Everything Is Copy
BBBBB (out of 5) Nora Ephron died in 2012 at the age of 71 of leukemia, and the shocking news of her death was compounded by the revelation that her illness was something she… Continue reading
Tag Archive: Meryl Streep
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Florence Foster Jenkins
BBB (out of 5) Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) was a New York socialite who treated her city to her screechy, tone-deaf voice in a now infamous Carnegie Hall concert and one very… Continue reading
Ricki And The Flash
BB (out of 5) Years after she walked out on her husband and three kids to pursue a career as a rock star, Meryl Streep is playing dive bars in Tarzana and about to… Continue reading
The Homesman
B.5 (out of 5) Three women are driven mad by the hardships of carving out a life on the unforgiving terrain of the mid-nineteenth century American frontier, prompting their husbands to send them… Continue reading
Into The Woods
BBB (out of 5) The ever-popular Tony Award-winning Broadway musical has finally made its way to the big screen via the purveyor of the modern movie singalong, Rob Marshall. It keeps the plotting… Continue reading
The Giver
BBB (out of 5) In this humorless update of Logan’s Run, Brenton Thwaites plays a young man who has grown up in a post-apocalyptic society, humanity having perfected cohabitation on a reduced Earth by… Continue reading
Prime
BB (out of 5) Uma Thurman visits her psychiatrist (Meryl Streep) to deal with the pain of her recent divorce, which is then alleviated somewhat by her striking up a romance with a cute… Continue reading
Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events
BBBB (out of 5) The influence of Tim Burton’s work can be felt on every inch of this thoroughly enjoyable children’s horror film, so much so that you’ll wonder if Burton had anything… Continue reading
Doubt
BBBB (out of 5) Tradition clashes with modern thinking at a Catholic school run by nuns in 1960s New York City. Priest Philip Seymour Hoffman gives sermons that capture and stir the emotions… Continue reading
She-Devil
BB.5 (out of 5) This silly comedy is adapted from the novel by Fay Weldon and remade from the 1986 British miniseries. Roseanne Barr is terrific as a mistreated housewife whose social climbing husband… Continue reading
A Cry In The Dark (Evil Angels)
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Meryl Streep is astounding as real-life murder suspect Lindy Chamberlain, a woman accused of murdering her baby girl after she claims to have seen a dingo (Australian wild dog) steal… Continue reading
Plenty
BB (out of 5) Meryl Streep‘s riveting performance is the only thing worth taking away from this flat adaptation by David Hare of his own stage play. She plays a British woman who… Continue reading
The Seduction Of Joe Tynan
BBB (out of 5) Alan Alda‘s Joe Tynan is thrown into a crisis of conscience when he is asked by an old friend (Melvyn Douglas) to back a candidate from the South for… Continue reading
Lions For Lambs
BB.5 (out of 5) Three stories play out simultaneously in this highly charged political drama. A university professor (Robert Redford) in California councils a student (Andrew Garfield) about his failing attendance in his… Continue reading
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
BBBB (out of 5) Two stories are woven into one in this intelligent adaptation of John Fowles’s novel, one about contemporary actors and the other the film that they are making. In the… Continue reading
Dancing At Lughnasa
BBB (out of 5) Brian Friel’s stageplay about a family of five Irish sisters living in Donegal comes to the screen with a lot of love but not much purpose. Let yourself get… Continue reading
It’s Complicated
BBB (out of 5) Ten years after her husband (Alec Baldwin) left her for a much younger woman, Meryl Streep is a confident and adjusted single woman with three kids and a collection of… Continue reading
The Iron Lady
BBB (out of 5) A slightly disoriented eighty year-old woman buys milk at a local supermarket and comes home to tell her husband, over breakfast, that the price has gone up and isn’t… Continue reading
Mamma Mia!
BB.5 (out of 5) The stage show that took audiences by storm around the world now hits the big screen as a musical vehicle for the marvelous Meryl Streep. She plays Donna, a… Continue reading
August: Osage County
BBBB (out of 5) The hit Broadway play by Tracy Letts makes its way to the big screen with fully satisfying results. Meryl Streep lords over the roost of an eccentric (to say the… Continue reading
Evening
BB.5 (out of 5) Vanessa Redgrave lies in palliative care awaiting the end, her mind a sea of emotions and memories that neither she nor her two devoted daughters (Natasha Richardson, Redgrave’s real-life… Continue reading
Adaptation.
