryl: Julie & Julia (2009)

The Filmography: Across 52 films, Meryl Streep taught America how to act, and how to accept awards. It’s been 41 years since Ms. Streep’s first film. Today we might think we live in the world Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson, and Alicia Vikander made, but beneath it all is Meryl, 69 if she’s a day, and no one can touch her.

The Contenders: Too young to recall The Hours press tour, and much too young for any pre-Devil Wears Prada context, really, Matthew and John  were looking for a challenge. And from Still of the Night to Dark Matter, they found it. Risking their sanity, their jobs, and Ingmar Bergman centennial retrospectives, they have signed on for a deranged assignment.

365 days. 52 films. A dozen-plus accents. Three Oscars. Two boys. One refurbished Blu-Ray player. How far will it go? We can only wait. And wait. And wait...

The Months of Meryl Project. Wrapping up soon on a blog you’re already reading.

#41 — Julia Child, beloved chef and unanticipated television star of singular personality.

MATTHEW: In surveying all 21 of the films that constitute Meryl Streep’s history-making haul of Academy Award nominations, Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia, to my mind, represents an acting challenge that only this stupendous performer could have possibly played and been rewarded for playing...

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Showbiz History: Lost in Translation, Eyes of the Mummy, and Clive Owen

10 random things that happened on this day, October 3rd, in showbiz history

1918 CENTENNIAL ALERT: Ernst Lubitsch's The Eyes of the Mummy, starring Pola Negri and future Oscar winner Emil Jannings, premieres in Germany. It will take four years to make it to the US. You can watch this early horror film in its entirety on YouTube. It's not very good but Lubitsch would go on to a brilliant career directing screwball comedies. Negri plays a girl rescued from captivity in an ancient Egyptian temple but her nightmare is only just beginning!

1929 Actress Jeanne Eagels, the star of The Letter that year, dies of a drug overdose at 39, after which she becomes the first (and still only) actress ever Oscar-nominated posthumously...

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Prime in September: Bolero, Gutland, Jack Ryan, and There Will Be Blood

Time to play Streaming Roulette. Each month, to survey new streaming titles we freeze frame the films at random places with the scroll bar and whatever comes up first, that's what we share! (in case you missed it we did Netflix earlier)

What does Amazon Prime offer us for free viewing this month? (Hulu will have the bulk of these, too, as their contracts are always very similar). Let's survey...

Just because we fucked three times, now you think you own me?

Gutland (2017)
Did Phantom Thread make you curious about Vicky Krieps? Here she is in a noir from her home country of Luxembourg. The guys she's arguing with in this skinny-dipping scene is Frederick Lau, who gave a fine performance in that continuous shot German movie Victoria a few years ago. 

ding ding ding. It looks like we have a winner

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Season 1 (2018)
Jeez, how many actors have played Jack Ryan already? Now it's Mr. Emily Blunt's turn in a new Prime series. I guess they're skipping their 'pilot testing with audiences' phase and going straight to series like most of their competitors now.

Chinatown, the 2007 Oscar race, and more after the jump...

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Months of Meryl: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

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

Meryl talking to director David Frankel during shooting

#34 —Miranda Priestly, ferocious editor-in-chief of Runway magazine.

JOHN: How do you solve a problem like Miranda Priestly? Or, more specifically, The Devil in Prada? How do you make walking into a room a distinct and indelible character trait? How do you continue assembling a mannequin’s outfit while simultaneously delivering a brutal lecture about the color cerulean? How do you not only resist but upend the misogyny inherent in your role? How do you grip the audience by their necks while still having them root for your victory? When your name is Meryl Streep, such issues are not problems or challenges, but more like Smith & Wollensky porterhouses, plump, juicy, bloody gifts, presented to you on a plate...

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Beauty vs Beast: No Doubt

Jason from MNPP here ready to label this place "The Amy Adams Experience" for the day, because not only are we discussing the latest episodes of Sharp Objects but we're wishing her a happy 44th birthday while we're at it with this week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast." Specifically we're looking back at her Oscar-nominated role as the watchful Sister James opposite her Oscar-nominated co-star some-Meryl-lady in John Patrick Shanley's 2008 film Doubt. Can you believe this movie's turning 10 in December? It doesn't seem that long ago, does it? Does the movie hold up, you think? (I mean besides Viola Davis, obviously.) But even besides that I need you to, heaven forbid, brush away your doubts long enough to come down with a vote on...

online polls

PREVIOUSLY My favorite Fassbinder was the subject of last week's poll and my favorite Fassbinder performance therein won - Margit Carstensen's TITULAR ROLE in The Bitter Tears of Perta von Kant sashayed off with about 3/4s of the vote over Hanna Schygulla's user-loser Karin. Said Jordan:

"Just caught this film for the first time recently thanks to a mention about it on this site and had one of those WHERE HAS THIS MOVIE BEEN ALL MY LIFE??!! moments. Stunning across the board. What Fassbinder, Ballhaus, and these women accomplished in a single room is really movie magic."