Saturday, April 1, 2017

Streep leaps to the top of the 2017 Best Actress race

I realize that it's only the first of April, and that The Post isn't even supposed to start filming until next month.  However, last month's news of Streep's participation in the film with Steven Spielberg at the helm and Tom Hanks to star, followed shortly after by the announcement that it is slated for a 2017 release, shot Meryl to the top of many people's predictions of who will make the cut for an Academy Award nomination.

My go-to site for Oscar prognostication, Awards Watch, updated its monthly voting tally today and Meryl is currently in first place not only among all users, but among the site's Gold Rush Gang.  It's still early in the voting but considering that in last month's poll, Streep's name wasn't even on the list of options, I'd say she's sparking a lot of confidence with predictors.

One would have to be foolish at this premature stage of the race to not include Meryl in the top five of predictions.  A script that came in tied for second place on the Hollywood Blacklist, Steven Spielberg, Hanks, biopic, political drama about freedom of the press...seems like a slam dunk for our girl this year.  Again, it hasn't even begun filming, but assuming it indeed gets underway next month, it's likely going to be a year with every other actress playing catch-up.

7 comments:

  1. This almost makes up for no good house...

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  2. I just don't feel comfortable with this...I'd rather the film gets screened in some festival or event and the audience goes gaga over her performance and she inevitably becomes the frontrunner (like Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine winning every award). David.

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    1. I think it's difficult to avoid Meryl garnering such early attention due to her coming off her 20th nomination, the talent involved in this project and the nature of the piece.

      It happened before when it was announced she would star in Doubt and hadn't won for so many years.

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    2. I agree with CJames. The film will screen for enough awards guilds to put Meryl in contention. Also if it comes out around Christmas or Thanksgiving, it'll be nicely placed for healthy box office run.

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  3. Jeff, what I meant is it may be presumptuous to put the cart before the horse at this point(the movie hasn't even been made yet). While I'm cautiously happy to know Meryl is currently on top of the stack, I'm also aware that it may not stay status quo as it's way too early in the race, with many (great?) performances coming out from now till end of the year, and I wouldn't even envision others playing catch-up via-a-vis Meryl. But if the movie gets screened to audiences (major festivals or events) and they go gaga over her performance and she becomes the frontrunner, yeah I will be ecstatic for sure like Blanchett in Blue Jasmine and to a lesser extent, Helen Mirren in Queen steamrolling every critics and screening award after it was released to an audience for the first time! That's what I'm talking about...I'll be much happier with a big dollop of realism in place.

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