The Big Picture - The Meryl Streep Hall of Fame

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

In anticipation of ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2,’ Sean and Amanda embark on a staggering journey to build the Meryl Streep Hall of Fame. Before making their list, they react to the official lineup of films announced to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and go through some other smaller movie news headlines (0:48). Then, they talk through what makes Streep one of the greatest actors of all time and sort through every one of her 64 feature film performances across her illustrious career (16:58). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture A Conversation show about Merrill Streep. Today on the show, we are finally building a Hall of Fame for arguably the single, most important, skilled, and honored film actor of the past 50 years. Merle Streep, she is starring in The Devil Wears Prada 2 later this month, Amanda's most anticipated movie of this century. So now's the time to build it.

There's a lot of Merrill to dig into, so we're going to cut right to the quick. We're also going to talk about the Cannes Film Festival lineup, which was just announced right after this. Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now? Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm.

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An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IDPrivatewealth.com. The Cannes lineup was announced. Yes. And you say what? As expected, and I'm excited to be going.

The big talking point is that there aren't very many American films or American films in competition and certainly no studio films. That's right. Which I suppose if you're going there to see, if you were going hoping to see Mandelorian and Grogu, then you'll like be disappointed. Why would you go to go see that though? That's exactly. And that's sort of where I am is that that's not why we're going to Cannes. And that is, those are not the films that have come out of film, can ever, but especially in the last like five to ten years. That's, that's not the reason to pay attention to it.

And in fact, I think most studios that have taken big movies to Cannes in the last five to ten years have regretted it. I agree with you. From the New Indiana Jones to Megalopolis, Horizon, even last year, Eddington, which was, you know, in the smaller, not a studio movie. Not a Mission Impossible, Elemental, the Pixar movie. This has happened for 10 years, you're right. Yeah, so it doesn't make sense for them. As a referendum on the state of American movies, you know, and the chasm between big budget and quality, not like great, but it's not new to us.

Yeah, I think that's right on the money. I think that it's clear that the studios see that there's not a huge benefit from participating in this festival, which is a disproportionate reaction to the relevance of this festival, not just in the awards race, but in the way that independent studios are finding ways to have American audiences discover a lot of the movies that play at this festival. This is an unusually light year for American independent filmmakers as well. There are very few in competition right now. I did learn, funnily enough, last night at a screening of Mother Mary that Iris Sacks was going to have a film, the man I love, which I learned a little bit about. I don't know if I can speak about it actually yet.

This stars Rami Malik is going to be there. But it's one of the vanishing few in competition American movies that are there. Otherwise, a lot of the big names that we talked about over the last couple of weeks are there. Christian Monju's Fjouard is there. Yeah. That has some American stars like Sebastian Stan. You know, Pavel Pavlakovly's fatherland is going to be there. Syked.

Herakaze Coriata's sheep in the box will be there. You know, there's... The new Rizka Hamaguchi, the new Ascar Farhadie. Yes. The new Almodovar. Yes. You know, there's... Listen.

the new Lucas Don't. Yes, which is very exciting and people that said that wasn't going to be there and I'm happy about that too. Even the unknown, which is Arthur Harari's film, he was the co-writer

of the most recent Justin Tray film, Anatomy of a Fall. There's a lot of heavyweight international filmmakers here. It's a really an exciting list. It's a very European list. Right.

There is a lot of Asian cinema represented. You know, not a lot of African cinema, not a lot of Middle Eastern cinema here. But I've seen amongst people who are really tapped into this sort of thing, that there's a notion that the competition list is a little bit old hat. It's a lot of names you've seen before.

A lot of names you've seen before at Cann. Right. I think that's understandable to some extent. There's not a lot of risks taken on new names or new filmmakers. You'll usually find a lot of those names in an uncertain regard. The most notable American name there

is Jane Schoenbren's teenage sex and death at camp miasma. A little surprised that's not in competition. thought that there was a chance that that film would have gotten in there. Also, Jordan Firstman, the actor, his debut film Club Kid is there. That's a recognizable name. We don't see any of the Harris Dickensons or Scarlett Johansans making their directorial debuts. Well, some of those went better than others.

Yeah, yeah. But really not any actors trying to burst through with that work. There is some out-of-competition stuff. Yeah. Nicholas Winding Refins, Her Private Hell. Confirmed. Confirmed, but not in competition. What do you make of that?

Were you, you were ready for it to be in competition? I was, yeah. I was just ready for you and see our shirtless in the front row at the out of comedy, which is still possible. I texted someone this morning that I'll be the Tex-Avery cartoon Wolf just howling at the screen while that movie is playing. Some special screenings. Both Steven Soderberg and Ron Howard have documentaries. Have you been reading the Steven Soderberg interviews? I saw one this morning.

Okay. And it was about how he burned all his notebooks. Okay. And then it was about the Christophers, which I haven't gotten to see yet. So I closed it. And then it's on the list. I just come under some fire, our beloved Stephen, for saying there will be, quote, a lot of AI in some of his future films. Okay.

Apparently, including in the new John and Yoko documentary that he has coming called The Last Interview. Okay. Listen. I mean, it's been a tough road for my guys and AI, see Steven Soderberg and Ben Affleck. Yep. They love AI. You know. And even if they're talking about.

talking about it like gearheads, you know, and it's just another tool. It's, it's, I would prefer them to use different tools. But, you know, you can't have it all. I'm also not currently married to either of those people. So not yet. I'm not responsible. Do you think if you were married to either of them? Yes. They would have different opinions of AI. Do you think your influence is that strong? I think I sure wouldn't talk about it with them at all. If they tried to bring it up, I'd be like, I am not interested. Like, you can, you can do that on your own time. And if I did have another marriage, which I'm not looking to do, my current one is going to. great. Very grateful to Zach, who is also interviewed both of my prospective second husbands,

but... What a pickle for him. In the second marriage, it's pretty limited in terms of... I'm not looking to spend 24-7 with anyone. And so I just, some things are not my business. Separate bedrooms, separate homes. What are we talking about here? Well, multiple, hopefully. Okay, sure. Yeah. So, you know, you aren't locked in. I understand. I totally understand. And so you don't have to hear them talk about AI Because I just, I'm not I just like Jacob Allorty Rather be Sunburne on the beach

Reading a novel I'll try to I'll try to keep that in mind As I watch the John and Yoko documentary At the Cannes Film Festival But I wish we were not using Or talking about AI It's very boring

Yeah, this will be interesting To be at this festival And seeing You know, Liamisius and Laslo Nemis And a lot of filmmakers That we don't get a lot of time To talk about on this show Many of their films don't necessarily even open in America or get any wide distribution whatsoever.

I did see the last Laslo and MS set at Venice just last year. Yes, which I still don't think has been released stateside. So that's the other thing about this festival is on the one hand, it's a sneak peek and an award season to come at an independent cinema to come here to the United States. On the other hand, it might be your last chance to see a movie unless you go to Paris on vacation. And so that in and of itself is interesting. I have no idea how I'm going to manage this in terms of what I'm going to say. I was about to ask, does the last chance of it all stress you out? A little bit.

Where are your anxiety levels right now? Well, this is something you don't have to worry about as much in the North American film festivals. And even at Venice where there are so many high profile titles, even if the films eventually come to the states, a lot of them take a year to arrive. And so it feels like, are you getting the right snapshot? We've struggled with this with year-end episodes. Did we get the snapshot of the year in movies if we didn't see a bunch of festival movies that people loved but didn't get U.S. distribution until April of the following year? These are small concerns for any normal person, but for a sick person like me. Right.

It introduces an all new element of anxiety in terms of what I'm seeing and how I'm seeing it. It's also just, it's a new festival for you. So, and you do like to see everything. And in some ways, I mean, it's going to be impossible. It is. It is. It is such a large festival. This one is ticketed in a different way.

then your beloved telluride and sun dance. So you and a ticket master, like the queue, the ticket line that you're going to have to wait in. And like the middle of the night, by the way, because it's going to be on France time. And we should film that probably. Jack? Sounds like a million dollar idea. All right. Me standing in front of the queue line on my laptop.

Yeah. Okay, well, we look forward to Cannes. I'm very excited about it. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple editions, people already suggesting perhaps James Gray's Paper Tiger will get in there. Give us Paper Tiger. If I had to put money on it, I bet that will happen, which I'm very excited about that.

And that would end up becoming clearly the biggest American film there, film starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. So we'll talk about that as that news continues. A few other news items since we last spoke. The Academy Awards have set their dates for the 2027 ceremony and the 28th ceremony. In 2027, the Oscars will occur on March 14th. How do you feel about that?

Not good, Bob. I think it's a mistake. I think we have learned that the Academy's goals and interests are not always in line with ours. But I do think that the ratings, which I don't care as much about as you do, but that we measure are going down. They were affected by the lateness of this year. I don't think it benefits the movie discussion. I don't think it benefits the ceremony. I'm sure it benefits people who make money off of the awards season, which is longer and longer.

