The Harvey Girl.

 Jose here with one for all of you Streep obsessives.... which is, hmmm, 88% of TFE readers? Last week The Weinstein Company acquired distribution rights for Meryl Streep's Margaret Thatcher movie The Iron Lady. Apparently Harvey Weinstein was so impressed with Meryl (duh?) that he just had to have this movie.

What does this mean in terms of Oscar? Meryl probably has it in the bag. Consider: Back in the glory days of Miramax, Meryl was nominated for Music of the Heart (one of the most forgettable performances in her oeuvre) and people like Émilie Dequenne, Julia Roberts, Cecilia Roth and Nicole Kidman were snubbed. Meryl had no chance of winning that year but still...

Fast forward nine years and Meryl was back to represent Miramax with Doubt. Difference is that by then, the company had nothing to do with the Weinsteins and Harvey was hard at work getting Kate Winslet her Oscar. Meryl was inarguably the runner-up that calendar year but it would be interesting to think how things might have gone, had Harvey been pushing Meryl and not Kate. Let's not forget that back in 01, Miramax (under Harvey) won Jim Broadbent an Oscar for Iris, in the year of Gandalf and Don Logan.

Harvey Weinstein is as much of an Oscar obsessive as we are and 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of Meryl Streep's first Best Actress nomination (The French Lieutenant's Woman). Will he be using this as an angle in his campaign?

Related:
Current Best Actress Chart (next update when Cannes concludes)
Streep Posts and Old Streep Posts