Monday, May 28, 2018

Who will Streep play in "The Laundromat"?

It was announced two weeks ago that Meryl had been tapped to star in The Laundromat, a "fact-based" film directed by Steven Soderbergh and based on the book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite. I haven't found any other information since the announcement that describes who we can expect Meryl to portray.  I had mentioned in the comments of my original post that the most likely character seems like it would be journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. She helped lead the release of the Panama Papers, which had demonstrated tax evasion efforts by a law firm based out of Panama called Mossack Fonesca. Her involvement unfortunately got her killed, as she was murdered in a car bombing last October. 

Galizia was Maltese, which of course means she's from Malta. I had to actually look at a map online to see exactly where it is. It's a little Southern European island in the Mediterranean Sea not far from Sicily. I've watched some video of Galizia and this would mean another fun accent for Meryl to master, one I certainly never conceived she would undertake. In the videos and other pictures I've seen, it crossed my mind that I'm not sure if we'd consider Galizia white? I certainly don't want Meryl embroiled in a whitewashing fiasco for a role, but if it does end up being Galizia that Meryl is playing, I think this will fall more along the lines of playing an Italian (Francesca in The Bridges of Madison County) or a Greek (Maria Callas in the never-produced Master Class). Perhaps more challenging will be that Galizia was 53 when she died. Meryl turns 69 in a few weeks (but that's basically the same spread for when she just played Katharine Graham).

I haven't read the book yet, but my understanding is that Galizia is only mentioned briefly in it. That being said, who knows what's all going to be in the movie, as the articles announcing Meryl's potential participation described her character as the "emotional throughline" of the film. I don't know if that means a leading or supporting role. We also know that Streep is familiar with Galizia's work, as Meryl played tribute to her and other slain journalists a few months ago for "paying the hardest price for their questions."

Again, however, the character Meryl plays could be a completely different person! But it just really seems like this is the most likely. Netflix is in the running for distribution rights and filming is evidently planned for this fall. Looking forward to learning more hopefully soon. 




Monday, May 21, 2018

Academy Awards analysis (2009)

By 2009, Meryl had become incredibly overdue for a second Lead Actress Oscar. She came close for 2008's Doubt, but came up short that year behind Kate Winslet in The Reader. With her acclaimed performance in Julie & Julia only a year later, it seemed early on like Meryl might actually make it. She'd been lauded by multiple film critic circles and the film itself was generally well-received, including a fantastic box office performance.

Sadly, Sandra Bullock swooped in with very little critical praise for her performance in The Blind Side to basically sweep the television awards that year, winning the drama Globe (Meryl won comedy), SAG, BFCA (tied with Meryl!) and the Oscar. I hadn't realized until checking for which awards Bullock had been nominated that year and saw just now that she wasn't even nominated at BAFTA.  I guess that's not super surprising, considering The Blind Side is a distinctly American movie.

OK let's keep it real. This performance should not have come anywhere near an Academy Award. I love me some Sandy Bullock, but I maintain that this award was more of an industry recognition for the fact that she'd been a box office powerhouse for nearly twenty years. The Blind Side also did extremely well in theaters and had that helpful Best Picture nom with the Academy, versus the solo Actress nod for Meryl in her movie.



Wonderful speech and Bullock looks stunning. It was sort of a fun little back and forth that she and Meryl had during that awards season, as Sandra made fun of the often over-hyped way people tend to pit actresses against each other. As she told Oprah the morning after her win, she wanted to diffuse that nonsense when they both tied for the Critics' Choice win by kissing Meryl. It was cute. 

Honestly, the biggest disappointment for me in all this is that the role Bullock should've possibly one for was 2013's Gravity. It was a way better movie and way better performance, and while she was nominated, it was very unlikely that they were going to award her twice. Had she not won for Blind Side, I think it's very possible that Cate Blanchett would still be without a lead win.


Monday, May 14, 2018

Streep in talks for Soderbergh film "The Laundromat"

I have to admit that when I saw the title of the article of Meryl starring in a "Panama Papers" thriller by a director named Steven S., I had to do a bit of a double take.  No, it's not a sequel to her recent Pentagon Papers film The Post that was directed by Steven Spielberg. Instead, it's been announced that Streep is set to star in director Steven Soderbergh's new project entitled The Laundromat, based on the so-called Panama Papers, which were "leaked documents that showed how Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm, allowed the wealthy and the connected to funnel money illegally in and around the world." The script was written by Scott Z Burns is based on Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Bernstein's book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite. Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman are also in talks to join.

Very little has been revealed about Meryl's role at this point, other than that her character is apparently the "emotional throughline" of the movie. In reading a few tidbits about the book, it totally seems like an interesting topic, and I'll probably pick up a copy. I wasn't able to glean any idea, however, of what Meryl's character would be (maybe the whistleblower?) Of course I want to know if it'll be a lead role/supporting role.  I also have no idea on why it's called The Laundromat.  Maybe what they call the network for funneling funds illegally. More to come on all that, I'm sure.

No word yet either on when filming may get underway, but it looks like Netflix is interested in distribution rights. It's nice to see her announced to be working with another great director!

Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas and Steven Soderbergh



Thursday, May 10, 2018

New video from "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"

A new video has been released showing a full song performed by Lily James as a "young Meryl" in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again:



By young Meryl, of course I mean "young Meryl's character." I maintain that I'm not particularly enthusiastic about Meryl participating in this film, as her role is obviously very small. That said, watching this clip I'm sort of looking forward to seeing it. Yes, it'll be campy, silly, low-brow and maybe even poorly written. But I highly doubt it will be boring.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Final trailer for "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Universal Pictures released the final trailer for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again earlier today:



It's pretty obvious that Meryl's character Donna will have a very small role, and there's not much in this new trailer that makes me think anything other than Donna is dead. 

I actually felt sort of interested to see the movie(?)  It looks fun, upbeat and colorful, which is sort of lacking in a lot of the things I tend to see on screen these days. The music of course will be recognizable and enjoyable, and the announcement last week that ABBA will be releasing new music for the first time in over three decades will hopefully be a promotional boon to the film's box office changes. Cher might help too. 

Here We Go Again opens nationwide July 20.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Results of poll #7

The results are in for poll #7, where I asked readers to vote on whether or not they think Meryl will win another Oscar. We have a tie! Only three of 35 voters thought she never would, while with ten votes each, people thought she had an equal likelihood of winning for a leading role in either a novel/play adaptation or an original role. I happened to choose the 'leading role in a biopic,' but that option only garnered four votes.

I'm actually a little surprised that not more people chose the biopic option, as the Academy tends to foam at the mouth for such roles. That said, Meryl's played a lot of real-life characters, her most recent win of course coming for portraying Margaret Thatcher (and her last two noms were for biopics in Florence Foster Jenkins and The Post), so it may be more of a novelty and therefore more likely to reward her for a brilliant, even surprising performance of a role created in someone's mind.

As always, I'm open to any suggestions for polls people want to see!