But I really don't understand it. Yeah. So across the history of the Oscars, there have been many, many March ceremonies, especially in the 20th century. There were many March ceremonies. We got into this nice habit around the mid-2000s of having most of the shows in February. And I think that's a good time for the show. I think roughly the middle or the third. third week of February. I think it would be really fun

to do it immediately after the Super Bowl. Obviously, the Grammys tends to go immediately after the Super Bowl, so then you maybe have to go a week later, maybe two weeks later. The March 14th thing, it feels very, very specifically like a brokered pact amongst

all of the guilds, the various award shows, the FYC machine that does create a lot of money in revenue in Hollywood, but extends the season to be way too long. This is roughly the same time that it landed this year. And I agree with everything that you said. I think it's not good for the movie discussion. I think you could make the case that more people are able to see the movies by having a longer period of time. But the studios could just release these

movies earlier on VOD and let people see them sooner. You know, films like Surratt and the Secret Agent, like they were available very late. That's why a lot of people couldn't get to them. If you make them available in January instead of in February or March, then that alleviates some of that concern. So I think it's a mistake. I'm happy that it's a little bit earlier in 2028. One week. I know. It doesn't do anything. I think it should be in February. I agree with you. That this may not matter or maybe a totally different concern because March 5th, 2028 is the 100th ceremony. And then the show goes to YouTube. And then we're in a new environment. And then things might work totally differently for this show. And I don't even know what the expectations of success are there. So anyhow, we talked

about this a lot over the last three months. So it seemed like it was worth hitting here. Yeah. See the trailer for the invite? No, because I don't want to know anything. I just want to go in. Show me the movie. This was the big acquisition at Sundance this year. It's a four-hander. Yeah. About two couples, played by Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen, they're married. And Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz, they're married.

And Norton and Cruz's characters come over to the other couple's apartment for a night. Yeah. And that's all we know. What happens? They get into some stuff. Right. Show it to me now. This is what I'm saying.

Yeah. I would like to say it. I'm available. Yeah. If the trailer works to get people who don't have a professional and personal interest in this, interested, great. I don't need a trailer. Just show me the movie.

Okay. It's an 824 film coming in June. So hopefully we'll see that soon. This is relevant to my wife. True Beverly Hills is being rebooted with Cameron Diaz. It's relevant to you as well. Feel free to speak for yourself. Being written out.

No, you're right here. You can respond. True Beverly Hills beloved 80s classic starring Shelley Long and many soon-to-be famous actresses. who were young girls when that film was made. Jenny Lewis, Carla Gugino. Yes, there's a third. Who's the third?

I can remember her name, but I mostly know her as the girl from Tree Beverly Hills, so. Okay. Do we need this? You need a reboot of this series? Kelly Martin. Kelly Martin, of course. Facts of life? Facts of life?

Life goes on. How was her show? Okay. The facts of life, life goes on. Sure. No, I get it. Any idea what any of these things are, Sanders? Absolutely not.

So, true Beverly Hills. Jack Lucas. Anyone? I remember seeing it being programmed at Vidiots, I think. That would probably be it. So the answer to you is no. So when I say Beverly Hills, what a thrill. This is a wonderful movie.

This is a movie about how rich kids deserve love to. Interesting. You related to that? We'll be interesting how this goes with the 2027, 28th spin. So all the girls in the troop. live in Beverly Hills. They do. Do their parents figure into the story?

No, because their parents don't care about them and dropped them off for like troop, like, what, what are they called? Scouts? No, they're not Girl Scouts because I think they couldn't get the branding. So there's something else. Okay. And then, but because they all live in Beverly Hills, none of the parents were involved. in the troop or in their lives. They're sad.

They don't have any patches. And then Shelley Long is going through a divorce from the guy from coach. Craig T. Nelson? Yes. My goodness. The tire guy. He's a tire guy. I've got to see this movie.

You've never seen this? No. What? I've not seen it. Is it available in 4K? I don't. It should be. I can't believe you've never seen True Beverly Hills.

Oh my gosh. It's a classic. You know, it's like I've passed by it on cable as a kid. I haven't had reason to. I have watched Eileen say, where's my true Beverly Hills DVD at least five times? Right. Wilderness Girls.

I see. Yeah. Yes. And then they have their first, like their camp out at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Movie swap. Okay. Great. I think you should just have to watch this to prepare.

I'll find a deranged movie about survivalists that we can watch as a match for this movie. Okay. So Glenn Powell's the comeback king. Yeah. Was dated for February 2027. This is his new movie about. a, I guess a fading country star with Judd Apatow. Okay.

This is obviously something historically Judd Apatow has done frequently with stars. Glenn co-wrote this movie. Glenn also has the Great Beyond in November, which is J.J. Abrams's new movie. That's also relevant because J.J. Abrams recently announced that he is closing up shop on Bad Robot in Los Angeles, moving to New York City. This was once a very big enterprise. It's been talked about. I think Chris and Andy had an interesting conversation about what it means that this would happen with Bad Robot on the watch that I recommend people check out. The Glenn Project. Yes.

How are you feeling right now? I believe. You know, I, well, I enjoy the films also. So. This is two films in a three-month window here. Yeah. And Great Beyond is, I can't tell if it's like quite prestige, but it's in the main attention corridor. Yes.

And then Comeback King sounds like his version of Country Strong, a film I love. And the most popular episode of Three Watchables that I've ever been on, obviously. Definitely. So, I mean, I like that he's working with, I like that he's doing stuff. I don't know. It's interesting. He's tried basically every single version of being a movie star at this point. And.

Apatow comedy and sci-fi spectacle might complete, you know, those are all the infinity gems. Right. You know, he did the link later comedy. He did the action movie. He did the rom-com. Yeah, he did a legacy sequel. He's ticking a lot of boxes. Yeah.

So maybe one of them will catch on. Maybe. We never would have thought of Merrill Street in the same way we're analyzing Glenn Powell's career. I feel like the segues have been dormant. But that one just... Some of them are slightly less visible, but they're buried in the rough. This one was very clear to me. Merrill Street, this is like talking about the ocean.

It is. And this was interesting for a number of things. There's 60, Devil Wars Product 2 will be her 65th feature film. Yes, it will. So there are a lot of films. And we had seen many of them. And yet because of the number, there was still a lot more watching to do. So we've both been in the Merrill minds, as it were.

I had many holes, more than I realized. Well, sure, same. At that number. But it was interesting. to be doing it to try to work towards a comprehensive theory of Merrill when Merrill has always been Merrill to us. She really resists that, I think.

She does, but at the same time, for me, it was interesting, especially to fill out the 80s stuff that I hadn't seen. Those were my gaps. Which is when she is building the building blocks of Merrill. But if you've been watching it at the time, I think you would have just been learning all the different parts of this incredibly talented actor. And for us, like, I'm watching it through the lenses of, like, that's Merrill, you know?

And I have been living with these performances and even these, like, tropes and these characteristics and habits that she has and that I associate with her. And for someone who does so many different types of roles and so many accents. And, you know, is celebrated for her ability to, if not disappear into a role, at least do anything from Julia Child to, you know, suburban mom taking people on a river rafting cruise. There is still like some sort of essential consciousness that I have of Merrill as Merrill that's very different from the, you know, know, Denzel brings Denzel to every performance that he does. But I, the legend, despite all her efforts, does still loom a little bit for me at this point. It can't not when you're working backwards. I wonder if some of that is just generational.

But if you came to her watching her in the mid-1970s or late 1970s when she's really starting to make her name as a star, we don't have our experience of seeing her on red carpets at award shows as the Grand Dame of the Academy Awards, and also having witnessed up close as journalists, her kind of re-rise as a big-time movie star. Right. Because through this period in the 1970s and 80s, she's in some very big films,

but you wouldn't say that the films were big because of her, and then a lot of the films that she's acclaimed for, especially in that early stretch, are smaller character pieces. or they're prestigious films that were not necessarily box office juggernauts. And so while she's building that reputation as this one-of-one singular film actress who is capable of anything, that she's not a fame magnet at that time. She's building a massive reputation of respect that is akin to people like Daniel Day Lewis,

and we just talked about his Hall of Fame last year with David Sims. It was sort of like he was not really in any box office hits for 30 consecutive years. And then he picked up a few as he got into this final stage of his life. Her career mirrors that she's just way more active. She's made 10 times as many movies as Daniel Day Lewis has.

