newyorker:

The Art of the Meryl Streep Acceptance Speech

But the real reason I’m in the tank for Streep is simple: I want to see her acceptance speech. The Meryl Streep acceptance speech is an art unto itself: elegant, loopy, cunningly self-aware, and impeccably delivered—in short, everything you expect from a Meryl Streep performance, condensed to three minutes. Where else can you see fake humility, fake gratitude, and fake spontaneity delivered with such aplomb? Take her 2004 Emmy win, for “Angels in America”:

From her trademark breathy sigh (translation: “Gee, they just keep giving me these things”) and her droll opening line—”There are some days when I myself think I’m overrated … but not today”—this speech is a gem: funny, faux-scatterbrained, and self-consciously grand. When the orchestra tries to play her off, not only does she sing along to the music, she uses it as inspirational underscoring as she thanks Tony Kushner.

- Michael Schulman on the history of Meryl Streep acceptance speeches, and why she should win the Oscar for “Iron Lady”: http://nyr.kr/xEteYM 

It’s Complicated (2009) by Nancy Meyers

I caught that one in a hotel room far far away — that’s my excuse. Not terrible, but certainly not a good movie. One thing is clear though: Meryl doesn’t need to play flashy Oscar whores to show how amazing an actress she is. She can nail a scene just by rolling her eyes and losing her balance ever so slightly [and she can definitely do flushed like no one’s business]. There’s a scene in It’s complicated that illustrates that point perfectly: Meryl closes the door on Baldwin and catches herself giggling like a love-struck teenage girl; she stops mid-giggle and pulls herself together with a WTF expression on her face. Priceless.

The Iron Lady (2011) by Phyllida Lloyd

Synopsis: old lady going gaga pottering about her London house talking to her dead husband and having occasional flashbacks to her days as a governing monster… I was rather bored by the whole thing and yet at the same time totally transfixed by Meryl Streep’s tour de force — not that it should come as a surprise…still, it was quite impressive to watch… Although, did I mention how dull and lacklustre this film is?

Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) by Wes Anderson

Not once, since Rushmore, has my loyalty to Wes Anderson wavered. And while I could see my peers starting to lose interest with The Life Aquatic and then The Darjeeling Limited, my devotion remained intact and I never failed to come out of the cinema with a big grin across my face.

I did however feel a tiny hint of doubt and apprehension about Fantastic Mr Fox as I bought my ticket earlier today. I’m not sure why; it could be that I feared this one would mark the beginning of a new phase of Streep fatigue or that I wasn’t sure if Clooney’s cocky fox would annoy me. Plus, really, Chicken Run had always felt like cold turkey to me, which I took as a bad sign…

Well, I needn’t have worried. This film is tons of fun. Fun fun fun all around. And everybody’s great in it, with Clooney, Streep and Schwartzman leading a pack of super furry animals. And that’s really all there is to say about this. As a sidenote, I was glad to see chicken relegated to mere extras whose sole purpose was to get strangled, plucked and eaten.

Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox trailer  (via nedhepburn)

The trailer feels a bit long, giving me the impression that all the funny lines of the movie have been crammed in those 2.30 mins. But whatever, it does look fun, it’s got a great cast (Meryl Streep’s voice sounds great there), and as far I’m concerned, Wes Anderson can do no wrong.