Saturday, November 7, 2015

Accents Mastered updated

Ok, I know this is sort of a lame post, but I realized I have not added Meryl's role as Emmeline Pankhurst to the "accents mastered" tab on the blog.  The updated list should therefore be:

The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)--Tennessean
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)--British (specifically Received Pronunciation)
Sophie's Choice (1982)--Polish (in English and German)
Silkwood (1983)--Texan
Plenty (1985)--British
Out of Africa (1985)--Danish
Ironweed (1987)--Irish-American
A Cry in the Dark (1988)--New Zealand (with strong layers of Australian)
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)--Italian (Meryl calls it Iowatalian)
Dancing at Lughnasa (1998)--Irish
Angels in America (2003)--Yiddish and Bronx (in separate roles)
A Prairie Home Companion (2006)--Midwestern
Doubt (2008)--Bronx
Julie & Julia (2009)--Boston Brahmin
The Iron Lady (2011)--British (Received Pronunciation)
August: Osage County (2013)--Oklahoman
The Homesman (2014)--Central Plains Midwestern
Suffragette (2015)--British (Received Pronunciation)

As this goes to post, Suffragette is sitting at a respectable 73% on Rotten Tomatoes with 118 reviews counted.  The film is being released in several additional U.S. cities this weekend, including Minneapolis (although at a single theater).  I usually attend Meryl openings with Scooter but he had to make a crucial work-related sacrifice and give a speech in Hawaii this weekend, so I'm not positive when I'll get around to catching it.  I've already seen the entirety of Meryl's performance in preview clips, and although the film no doubt includes important societal messages, for whatever reason I'm not super anxious about seeing it immediately.  If it were a performance that lasted longer than three minutes, I'd be singing a different tune.  Still interested to hear what everyone else who's seen the movie has to say.

3 comments:

  1. I just saw it Jeff, it was a well made and thoughtful film, good central performances from the cast being its strongest feature. They could easily have made more of Meryl as Emmeline but it still stood up well with her speech.

    The writing felt a little clunky at times and the men weren't really served well by the screenplay but it served the story fine. Glad to say I heard a lot of positive responses to it in the theatre as well, another success!

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  2. Long Winded PessimistNovember 7, 2015 at 8:57 PM

    Overall I think it was a success- mostly positive reviews from people who saw it (despite being slightly put off that Meryl was barely in it) though I don't think it'll do all that well at the Oscars like some initially predicted. For Meryl herself I'm not sure I'd categorize it as a success- she won't get any awards play out of it and all the controversy didn't do her any favors. Now since basically all poc are pissed off at their lack of inclusion in the movie and those t-shirts, she is being associated with "white feminism" constantly in the blogosphere which pisses me off because that's not what Meryl's about at all. She's always narrating and promoting projects that focus on people other than whites. It just seems like she took the brunt of the criticism and her reputation took a dive for nothing... she's hardly even in the movie. The damage is done but I'll be happy when this movie goes away and Meryl can stop being trashed online for decisions that had nothing to do with her.

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    1. Honestly though, I think that storm in a teacup died very quickly after. I can see barely a mention of it online and Meryl dealt with it in.a clever and effective way.

      No she is unlikely to get an individual awards for this but at least she added to a good film!

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