So careers like this are always interesting to watch. And I had a very similar experience watching those 80s films and seeing like, okay, well, this is where she's not just building her reputation, but solidifying that reputation as the powerhouse of her time, who has an incredible flexibility and curiosity. but who does still have that that twinkle that you need to be a movie star

a lot. Most of those films, she's at the absolute center of the frame the whole time. And that way she is similar to Denzel. She is similar to Tom Cruise. She is similar to Robert Redford. She is similar to Barbara Streisand. She is similar to Jane Fonda. These people who are like generational stars who carry the movie on their shoulders

and it just took her a little bit longer to become like a proper commercial star. I came away having seen these filled in these gaps and having looked back at a couple of the classic movies pretty much as wowed as ever. I really think it's the rare case and I compare her to the ocean because who's not wowed by the ocean

by its magnitude, by its depth, by its power, by its beauty? She just kind of has everything. She's the total toolkit as when it comes to a movie actress. And even if I didn't love every movie that I watched in the last three weeks, I came away impressed by almost everyone.

I very rarely looked at a movie that she made and thought, that wasn't really her best. You know, she doesn't really operate in that space. No. I was trying to identify. Like I said, I wanted to work towards a grand theory of Meryl Streep. And I think the ocean is probably the closest you can get to it.

There is, because there is no one thing that she does. She has, you know, a lot of trademarks, accents. Terrible wigs in the 80s also. God bless her. Like that was that I wish Joanna Robinson were here because it's just it was a crime The hand movements and the gestures and the sort of like the the fidgety quality Yes

paired with a sort of like a stillness of of of or like or a control of energy until she lets it go And even when she lets it go there is there is precision to what she's doing But I want to test this theory out of you. The best thing I could come up with is, is she the greatest line reader to ever exist, to ever do the work? Because there's not a moment that you can find, even when she's doing crazy accents,

and I'm like, Merrill, you know, you sound like Kate Hudson and song songfully right now. It's the accent that sticks out and not the way that she is saying the dialogue. It never feels like dialogue. It feels like everything that Meryl Streep says and does in every single movie just came from her in the moment. Just occurred to her. One thousand percent of the time, even if it's the most ridiculous stuff in the world.

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, that's kind of a second half of the 20th century acting style thing, too, though. That's that sort of naturalism that she is very comfortable with, even though she's a highly performative actress. Like you could say, well, Lawrence Olivier is the great line reader of his time. But so much of what he's reading is this kind of mannered text. in stage-like atmospheres, which is very different from what you're describing. But I know exactly what you say that.

Maybe line reading isn't the right word. Like, I mean, she turns dialogue into, it doesn't seem like dialogue, what she's saying. No, I think that's right on the money in a lot of ways. And I feel it's why she's very comfortable, I think, in contemporary stuff, as much as historical stuff, too. Because in contemporary stuff, she does just feel like someone's mom or someone's friend. And in historical stuff,

because she has the facility with accents and costume and wigs. It never feels fake or phony or forced or put on. And there are a lot of modern actresses who, you know, it's funny thinking about Daniel Day-Lewis, it's like Cameron Diaz is an actress I like. If you watch her in Gangs of New York, you're like, this is just all wrong. Right. A woman like this never existed in the time of that story. I've never felt that watching a Merrill Street movie.

I don't think she's ever made a movie where she was a cavewoman. Maybe that would be a time when she could not properly exist. But otherwise you could put her in 16th century France. Sure. You know, you could put her in 18th century Alaska and she would fit in any place. It's a few months ago, I don't remember the context in which we were talking about whether Merrill Street has ever fired a gun in a movie. And we were like, she can't have. And we even off the top of our head went through it.

And we were like, that's one thing that like Merrill would never do. River Wild, yes. And I believe also death becomes her. Yes. That's right. So, you know, and those are specific contexts. It's not heat or whatever, but she could be good in heat. She would be great.

Heat too, you know? I would love to see it. Honestly, not a bad idea. She could play, well, Ashley Judd is still with us, but she could play Ashley Judd's character 30 years into the future. Right. You know, we haven't done this, and there's a reason why we haven't done it before. This new movie, the Devil Wears Prada 2, is really her first big movie. movie where she's the lead of the film.

Mm-hmm. Probably since Mamma Mia, here we go again. Now, she was in the Post, of course, the Steven Spielberg film, and we covered that film on the show, but not in the way that we do, where it, because that was a two-hander with Tom Hanks, but also a big ensemble and also a Spielberg film. Right. You wouldn't have said, oh, did you see the new Merrill Street movie? You would say, oh, did you see the new movie about the Post and the Pentagon Papers and,

you know, that Spielberg made? And then since then, the films that she's made have been, let them. them all talk, the laundromat, the prom, and don't look up. All of which are... You didn't say little women. And little women, that's right. Well, a small part in little, modest part. Or Mary Poppins returns, which we did cover.

Also a modest part. Neither of those you would say the Numeril Street movie. But even in all these other films, probably let them all talk as the closest to being her movie. Yeah. Which, even though it's still an ensemble, but that was a streaming film for Max. The laundromat was a streaming film for Netflix. The prom was a streaming film for Netflix.

Don't Look Up. a streaming film for Netflix. So I feel like maybe we've lost sight of her might a little bit on the show, and it's taken us a little longer than usual to get to this episode. I think that's being unfair to us. It's just, you know, we follow the work. Yeah. And don't look up as 2021.

The next credit is the queen insect in Hoppers. So that's five years. Good performance, though. It was great. Yeah. But she was a butterfly. She was a butterfly? Wasn't she?

She was the Queen Butterfly, I thought. Oh, I guess so. And then Dave Franco is the Caterpillar who becomes, who does the... Yeah, spoiler for hoppers. Sorry, right. She also plays a lot of real people. Yeah. She's played at least 10 real people, including Margaret Thatcher,

Julia Child, as you mentioned, Karen Silkwood, your girl, Florence Foster Jenkins. We'll get to that. And then also some real people who maybe don't have as much familiarity with, like Lindy Chamberlain in a Cry in the Dark. or Emmeline Parkhurst in Suffragette. So she does tend to heavily research all of her roles. She does tend to dive deep into understanding how best to replicate them. Do you like her Julia Child?

I really do. That half of that movie that's Julia and Julia, which is Nora Ephron's adaptation of The Life of Julia Child and also a blog, is very charming. Have you seen there something undramatic about blogging? It's also Amy Adams blogging And then making all the recipes It was a good idea for a blog 2000 and what two or three was a simpler time But that the Julia Child half is wonderful

You know you also cited here something critical to her work Which is that she likes to sing Yeah sure does She sings in a lot of films more even than I realized Yeah that was also another one filling in the gaps And being like oh another singing performance This here it goes Yeah, but she can sing, unlike so many actors who sing in movies.

She trained as an opera singer for a while, which is, you know, kind of some Merrill lore that you only really see evidence of in that particular style in Florence Foster Jenkins with a sense of humor. But yeah, likes a performance. Yes, she said she quit singing opera at a young age because she said, I was singing something that I didn't feel and understand. That was an important lesson not to do that to find the thing that I could. feel through, which is something you really see when you watch her performances, that she is channeling emotion. Yeah. You know, that's something you recognize immediately.

She's one of the great criers. She's one of the great laughers. She's, you know, the, like, explosive qualities that she has really plays well in movies. She has a lot of partnerships, but not a lot of, she doesn't have a Spike Lee Denzel or De Niro Scorsese relationship with a filmmaker. She's recurred with many, many directors. These are the ones I wrote down. She's made three films with Mike Nichols, two with Robert Benton, two with Jonathan Demi,

two with Fred Schapese, two with Rob Marshall, two with Felita Lloyd, two with Soderberg, two with David Frankel, and two with Spielberg, three with David Frankl upcoming with Devil Wars Product two. And that's interesting too, that she doesn't have, most of these stars, they have, you know, DDL has Jim Sheridan, like they have their kind of like, they find, they have their avatar and their and their counterpart. Yeah. She's just working at a volume that no director can keep up with. It's true.

She really likes her job. And just we'll sign up for, like, not for anything. She clearly has interests and there are things that she wants to be able to do with a character. But, yeah, she likes being on set. So, you know, I don't think anyone can be making two and three movies a year. She is in, she has multiple movies, multiple years. Yes, we will go through every single one of them in this conversation, which will be fairly intense. Just to put some, some biographical detail against that, she was born June 22nd, 1949 in Summit, New Jersey.

Her mother was an artist. Her father was a pharmaceutical executive. And she has been at it since her mid-20s, basically. She got started in the, she worked in the theater, of course. like so many actors at that time and transitioned into movies in the late 70s. Do you want to start talking about that first stretch of...

