...for Meryl Streep to play Pauline Kael in a biopic?
Dave Kehr gamely suggests the working title, "Andy and Pauline." But who on earth would play Kael-nemesis Andrew Sarris? Any suggestions?Speaking of Streep, in a night awash in really arch acceptance speeches, Streep's at the Golden Globes left me a tad confused. Winning for her performance in Nora Ephron's "Julie & Julia," Streep started out by checking out presenter Colin Farrell furtively and then making a crack about wishing her name was T-Bone - T-Bone Streep.
So far, so good.
"In my career, I’ve played so many extraordinary women that I’m getting mistaken for one, ... I secretly got to pay hommage to my own personal, not-so-famous hero – that’s my mother.
This is where the confusion came in - for me, at least,
"A lot of the people in this room knew my mother. She had a real joy in living...She just had no patience for gloom and doom. I’m not like that. I come to Golden Globes weekend and I am really honestly in conflict about how to have my happy movie self in the face of everything that I’m aware of in the real world. That’s when, I hear my mother’s voice: 'Partners in Health – shoot some money to Partners in Health. Put the dress on, put on a smile and just be damn grateful you have the dollars to help.'"
I took this - or mistook it, as the case is - for Streep granting herself permission to forget what's going on our there (read: Haiti) and to let the champagne and kudos flow. Wrong! As my friend Carrie Rickey has gently reminded me, Partners in Health is a relief organization and this was Streep's subtle way of expressly acknowledging the situation in Haiti.
Obviously, it was too subtle for me. Apologies all around, folks.
10 comments:
How about Oliver Platt as Sarris? Every photo of Sarris I'ver seen has called up in my mind the word "rumpled" - which also seems to capture the Plattian ideal, as well.
Joe: Streep name-checked Partners in Health which is a relief organization. She was saying remember Haiti.
Thanks, Carrie! I stand corrected. And will make the correction pronto.
And p.s.:
As Kael and Sarris, I would cast Debra Winger (whom Pauline loved) and John C. Reilly (who has some physical resemblance to Andy)
Brendan Gleeson?
Reilly would be really uncanny casting.
Why just Kael and Sarris? I remember an Esquire piece about the politics within the New York screening rooms. It had very funny takes on all the influential critics at the time and one anecdote had one critic - I can't remember who - sticking his leg in aisle on purpose to trip John Simon. There's a movie in all this. Too bad Altman is dead! I could see it as one of his ensemble efforts.
That would be an absolute hoot, Grace, but I doubt if Altman would have touched it - he was a critics' darling and it would have been tantamount to biting the hand(s) that fed him.
I vaguely remember a story about a fistfight between Manny Farber at a National Society of Film Critics meeting during the 1960s, but it might be apocryphal.
I vaguely remember a story about a fistfight between Manny Farber at a National Society of Film Critics meeting during the 1960s, but it might be apocryphal.
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