BBBB (out of 5) For writer Charlie Kaufman, the line between reality and fiction is a blurry, obscure dream that often escapes his grasp; his contribution to Spike Jonze’s latest comedy demonstrates this… Continue reading
Rendition
BB.5 (out of 5) Egyptian-born Omar Metwally has just arrived home from South Africa when he is detained at the airport, arrested by the authorities and shipped to a prison out of the country.… Continue reading
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
BBB (out of 5) Reasonably interesting futuristic version of Pinocchio has Steven Spielberg filling in for the late great Stanley Kubrick, who had made this his next project after Eyes Wide Shut. Spielberg’s screenplay… Continue reading
The River Wild
BBB.5 (out of 5) Meryl Streep takes her husband (David Strathairn) and son (Joseph Mazzello) on a white water-rafting trip for the first time since her teenage days, when it was her job… Continue reading
Marvin’s Room
BBBB (out of 5) Strong adaptation of Scott McPherson’s intimate stage play that is now a beautiful film about rediscovering family. Diane Keaton, in a marvelous performance, plays a woman who has just been diagnosed… Continue reading
Falling In Love
BB (out of 5) You never would have believed that a film combining the talents of Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro would be so boring, but here it is. They play two strangers, each… Continue reading
Julia (1977)
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Until writing her autobiographical book Pentimento, upon which this terrific drama is based, Lillian Hellman never included her childhood friendship with a World War II freedom fighter in any… Continue reading
Sophie’s Choice
BBBB (out of 5) The performance that has defined Meryl Streep‘s fantastic career is to be found in this harrowing drama, about a naive Southern boy (Peter MacNicol) who goes to live in… Continue reading
Death Becomes Her
BBB (out of 5) Funny, fast-paced black comedy directed with melodramatic verve by Robert Zemeckis, this film succeeds mostly because of its stars. Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn have been best friends and worst enemies… Continue reading
One True Thing
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Exceptionally touching story about a workaholic journalist (Renee Zellweger) who goes home to take care of her dying mother (Meryl Streep). While there, after years of dismissing her as… Continue reading
Hope Springs
B.5 (out of 5) The reunion of Meryl Streep with her Devil Wears Prada director would be expected to result in nothing but perfection, but everything fizzles with this completely uninspiring and only… Continue reading
The Devil Wears Prada
BBBB (out of 5) This movie is fabulous with a capital snap! Adapted from Lauren Weisberger’s popular novel, it features Meryl Streep as an Anna Wintour-esque magazine editor (commonly referred to as ‘Dragon… Continue reading
Stuck On You
BBBB (out of 5) Walt and Bob Tenor (Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon) are twin brothers who were born conjoined at the hip and have lived that way, quite comfortably, for thirty years… Continue reading
Julie & Julia
BBB.5 (out of 5) In 1950s Paris, happily married Julia Child (Meryl Streep) accompanies her diplomat husband (Stanley Tucci) to his new posting in the City Of Lights, and finds herself desirous of… Continue reading
The Ant Bully
BBB (out of 5) If you’re the member of the audience who laughs at lines like “I said cross your heart, not your butt!” being said by a child to an ant, you’ll… Continue reading
Before And After
BB (out of 5) Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson small-town parents who threaten to tear apart when their delinquent son (Edward Furlong) is a suspect in the murder of his trashy girlfriend (Alison Folland).… Continue reading
Heartburn
BBB.5 (out of 5) A mesmerizing performance by Meryl Streep is the life force of this moderately successful comedy-drama, the first of many times that she would be directed by Mike Nichols. She… Continue reading
Silkwood
BBBB (out of 5) Meryl Streep proved that elegant period pieces weren’t the only thing she could shine in when she appeared in this devastating, fact-based drama. She plays real-life Karen Silkwood, an… Continue reading
Postcards From The Edge
BBBBB (out of 5) Carrie Fisher penned the screenplay for this dead-on comedy based on her acclaimed novel, one that does a better job of airing out Hollywood family secrets than most films… Continue reading
Music Of The Heart
BBB (out of 5) Meryl Streep‘s performance as Harlem violin teacher Roberta Guaspari is so energetic that she makes all the film’s many TV-movie style cliches seem like completely new experiences. Finding herself… Continue reading
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
BBB.5 (out of 5) Jonathan Demme once again adapts a popular 1960s movie for the modern age and this time does a much better job than his painful bastardization of Stanley Donen’s Charade… Continue reading
The Bridges Of Madison County
BBBBB (out of 5) Director Clint Eastwood and cinematographer Jack N. Green do such a perfect job of filming Iowa farm life, you’ll think you can actually smell the grass blowing in the… Continue reading
The Deer Hunter
BBBBB (out of 5) One of the very best films of the seventies and one of the best war films ever made, this excellent drama captures the frustration and rage that the Vietnam… Continue reading
Dark Matter
BBB (out of 5) Tragic true story about a transfer student from China (Ye Liu) who comes to study cosmology at Valley State University under the guidance of his mentor, played by Aidan… Continue reading
Defending Your Life
BBB (out of 5) Hollywood’s vision of the afterlife is given a bitterly comic tone in this charmer by Albert Brooks. After dying in a car accident, Brooks finds himself in a world… Continue reading
The Hours
BBBBB (out of 5) The feat of simply deciding to turn Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel into a film is reason enough to praise this effort, which could not have been a small… Continue reading
Still Of The Night
BB.5 (out of 5) Humdrum thriller has Robert Benton trying to do Hitchcock but is only partly successful. Meryl Streep reunites with her Kramer Vs. Kramer director as a femme fatale who crosses paths… Continue reading
Kramer Vs. Kramer
BBBB (out of 5) Meryl Streep decides she can no longer stand the confines of her life and leaves her son (Justin Henry) and husband (Dustin Hoffman). Hoffman’s life is thrown for a loop as… Continue reading