Well, before we do that quickly, you mentioned the River Wild, which, strangely, was I think the first time that both of us ever saw her. But that makes sense for us and for this time, which is 1994, so we're just old enough to see

like a PG-13 thriller action adventure. I saw it in theaters. I don't know if I did, but everything I know about White River Rafting comes from the River Wild and thus is why I've never

fully been White River River. I mean, I can't say it, but... White River Rafting? White River Rafting. Nice. Thank you. So, but it was

mainstream enough for us and not scary enough and so that's when we logged on to movies. It's interesting because it's just a swir for her. It's not the kind of of movie you would expect her to make. It's a, it's a thriller action movie that, where she has to

kind of overwhelm criminals to save her family. Right. And she's such a flinty and tough and believable hero in that movie. And it would make you think that, oh, well, you know, she's like Angelina Jolie or something, you know, and she's not that kind of actor at all. The shorts and just the, the activeness of it are really giving. Yeah, yeah. She looks great. She's very capable in a movie like that. And she hasn't made a lot of movies like that to your point about the gun. And, you know, maybe, maybe I got excited by that. as a 12-year-old boy, it's very possible. But I, you know, maybe I'm sure we saw her on television

in other movies before that, but a lot of the films that she makes in that period from 77 through, let's say, 97, are for adults. She doesn't make a lot of kids' movies. She doesn't make movies for adolescence. She makes movies with adult themes and with thorny ideas,

a lot of morally complex characters who were put in terrible, positions to have to make difficult decisions. And she's really great at displaying that anguish and that concern and that confusion. And I think that's the thing that she is probably best known for. A few of her movies, a few of those moments of anguish in her movies are more famous than the movies themselves. More people understand the phraseology of Sophie's choice and what that means than have

seen Sophie's choice now. Which is, yes. You know, similar the way that Seinfeld kind of elevated a cry in the dark and did the dingo eat your baby, and that, like, that crisis of that character we sort of understand. But very few people have seen that movie. And I just thought for the first time two weeks ago. So there's something really interesting about the way that she was kind of memed as an actress ahead of time. Oh, do you mean in the 80s and 90s?

Sure. Yeah. I mean, thank you Seinfeld. I guess Seinfeld is the source of all pre-internet memes. Yes, and a lot of movie-related ones. Sure, yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. English patient, obviously. Yes. Well, the sort of like Oliver Stone, JFK analysis of the spit in the Keith Hernandez episode, you know, there's a Bruder film. Yeah. Let's quickly talk awards before we go through her filmography. So I think I've got this right.

Is it 21 Oscar nominations? Seems right. Twenty-one? Yeah. Jesus Christ. It's a lot. And even more Golden Globes. I mean, anything to get her to show up to a Golden Globe ceremony.

So she has won three times. Can you off the top of your head list them? Or do you just look so you know? But I knew them already. Okay. We'll tell us what they are. Which is Kramer versus Kramer. Yeah.

That's supporting. And then she wins best actress for Sophie's Choice. And then she wins best actress for the Iron Lady. Okay. Well, let's dig into the filmography. So if this is your first Hall of Fame episode, here's what we do. We run through the entire filmography of a performer. We talk about every single film that they've made.

And I think one of us can speak about every single movie here. I think so. And we're going to do our best. Yes, we choose 10 films, in this case 10 from 65. And we determine that they are green and that they are representative of the greatness of this performer's body of work. And that they say something meaningful about who they are in the world of movies. And we don't usually talk about television. She did work in television.

In fact, one of her very first big parts was in a multi-part miniseries called Holocaust. that I did not watch. Nor did I. It's six hours long. Yeah. Many people say it is, it came under some fire when it was released

from many Jews and Jewish Americans who felt that it did not accurately portray some of the events. But it was a big deal, and she said in the past that she did that part to make some money because she was at the outset of a career. Her first film role, though,

is a one-scene role in a movie called Julia. Yes. Which you watched for, was it the 77 movie draft? And I hadn't seen until this week. And this is a really interesting movie. Not a movie I liked.

I don't think I loved it. I don't remember if I drafted it, though. I expected to like it quite a bit because it is based on an event that Lily and Hellman claims happened, which some people think did not happen. Sure. About a woman transporting some funds into Nazi Germany to provide aid. and it's seen in a kind of flashback structure. Jane Fonda plays the Lillian Helming character. Jason Robards is in the movie as a Dashel Hammett,

and they were a couple. And Streep shows up in a flashback as a friend of Lillian Helmins. And it's funny because, like, I think I would make the case that this is her least good performance. The thing that you're talking about, where you're like, I can't see her acting.

I can see her acting. Right. Because you can see she's never done this before with a camera in front of her. But it also like sets the path for everything that she does in the future where she's doing an accent. She's in an elaborate costume. She's meant to insinuate herself in this world instantaneously. But I was watching her and I was like, that's fake. And I never felt that way ever again watching any of these movies.

I mean, she's up against Jane Fonda, which is. Which is a very different type of actor, I think. I love both And I think they like each other I you know I Yeah I hope so I hope so

But they I Jane Fonda is not mannered Or Jane Fonda is instinctive Which is slightly different than Meryl's naturalism And so

Jane Fonda's like just the facts Yeah Just like direct Blunt Right Clearly enunciated Doesn't do a lot of accent work She's different

She's and she's just a little little bit Jane Fontna in every single. Whereas Merrill Street is like I have put on, you know, several layers of costume and also biographical, uh, information in order to do this. Uh, so Julia. It's just a weird movie also. And Jason Rourdes wins his second Oscar for this movie. I, listen, enjoyed his work.

I don't really get it. I'm a huge fan of his, of course. I just spoke about all the president's been on the press box this week. Um, which was really a great time. And, you know, he's so marvelous. It's Ben Bradley in that movie. And the second one is kind of a weird one. No, no.

You know, there's something really complicated going on here that we should probably mention briefly, which was that in this period of time from, you know, roughly 1973 through 1978, Streep is dating partnered with John Cazale, the great actor who only appeared in five films, all five of which were nominated for Best Picture, some of the most legendary movies of all time. You played Fredo in the Godfather films. and they were in love and they were very close and he got very sick with cancer

and she helped take care of him and her star starts to rise during this tremendously tumultuous period in her life and so she's taking on this really complex material especially in the deer hunter in 1978

her next movie Julia's read by the way right yeah of course while this turmoil is going on in her life and she's because it's is also in the deer hunter. And it's not quite that they were like a package deal,

but that she's very much involved in caring for him and making sure that he can be a part of the deer hunter because it really is towards the end of his life and he's very sick at that point, while also being a pretty revelatory part of the deer hunter, even though she doesn't have a ton to do. And it's kind of like an underwritten role. Yeah.

And she brings a real gravitas and sadness to her character. That's such an interesting movie that has really fallen out of fashion. I'd like to revisit it at some point. I didn't rewatch it for this conversation. But there's a real seriousness in films at this time. You know, there's no irony. There's no fourth wall breaking, jokey, winky stuff. Like, that movie is just an American tragedy.

And she's very comfortable in stuff that is that serious. So it makes sense that this is kind of the spring. board for her towards a much bigger career. Yeah. It's also an interesting display of, you know, that movie is about a group of men and their experiences in Vietnam and their experiences coming back. And there are other women in it, but she is kind of, she's on the side. And so it features like some of the greatest male actors of that generation going through it

in a lot of different ways. and she, as you said, has like a not very developed character, but, like, is over here kind of making her own path. And you do watch the movie, despite, like, all of the, like, the De Niro and the walk-in and the Cazale of it all, kind of be like, wait, who is this person? You know, like, this is, it's a, it's an apt summary of kind of, like, where her career is and what her star power is in this particular moment in American cinema. Yeah.

And, I mean, it's hard not to see. this moment, this relationship in her life and Cazale's passing is almost like this transference where he's a part of the most important American films that are happening in that time and then she becomes a part of that after he passes away.

He passes away before the film is released. She's with him closely until the end of his life. He dies in March of 78. The film comes out at the end of 1978, goes on to one best picture, legendary American movie. I don't think it is,

I don't think it is a green for Merrill Street, particularly, but it would qualify as that, like, the announcement, you know? I mean, that's, I think that's the only case that you would make for it is that it's kind of like this is where it starts. And also that it's a summary of so much of horror film history and, like, cinema in that moment.

You can yellow it, but there's probably, like, an easier introduction. Yeah. And, again, we have to be, like, pretty sparing here. We do. The one tricky thing is that she, She's not in, I don't think she's in any, she's in only one other best picture winner. So, I don't know. Ever? I don't know if that really matters.

But it's really interesting when you look at the scope of her career. Yeah, I believe there's only one, which comes in the 1980s. And so a lot of movies, and when I said that thing that's sort of like, did you see the new Merrill Street movie? Yeah. A lot of movies become her movies and not. I mean, Kramer versus Kramer one. That's right. Sorry, she's in two others.

That's right. that's notable. Well, Cream versus Cream, we'll get there momentarily. After the deer hunter, she appears in Manhattan. Yeah.

She's exceptional in this movie. She's so good. She plays the ex-wife and is just blistering and is a totally different register than what she has in the deer hunter. She is the ultimate ballbreaker. And a perfect foil

to whatever the hell is going on with Woody Allen in that movie and to also his relationships with the Diane Keaton character in the Mariel Hemingway? Yeah, Mariel Hemingway character. So, and the character exists above, which you sort of need for and to even have any credence in the rest of the movie.

