Meryl Streep

People Suck in Indiana

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Prom
  • IMDb: link

The Prom movie reviewAdapted from the stage musical, The Prom sends a group of Broadway performers (Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Andrew Rannells) to Indiana looking for a cause to turn around public opinion about their narcissistic nature. What they find is a teenage high school student (Jo Ellen Pellman) denied the right to take her girlfriend (Ariana DeBose) to the prom.

Directed by Ryan Murphy, The Prom is a bawdy life-affirming story populated by mostly paper-thin characters walking through the plot to set-up the next song and dance number. While Corden has received the most criticism for a stereotypical performance, other than the two girls in love, none of the characters have any more depth than a damp sponge. Pellman turns out to be one of the best casting choices as the beautiful young woman who wants nothing more than to be herself, and DeBose manages to steal a moment with her performance of “Alyssa Greene.”

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Little Women

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Little Women (2019)
  • IMDb: link

Little Women movie reviewGreta Gerwig becomes the latest to adapt Louisa May Alcott’s popular novel (over the years it has been adapted more than a dozen times to film and television as well as both a musical and opera). The semi-autobiographical tale follows the lives of the four March sisters (Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, and Eliza Scanlen) following the Civil War.

Saoirse Ronan gets the most screentime as the rebellious Jo, a writer with dreams and desires that don’t always fit the conventions of her time. Watson is perhaps underused as the elder and more conventional Meg, while Pugh sinks her teeth into the more complex Amy. Scanlen is put to good use as the tragic and talented Beth. And Timothée Chalamet smolders as the boy next door.

The film is divided into later years with Jo in New York and Amy in Paris with flashbacks to the family all living under the same roof. The structure allows Gerwig to highlight themes that repeat and keep coming back to the tight family unit even after tragedy and time have taken their toll on the March family.

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
  • IMDb: link

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again movie reviewBoth sequel and prequel to 2008’s Mamma Mia!, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again returns most of the core cast for another romcom plot set to the music of ABBA. Since we saw her last, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) has managed to breathe new life in the dream of her recently departed mother (Meryl Streep) and is working towards the grand opening of the hotel. The return of her mother’s best friends (Christine Baranski and Julie Walters) helps lessen the pressure of her estranged relationship to Sky (Dominic Cooper) and the absences of two of her three fathers on the eve of the big day.

There are some improvements here as co-writer and director Ol Parker limits the singing roles for some actors who struggled in the first film while allowing other actors to carry the bulk of the musical numbers. The flashback plot to Donna’s original trip to Greece allows the casting of younger versions of all the characters in actors who are a bit more comfortable belting out the songs when called upon. Lily James is the stand-out as the younger Donna as the other actors look to have been primarily cast first for their physical likeness, second for their singing ability, and (unfortuantely) last for their ability to act.

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The Post

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Post
  • IMDb: link

The Post movie reviewThe Post is unquestionably lesser Spielberg and is more comparable to 1994’s The Paper than Spotlight or All the President’s Men in examining a newspaper room chasing down a story. While there’s nothing wrong with that (lesser Spielberg is still Spielberg), and cast and crew still deliver an entertaining and informative film, it never reaches the the heights to which it aspires.

Based on real events, the film focuses on The Washington Post and their decision to follow the lead of The New York Times and publish the results of a leaked government study that would come to be known as the Pentagon Papers and predicted the U.S. failure in Vietnam years before troops were recalled.

Director Steven Spielberg assembles an impressive all-star cast headlined by a terrific performance by Meryl Streep as the paper’s owner Katherine Graham who is faced with tough choices between balancing corporate concerns and her editor Ben Bradlee‘s (Tom Hanks) desire to print despite the U.S. Government’s legal efforts to stop the leaked documents from making it to the front page.

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Into the Woods

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Into the Woods
  • IMDb: link

Into the WoodsBased on the stage musical of the same name by Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods offers a fairy tale adventure featuring a host of well-known characters whose stories all begin to intertwine over three days in the mysterious woods filling the space between their various homes. The story begins when the Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) learn their inability to have children was caused by a curse put on his family by an evil Witch (Meryl Streep). The Witch, however, offers the couple a way to break the curse if they can gather an odd assortment of items before the blue moon in three days time. And that, as you might expect, is where the other characters come in.

To gather the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold the Baker and his wife will come into contact with Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) and his mother (Tracey Ullman), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), and a pair of princes seeking true love (Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen).

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