Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Check out "Months of Meryl" weekly series at The Film Experience

I've been following the weekly series Months of Meryl over at The Film Experience. Two gentlemen, John and Matt, are brilliantly dissecting every single film role Meryl has been in since her debut in 1977. One or two readers of Word on the Streep have mentioned this series recently, and now that they're through the 80's, I wanted to post about it, mostly to recommend that everyone check it out.

There's been a lot written about Meryl and countless reviews of her performances. I have to imagine that both John and Matt come to this project at relative fans of Streep's work.  That said, they don't hesitate to point out where they think both she, the director or any other actor or filmmaker come up short...even way short. What I've found most enjoyable is how thoughtful and painstakingly they've managed to articulate their opinions on each film. It's way more layered and nuanced than I think I'd be capable of describing...perhaps because I'm biased by my mad interest in Meryl. After all 52 weeks are complete, I think it would be an amazing little book, with photos added of course.

I'm very much looking forward to them discussing her "wilderness years," hoping they go into a bit her rationale for staying local for filming in the early 90's.



7 comments:

  1. I quoted Variety's CinemaCon Buzzmeter: What's Hot and Cold column,"Not even Cher can make up for the puzzling decision to kill of Meryl Streep's character. ABBA music and sumptuous island settings don't seem as appealing without the world's greatest actress." Dang!

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    1. Yeah, I guess I'm in the minority of caring much about Meryl's role in the sequel. I'm glad the first made money and hope this one does too, but it's been pretty obvious since last fall that her role is likely not lead in this. I'm fine with it. Moving on to bigger and better things.

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    2. The movie wasn't shown at CinemaCon, only an extended trailer, so don't mistaken that as a mini film review or something.

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  2. Hi Jeff, thanks for posting about this. I hadn't seen it. I'm getting ready to see those Wilderness Years analysed! Fasten our seatbelts! ;)

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    1. I'm so glad you haven't trademarked that term because it will forever be in my mind for that period of her career!

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    2. Haha! Yes! I went back a couple of years ago and rewrote my article, then retitled it "The Wilderness Years of Meryl Streep", before publishing it and other stuff in an eBook. It works well as a title. I just read the She Devil article on Months of Meryl... ouch!!! That's when things started to spin out of control.

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