And she does it beautifully. There was some slander on a recent, a lot of slander on a recent Blank Check episode featuring a supposed third chair Tracy Lutz. Of this show. Yeah, I heard it. Including that we weren't brave enough to, draft Manhattan at the New York movies draft. I stand by that decision, and also this is not going in the Hall of Fame, but she's very good in it.

She's very good in the film. I love Manhattan. I don't know. I'll draft it if we draft New York movies again. I don't care. Okay. I like it. I think if I were doing a Woody Allen movie set in New York for the, I would do Annie Hall. I prefer Annie Hall to Manhattan. Yeah. But sure. Yeah. I mean, I like Rhapsody and Blue also, you know, but I can just like listen to that. With the cinematography of Gordon Willis in Manhattan is extraordinary. So you're just read for Manhattan. She's on the outskirts of the movie. We don't have, we did listen. We have 65 movies to go.

Okay. 62. Okay, but... 1979, the seduction of Joe Tynin. I had not seen this movie before. Nor had I. And what an interesting pop cultural artifact. It is...

What is your relationship to Alan Alda? He seems like a swell guy. Totally, but I met pop culturally. Well, I'm not a MASH person. I didn't watch the show MASH. I like him as a movie actor. I like him in Woody Allen films. He is hysterical to me in crimes and misdemeanors as the pompous film director.

I, you know, he's a writer as well. Yeah. And he wrote this movie, which Jerry Shotsberg directed, which is about a senator who is being tasked with approving a Supreme Court justice. and he becomes entrenched in an affair with, is she a lobbyist or a legal expert? Maybe a legal expert played by Meryl Streep. Yeah. And the movie is about the paradox of political integrity

versus private desire, right? And there's this guy who is pretending to be to the public, this moral arbiter. And in his private life, he's cheating on his wife, the wonderful Barbara Harris, and betraying his family, but telling the world here's how things ought to be.

And I love that idea. I don't love the movie. I wish I liked it more, honestly. I think I like the idea as well. I think some of my reluctance I agree with you is that Al and Alda is incredibly funny and a gifted actor, but I don't know whether I buy him as, you know, morally confused leading man. and even the there's a whole subplot about

like does he have a good enough relationship with his daughter or whatever and I was like I'm sure Alan Alda has a fine relationship with his daughter you're not really selling the inner conflict here I like the girl dad stuff you know it's not that I didn't like the girl dad stuff I was just kind of like Alan Alda's a nice guy

like he's just he's a nice guy and and his performance couldn't totally communicate like the hidden dark that is the subject of this film. Meryl Streep's also doing a Southern accent here that, listen. I guess it sounds like that to other people. I'm touchy about Southern accents, as you know.

Okay. And you don't really flaunt one. When I go home and in context, it can come out, but that's the deal. Can we do an episode with Southern Amanda? Like a Zoom episode when you're in Georgia and you can let it fly? No, because it's who I'm talking to. And so the way. What if I did like a father?

leghorn leghorn thing. I was like, I say, I say. No, that doesn't work. Welcome to the old big picture. This morning, my husband turned on the masters for my small children, and I was explaining what an azalea is to Nax, which is not specifically southern, but I do know them in the context of being from the south. And I felt it like creeping out like a tiny little bit. Yeah, sure. Trying to explain what pimento cheese is to other people. And you felt Augusta National should not broaden its membership base? Is that also true?

That's right. Just me and I know other women. Right, right. It's funny how that works. That is the second film that Street made in 1979. You know, she said she was on, quote, automatic pilot when she made this movie because, because Aal just died. This is the job that she took in the immediate aftermath of his death. It's not a bad movie. It's just a bit of an artifact of 1970s emotional curiosity. Like the candidate is a movie that is sort of about. about this, but is a much better film. The third film from 1979 that she makes is called Kramer versus Kramer, which you alluded to, which won best picture, which is a bit of a religious text for you and I. Yeah, though I was going to ask you, had you rewatched it since having a kid, you had because... We did the rewatchables.

Well, I didn't because it was the month that Knox was born. So I was on leave. Yes. And... I had had it, but my daughter was, what, six months old? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so as a result, I had not seen Kramer versus Kramer since having kids. But I was just absolutely on the floor from this one.

Yeah. This is just brutal, amazing. I spent some time Googling custody law afterwards. Exciting. Well, because, again, I just don't understand why we can't, like, why joint custody wasn't an opportunity. And the reason is, is because, like, divorce law and custody law was so new in the 70s that for whatever reason, joint custody wasn't on the table.

And so, I mean, though apparently some lawyers at the time were like, why wasn't it just joint custody? Anyway, an amazing, brutal movie, incredible performance by Merrill Street. Yes. Truly one of her best. Because she doesn't ever actually have the giant boiling over a moment. that amazing speech in the end in the courtroom, which is like full of emotion, and which she apparently fought very hard for because the original version of the script was in keeping with the times not particularly empathetic to the mother's point of view.

But it is very controlled. She doesn't try to win you over. She doesn't try to make the case for, she doesn't try to try to. soften what you, the audience, are thinking or feeling, which is like, why would a mom just leave? Like, how can you just leave? She's never,

she's playing the character and not trying to win your approval. So it's amazing. This is also, she plays a lot of moms in the, in the 80s and 90s, which is probably not surprising. Those are the parts that are available. That's a great point.

She really is the great maternal figure of American movies. But they are also moms, like faced with real problems and not in like the you know Rachel Cusk like I'm like I'm so sad that I had kids and I lost like my center of self Is that something Rachel Cusk writes about? I think so. That's what those books are about. Sorry if I slandered Rachel Cusk.

But you know that that whole genre of mom literature and mom being like, wow, it's hard to be a mom. they're about the fact that society has like literally never thought about a mom in any other context as like the person at home like who's cooking and so all of the different things that she has to do and all the different ways that she fails as a mother throughout like the next two to three decades are pretty interesting it's a fascinating component of the movie because that isn't what the movie is the movie is centered on a father who is ill prepared for taking care of his son when his wife walks out on him. And there's a totally different version of this movie where you reverse the Kramer's and the Kramer in the front is the street character. And that it's a woman in crisis movie. It's a woman reaching a stage of her life and realizing she doesn't have what she wants and that she needs to go find what she wants. And not centered on this, you know, I think very generous portrayal of like a dad who has to step up. And Hoffman is also amazing in this film. There's some really messy and unfortunate stuff about the production of

the movie between the two of them. But, um, you know, the movie is best remembered, I think, for most of those touching sequences between the son and the father. And even in some of the friendship stuff and Jane Alexander's role in the movie, but Streep is so commanding in every sequence that she's in. She's so emotionally complex and is allowed to be, like you said, fought for it, like pushed Robert Benton to actually just change the movie and really think the meaning of the movie by letting her have more agency with that character. It's a huge turning point, I think, in characterization in American movies.

You can kind of see like a whole wave. You can make the case that like John Cassavetti's kind of kicked the doors down on some of this stuff. But in like a best picture-winning movie for a woman who actually was awarded by the Academy for playing a character like this, it's a huge breakthrough. To me, it's automatically agreeing. Yeah, of course. I think it's one of the signal achievements of her career. And I think knocks down the doors pretty significantly for who she's going to become as an actor and a star. She's very pregnant when she was making

when she was shooting that scene in the courtroom which I find to be such an interesting little tidbit. She's very covered up because otherwise she's very dominant and visible. She's seated. Yes. It's a trick we all learn. Yes.

And then at the very end which I still, I think like the final scene is kind of bullshit, but whatever. She's wearing like a huge raincoat. Yes. To hide the bump. Like a light reconciliation. Well, when she's just like no, no, it's okay.

You can have custody. Yeah. Because he needs, which he does need his home. That's right. But once again, like get an apartment nearby. Okay.

Work out of visitation schedule. We had to deal with it, you know? Yeah, sure. We did. We did. It was very unfortunate. I mean, that's the thing is,

you know, COD, two CODs host in this show, movies like this that show young kids forced to look at a marriage coming apart. Yeah.

You know, it just, it hits. It just, it hits. Two years go by before her next film. Another film I had not seen, though, a very, very well-known film. I had not either. This is the French lieutenant's woman, which is a very unusual movie, actually, that is based on a novel. Is it William Kennedy? John Fowse.

John Fowles, excuse me. John Fowles's novel, which is about a mysterious and, you know, you. enticing woman in England in the 19th century and the man who falls in love with her and becomes enraptured by her. And there is an outer shell of the movie about two actors who are portraying the characters in an adaptation of this story. Jeremy Irons is the counterpart in the film. And this is some heavy accent work, some real transformation. She's effectively playing two characters, the actress and the character herself. beautifully directed and kind of mysterious movie to me.

I, you know, she was Academy Award nominated for work in this, and Sarah is also a similarly complex character. And kind of hard to accept some of the things that she does. And this is something that she returned to over and over again. Is this kind of questioning the moral core of the character here? She does an English accent, I think very well. I don't really know how to judge English accents, but I was impressed with this movie.

I was a little underwhelmed. And I think that it's because I haven't read French Lieutenant's Woman, but I have read other John Fowles novels. And so I was excited and I was excited for the like the big grand 80s classic literary adaptation featuring Merrill Streep and Jeremy Irons like in in his bride's head era. And I think you're right that it's beautifully captured. and the image of her in the black cloak standing at the end of the pier, which became the poster and sort of an iconic image of Merrill Streep. But I think despite the fact that she has two characters and several accents, it doesn't give her that much to do.

It is Jeremy Irons' movie in many ways. Yeah, and she's just sort of haunted and telling a story. And she does that very well. but it's one where because I'm seeing it after I've seen all of the other like haunted Merrill Street performances that come later I was just

I don't know the structure was interesting that apparently the way the novel works is that it has several different endings so I thought it was cool that they invented something else to communicate the sort of like the postmodern

structural experimentation of the novel without trying to directly one-to-one it. Good adaptation choices. It's not going in. Okay. Not even a yellow for her fourth Academy Award nomination. She's got 20 more. Is it her fourth or her third? I mean, did you love it? I liked it. Okay. Would you like to yellow it? Yeah. You can if you want it. I would. Just for

the sake of conversation. This is her third Academy Award nomination after the Deer Hunter, her win for Kramer versus Kramer. And then the French Lieutenant's Woman. And it is not immediately followed by another Oscar nomination. It is immediately followed by a long-forgotten movie called Still of the Night, which is a reunion with her Kramer v. Kramer director, Robert Benton. And this is a very curious movie. It is a... Did you watch this?

I did. A very overt homage to Alfred Hitchcock. Yeah. More of like an assemblage of Easter eggs. Truly. Roy Shider plays a psychiatrist. one of whose patience is killed and the person who is the suspect is his girlfriend who is portrayed by Merrill Street playing a classic Hitchcock blonde in the tippy Hedron mold, a mysterious woman,

fragile woman who maybe shouldn't be trusted. And this movie is very slow and boring. And the exact opposite of what most Alfred Hitchcock thrillers are. And I found it to be quite an odd duck. They just kept talking and talking and talking. And even when they were doing, not recreating shots, but, you know, the dream sequences or the trying to bring in some of the Hitchcockian visual tension did not exist. Good hair, though. They got the hair.

They got her hair right. She's quite beautiful in this movie. I think that this is her hair and not a wig. Okay. Great. Which is just something to note as we go through the, the hair journey. I continue to have wig blindness. I don't, I just do not know when people are wearing wigs.

The still of the night is not going in the Hall of Fame. Sophie's choice. Yeah. So this is Alan Peculea's adaptation of the William Steyron novel. Yes. About a Polish immigrant come to America, hiding a secret, falling in love with an American man. And also a southern novelist.

Yes, that's true. Who's just there? Yeah. Well, I mean, who is he really? Peter McIntyrean in the movie, but he's clearly some William Steyron stuff going on there. And this is a very hallowed and important film. Um, never one of my favorites.

Uh, I can, I think the, the magnitude of the performance is a minimum a yellow for this because the movie is so... She also wins her second Oscar in five years of work. Yes. Which is, it is the, it is like clearly the hour, like the new Catherine Hepburn is here. Yeah. You know, like this is, this is the American film actress who can do anything. an immaculate accent work. Sure.

And then she's also acting in, I think, is it German or Polish? In Polish, yeah. But then I think people are speaking. No, she has German because that's why she gets to be the secretary for Haas. Yeah. So, I mean, it could be both. Anyway, acting in another language in the flashbacks. I rewatched everything up until the scene.

And I was like, I've seen it. it lives on. I actually just really don't want to watch it. It's emotionally wrenching. Yeah. And you know what? I found even watching everything up to it pretty emotionally devastating. She's amazing in this movie that I agree is a little silly. And when you were talking about how the movie lives on because of the titular Sophie's choice and the incredible performance, everything that's going on with Kevin Klein and Peter McNickle and like, why are you here writing a novel? You know, the source material is unusual.

I don't know whether Sophie's choice would be received in the same way as a novel. Were it published today? I always felt, I love most of the people involved in this movie, but I've always felt that the film is a little flabby as an adaptation. And it feels like the film is really taking a long time

to kind of settle us into this world. And because Streep's performance style is so so big and so clear it's very obvious that there's something she's hiding something there's a wound that is covered by a bandage in the movie you can tell in the first scene it's like oh

what's wrong is she going to be okay what happened and it takes it's a long time to get to that revelation so the movie itself I've never had a huge love for despite liking all the people but her performance is like undeniable to me it would be hard for this movie to not be in the Hall of Fame

Yeah I kind of think it has to be So that'll be green. I make the Catherine Hepburn comment because Catherine Hepburn beat Streep for best actress the previous year for On Golden Pond. And then that was sort of like that was her day new ma as a movie actress, the sort of her fourth win. And Merrill still only has three. But again, it feels like a little bit of a baton passing moment. Okay. Moving on, the next film was Silkwood.

Just one year later. This is crazy where you're like, oh, this year she made this. And this year she made. And now, like, within four years, you've been a part of the deer. Hunter, Kramer versus Kramer, Manhattan, Sophie's Choice, right into Silkwood, which is a Middle Period Mike Nichols film based on a real-life woman who is working in a nuclear power plant and who has been exposed to various levels of radiation and becomes a whistleblower and suffers a very terrible fate.

And her co-stars in this movie are Sharon Kurt Russell. commented before this film is not available in Blu-ray. It's so hard to see. Yes, there's a weird thing with a lot of Mike Nichols movies where for whatever reason they were not kind of taken care of and taken to the next stage. They weren't handed down in the same way. This is very serious issues-oriented emotional drama

about another tough woman, an uncompromising woman, put in a very difficult position. It's an amazing performance. She's nominated again. what are your thoughts on Silkwood? I love Silkwood because it's so hard to see. I wasn't able to revisit it. Oh, interesting.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, also our Blu-ray player is broken, which is going to come up into focus in two entries. Sounds like I know what your birthday present's going to be. It was playing, but it was maybe the HDMI cable. Sye took the remote. I don't know. I would love to have this.

If we were only working with 30 films, then I would make the case for Silkwood. Obviously, like I'm a Mike Nichols partisan. And this is a very classic. They don't make them like this anymore. Great performance. I don't think we have room. We can yellow it.

I think we should yellow it. Shirley Maclean won the Academy Award this year, which is quite something because Deppere Winger was also nominated in the same categories a year where two women were nominated in lead actress does not happen very often. For the same movie. For the same movie, yes. Five women are typically nominated in lead actress. I know.

I think that's wrong. I think they should change. They should put some men in that category, if you ask me. Silkwood is yellow. Okay. 1984 falling in love. Have you seen this film? Yeah, I have.

Did you just see it? Yes. Okay. So this is a romantic drama. Opposite, Streep is opposite Robert De Niro. They had worked together, of course, in the deer hunter. They'd also worked together on stage. They worked together in the cherry orchard in the 70s,

which is how she came to be a part of the deer hunter as well. And Ulu Grossbarred. a gifted filmmaker who made straight time with Dustin Hoffman directed this movie and it's written by the playwright Michael Christopher and no one's seen it and it's completely vanished.

What'd you think? I would have liked it to be better if it is about Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro two of the greats falling in love. It is what's on the label. It is what's on the label and they have a couple

dates in the city. So they both are like Connecticut, you know, into the city commuters. Married professionals. Yeah, married professionals who procrastinate their Christmas shopping way too long. Then they trade Christmas gifts by accident. And then they run into each other on the train. And then they have a connection. And the connection is communicated, right? You do, they have enough chemistry. You believe that like Merrill and Robert De Niro are interested. in each other. But the movie is then much more interested in their own marriages and like what happens to the rest of your life when you have this fleeting connection than the two of them. And I didn't really care about the rest of their lives. I just wanted to watch them,

you know, wander around 80s, New York. This movie has a very bad reputation. It's considered a huge failure, both critically and commercially. I only watched it for the first time last year because Fun City put out a Blu-ray of it and I picked it up out of curiosity and completeism even not knowing we were going to do this and I was kind of charmed by it I think it's really inert for sure like it kind of has no momentum

but I think I just liked sitting inside of the psychology of these two people in relative middle age I think they're probably in their mid-30s at this point but it feels like they're like in their mid-50s because of the time period and I don't know there was something about it

I'm not mad that I watch I watched it. I don't think it's a masterpiece or anything, but I think it's, it has a very bad reputation. It's like, how could this possibly have happened? And I don't, I don't quite feel that way about it. But it's not going in. It's red. It's red. Okay. Falling in love is for sure red. Plenty. You let me the Blu-ray, and I was not able to watch it. Okay. Easily the most interesting discovery for me, because I wasn't expecting much out of this movie. It's directed by Fred Shapese, the Australian filmmaker. I thought this was the second time they'd work together. but it was actually the first. And this is a very strange movie. It's a movie about a British woman who becomes involved in aiding British soldiers during World War II and has a thrilling affair with Sam Neal

in the opening stages of the movie. And this sets her up for a life of excitement. And after the war is over, she finds herself in a world of diplomacy and high manners, and she's a real free spirit. And there's also an indication that maybe she's bipolar or schizophrenic. She has a lot of emotional struggles. And she's always constantly trying to break free from the world that she's trapped in.

The movie is, it's not good, right? Like, you can, it is a little slow. I was with you until possibly bipolar. Well, to me, that's the most interesting stuff in the movie because she's so willing to be unlikable. She's so willing to be like the top. tough woman, you know? Like, her fearlessness as an actor with this stuff, I think is so cool, so commendable.

Not because of the performance and not that I think that Merrill can't do it, but I, you've just, you've hung one too many ornaments on the Christmas tree at that point. I hear you. There are several scenes in the movie where a man is just like, why does she keep doing this to me? And, you know, that's ungenerous, but it is how the movie keeps playing out. A lot of really interesting actors across the movie. I really like seeing Charles dance at this time in his career. He plays her husband, and he's terrific.

there's an incredible scene between Meryl Streep and Ian McKellen. Incredible. And then later between McEllen and dance that is some of the best acting I've ever seen McKellon do. Again, the movie is flawed. Okay. So it's not going in. It's definitely not going in.

But I like seeing it and I would recommend it to people who are interested specifically in Merrill taking on tough parts. Okay. 85 out of Africa. Red, not going in. So, so interesting. I mean, I will agree with you. I really don't like this movie.

It is a best picture winner It is one of the biggest movies of 1985 She was acclaimed For her work in the movie I mean she does a very memorable accent Yes she is Oscar nominated She was not the director's first choice Pollock wanted

Audrey Hepburn for this part And I think that tells you a little bit something About this You know Another woman of high manners Encountering a big game Hunter and falling in love with him. Is it Isaac Dinninson?

Is that the story is based on? Yes. Novel. And... But that's apparently the pseudonym of Danish author Karen Blixen. Yes. Who is the main character. So, and it is based on her experiences.

Yes. Weird and very boring movie. That's also... You wouldn't think that you need anyone. at like any skill to communicate like lust and longing for Robert Redford. But you kind of, Merrill doesn't have enough or she's a little too closed off in this.

Yeah. It's not steamy in any way. There's no real longing. Yeah, it's like eating a rice cake with no water. You know, it's like, this is crunchy. I don't get this movie at all. It's nice that other people liked it, I guess. I'm happy to auto-read it, honestly,

because it wouldn't be in my Hall of Fame by any means. The next year she stars in another Mike Nichols movie Heartburn. A lot of these movies are not really in the culture. Heartburn having a little bit of a comeback. Okay. And still not available on Blu-ray. Well, that's between you and the Blu-ray makers and they're internalized. And the millions and millions of listeners at home screaming for their heartburn Blu-rays.

Right. No, I know. Bring it to me. It's how many of these are not available on Blu-ray? Quite a few. Yeah. Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that there's a woman starring in most of them? I mean, there's a Jack Nicholson movie. What are you talking about? I know. I know. But, you know. Made by a man. Made by one of the men. The men, Mike Nichols, but the men who was great with women actors.

Yeah. Screenplay by Nora Ephron adapted from her novel was not a success at the time. People were pretty mean about it. I'm quite fond of this movie. I am as well. I think it's the Nicholson and Streep of it all. You understand. And it's pretty sexy. And you understand their appeal, and which then also, or their appeal to each other, which then does set up the betrayal.

It's a, like, it's a good hang movie. You know, I think of like all of the moments of Nicholson. When Nicholson just shows up singing in the, it's, you know, it's so great and such a great communication of why this character is so irresistible and why you would put up with all this shit.

And then why you would also then write a really mean book. about it afterwards. This movie is actually the blueprint for what you like. Yeah. I know. This is the late period Nancy Meyer stuff that you love so much. There's so much of that in this. And obviously, it's so personal and confessional for Efron and her relationship with

Carl Bernstein. And I really like it. I don't know if it's in the Hall of Fame. No, it doesn't have to be. It can be yellow. Yeah. But I think it's worth, I think people have not seen Hartburn. They should seek it out because it's a good time.

And they eat the pasta in bed together. Watch it's great. It's great stuff. sexy and it leads to this next movie. They're renovating a house, all, you know, all my dreams. All your stuff. Yeah.

All your stuff. Well, hopefully not the affairs. Right. And then he has an affair with Elmer Ice. Yeah, you don't want that. Yeah. In 1987, they reunite to make iron weed. Another movie I had not seen before.

Nor had I. I know that you have some unkind feelings towards this movie. This is Hector Babenko's follow-up to Kiss of the Spider Woman. Yeah. The Argentine's Brazilian filmmaker. and I'll let you go first and then I'll share my feelings. This was the most excruciating watch of this entire exercise for me. I just found this brutal and long, and it is bleak and boring.

It's set in the Great Depression. Yes, right at the tail end of the Great Depression. And Jack Nicholson and Merrill Street both played drunks, and they are united by their drunkenness. And they're sort of, they live on the fringes of society. They're hobo drifters, yeah, during the Depression. And then it's just relentlessly dark. They just keep being drunk.

An extraordinarily bleak movie. I'd never seen it. I definitely liked it more than you. I think it is you really have to be in the right mind state to get on board with it. It is more Nicholson's movie than it is Streep. I think both of their performances are excellent, honestly. They were both nominated for Academy Awards for their work in this movie, but the movie got no other Academy Awards,

which would tell you a little something about the movie. This is the William Kennedy novel that I was thinking of. This is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It is a very realistic depiction of, you know, upstate New York in the late 1930s in the aftermath of the carnage of the Depression and what it did to middle-class America. There's something really, really interesting to me about these two people, both of whom were, if not high class, had a lot of privilege and opportunity and everything. They withered everything away.

Like they lost everything in this story. It's just that the whole story is about them over a course of a couple of days kind of falling apart completely and getting to the end of something. There is a scene in this movie that I think is one of the best Meryl Streep scenes of all time, which is when she sings,

That's Me, Pal. Yeah. And she, it is simultaneously a kind of dream sequence and also a crashing nightmare of her life and what hurt she has become because she was a singer

in a previous life and she goes on stage to sing in a local bar and she looks terrible her teeth are yellowed her voices falling apart she looks awful pale sickly

and she sings this beautiful song and she has captivated Jack Nicholson's character and they share looks between each other and it's like it's amazing stuff

but the movie is just like so sad and so going nowhere except to the inevitable conclusion that it reaches. To the badness. Yeah. It is impressive that they play like the yuppiest of yuppies in 86 in Heartburn and then swing to this. And they are both very good. And it's back to back, at least release-wise.

So they're great actors, but no, it's not going in. Okay. So red for ironweed, which does have a Blu-ray. Congratulations. From Olive. Thank you, Olive, for doing that. 1988, the next film is a cry in the dark. Yeah. Which is also called, what, something angel, evil angels. Evil angels.

It was released as such, I think, in Europe and in Australia, reunion with Fred Shepese and one of the most famous Merrill Street performances, because she plays an Australian woman. Right. Whose child is taken. Is it one of the most famous Merrill Street performances, or is it the most famous line of dialogue? Well, are we splitting hairs?

Well, not a lot of people have seen this movie, and yet everyone knows about it. I had not either until, and you said, you know, I bought a cry in the dark, and I was like, oh, a dingo ate my baby, which is not even accurate. It is the dingo's got my baby. And which happens within the first 15 minutes of the film, which I was also surprised by. I really dug this. And I really, I really liked this performance because this is a true story of a woman, Lindy Chamberlain, whose infant daughter was, disappears in the Australian outback. During a camping trip, taken from the tent. And she is accused of murdering her daughter. And there's a, I mean, she goes to trial and is convicted. Sorry, I was going to spoil it.

It's a true story. Yeah, it's a true story. And then there, I mean, there's like very intense press attention in Australia. And so that has covered as well. And ultimately, so Lindy Chamberlain, the Merrill Street character, maintains her innocence throughout and even after release. And, but the movie and the performance even, I think the performance, the performance, the performance is amazing because it does believe in the innocence, but again, it does not care about likability at all. And it is a really, really confusing, like prickly, just, they're very religious as well. So there is a deep religious element, but not in the like American evangelical way that we think of.

That there's like a coldness and a hardness to what she's doing as her like infant daughter is found dead basically. And it's, I was amazed by it. And I, like, also really just is not what I was expecting from the dingoa, my baby. Same. The movie makes this really interesting choice, which is that the movie believes her the whole way through. Because it shows you what happened from its perspective. And it's like, well, this is what happened. Right.

So we know she's innocent. But the person that we meet in the movie does not seem innocent. No. And the way that she reacts, the way she engages with lawyers, with the media, with her own husband. the way that she demonstrates or doesn't demonstrate the effects of tragedy is really, really interesting. And the way that Sam Neal as her husband deals with her. Yes. The way the media covers it.

Well, there's like a feeding frenzy around her where they want her to be guilty, which I find this to be a very astute movie about the media and about what the public wants and the way that the media presents it to us. Well, there was a scene when the verdict is. is read and they show listening parties on the radio, which, you know, took me to back when the OJ. Verdech was released. And we were all crowded around the TV. But this is well before the OJ verdict.

It's a huge story in Australia. So I was going to make a bid for this to go in, too. I think we should. I thought it was really cool. I think we can put it in the Hall of Fame. She's also, she just has like the worst bowl cut in the world. I do think that's a wig just to kind of bring you in. Apparently accurate to Lindy Chamberlain.

And, you know, an Australian accent, which I'm not as familiar with. so very credible to me and very 80s close and it does kind of disappear. This, I want, Cry in the Dark is green and I think it's also a turning point

in her career because she starts looking for something bigger and different after this and that period in the 80s and all of these movies that we've caught up on you see as this extremely serious

body of work like really, really specific, unflinching material, all this morally complex gray area that she's interesting getting into. And you can feel her in 1989 with She Devil making a choice to be a commercial actor. She wants to get into comedy.

She wants to get into movies that a lot of people are going to see. She doesn't want to just keep making awards fair. I ultimately didn't think Sheed Devil was successful. I also had not seen this movie. I had neither. Susan Seidelman, I think it's her third feature, opposite Roseanne Barr. She plays a very successful

romantic novelist. Basically Jackie Collins. Yep. Who lures Roseanne Barr's husband away, a lawyer played by Ed Bickley Jr. And the movie has a kind of like camp comedy quality to it. Right. Not a bad Merrill Street performance. She's very funny.

My issues with the film were more about. So Roseanne Barr is the star. And so they are trying to introduce some sort of like social commentary on the 80s and, you know, women's like aesthetics and family life versus working life. And it kind of pits Roseanne versus Merrill in ways that are a bummer and to everyone and insulting to everyone involved. I agree. I think it's just really overstated Roseanne Barr's kind of homeliness versus Merrill Streep's glamour. And it's a very unsubtle movie.

I think it's okay. But it's definitely not going in. Okay, 1990 Postcards from the Edge. Her third film with Mike Nichols. Yeah. She is portraying a very thinly veiled version of Carrie Fisher and her relationships are her mother Debbie Reynolds opposite Shirley McLean in this movie.

And this is a great movie. Yeah. I've been trying to think about how this fits in here. I don't... Fun movie for fans of Hollywood, fun movie for portraits of artists and vulnerable actresses. Right, and behind the scenes,

making of movies lore and great actresses yelling at each other and mom stuff and there aren't as many, you know, my mom is a thing. She doesn't play a lot of daughters too. True. You know, that's another thing.

So, I mean, I love this movie. I didn't expect it to go in just from a room standpoint. She's also, she doesn't play someone that contemporaneous that often. She's playing a normal person. Someone who does a fair amount of drugs, yeah, but still the closest you can get to what I imagine Merrill Streep's real voice sounds like. And again, I don't think it's a wig. I think it's her hair. Yeah, she said one of the reasons I took this part was

because I'm so afraid of singing in front of people and this role was a way to explore my own insecurities about myself. And she does sing in this movie in a very memorable and uncomfortable sequence. I'll see yellow. Yeah, yellow for sure. I like this. movie a lot. I haven't seen it in a while. Also not available on Blu-ray. What the fuck? 1991 defending your life. She portrays Julia and Albert Brooks's Fantasia about

what happens after you die and how it's determined where you get to go. Albert Brooks' objective of fascination for me. Merrill Streep is luminous in this movie. Yeah, beautiful. The perfect person that you've been waiting your entire life and afterlife for.

I think her character is not the most finally drawn. There's definitely a little bit of manic pixie dream girl in Julia. Yeah, she's the girl. She's the afterlife girl. She's the afterlife girl. I love the movie. I don't know if it's great, so great because of Meryl Street.

You can tell Everbrooks at the time of his life doing this with her. They're great together. I feel about this the way I feel about postcards from the edge, which is I really like watching it. And it's similar projects where it's like you, Merrill, you can tell that Merrill wanted to do it. and that everyone was having a great time. Yes.

And that she's not so corseted up and not, you know, so many degrees removed from herself. She's just a regular dead person. Yeah, and still like, and very charismatic. And you want to spend time around her, especially in defending your life. Yeah. But I don't think it has to. We can yell at it. Well, the other thing, too, is I find in all of these early films, she's so tightly wound.

And she's very free in this movie. She's very unbothered by whatever is in front of her. And that plays as a great counter to bro. who's so neurotic. Okay, yellow. 1992 death becomes her. Interesting movie. A big spectacle, Robert Zemeckis satire on beauty and aging.

Right. A sharper version of She-Devil in some ways. Yes. Feels like she kind of closes the loop with this movie. She did not like making it. There were a lot of visual effects involved. It is, for 1992, a staggering achievement. As are most of these 90s-Zemax movies,

or just like, how the fuck did he do that? Like, he's inventing film technology in real time. I've always found the movie a bit shrill. Yeah. It's very inventive and very fun, but also, like, it's absurdity sometimes, I think, goes a little over the edge into annoyance. It's campy.

And it has become sort of a cult classic. And I think if River Wild was the first time I saw Merrill Street, then I've definitely seen this film several times in the late 90s because it was kind of, it was my type of body horror. Yes. And, you know, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn going face to face. And then Isabella Rosalini doing whatever she's doing that's extremely powerful. She's like an Egyptian goddess of some kind.

Yeah, she's old and she has the secret to, if not everlasting life, then prolonging it. Good physical comedy from Meryl. Yeah, she's funny. Yeah. Bruce Willis is miscast as the husband that they're fighting over, though, you know, Maybe that's the point. I like this movie. I don't think I has to go in,

but I want to honor everyone's childhood, including my own. Okay. Death Becomes Her will be yellow. Okay. The House of the Spirits. Yeah. Did you watch this?

I forgot to watch this one. Okay. I did watch this. I bought this on DVD. It came on a three-pack. Okay. The three-pack DVD, which was also featured Music of the Heart,

which we'll get to momentarily, and featured Marvin's room, which I previously owned on Blu-ray. But in order to get my hands on this, this movie. That's what I did. House of the Spirits is an adaptation of the Isabel Allende novel, and this is a funky movie, man, because it's about a Chilean family in the 1920s, and there are no South American or Latin actors in this movie here, as I can tell. It's got a stellar cast. The cast includes Streep Jeremy Irons or Reunion from the French

Lieutenant's Woman, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Ben, Anders, Armand Mueller-Stahl, Vanessa Redgrave. I guess Maria Conchita Alonso is in the film. She's a Latin actress. But this movie is a mess. And kind of a fiasco, actually. Like Billy August directed him who made Peli the Conqueror. And I think it's very well-meaning about this kind of elevated family,

kind of like almost like a plantation owner family in Santiago. Okay. And he plays what becomes Merrill Streep's. Mary Strip plays his daughter, which is strange, considering that they played lovers in a film 15 years previous. Right, yeah.

And the dynamics of the family and what role this family plays in this community and the way that the father kind of marauds his way through the town and is very unforgiving. There's like a lot of dubbing in the movie, like Armand Mueller-Stahl. I'm just looking at the plot summary of the novel. on Wikipedia.

And there's a lot going on here. Well, it's a big, expansive, historical, dramatic novel. And everyone is miscast, and it's very slow and boring. Okay. That's tough. So it's a real, like, how this happened kind of a thing? You know everybody has, like, the right intentions, but the movie doesn't work at all. So I will just say auto-read.

Okay. She has a few more of these coming up. Yeah. But not the next one. The next one's the River Wild, which is obviously Cortex for us something that we really enjoy

with her but definitely a left turn Curtis Hanson one of the great shape-shifting thriller directors of his time we just did LA Confidential

and the re-watchables last month I don't know if it's in the Hall of Fame Personal Hall of Fame we also forgot that during these we give a blue

out at some point to something that you should check out you're right about that I don't think that this needs to be our blue either because I think

most people have seen it I wonder if we've already done my blue, but that's okay. We can come back to that. Yeah. We can yellow it for personal significance. It's just, it's also, it's really cool that she does this and she's so good at it. It is, she doesn't do all of her stunts. And apparently she almost drowned while doing one of the stunts late in the day just because of exhaustion.

The river team saved her. And there is like a whole river crew, but she's in that boat a lot. Like she is, she's very, very physical. And it's, you know, not Tom Cruise running around a Mission Impossible level action, but I can't think of how many times she's been outdoors as much as she is in this movie, which is primarily filmed on location on a river, like almost entirely. So she's very convincing and it's just to the shape-shifting quality. It's not what you would think of when you're thinking about the woman who won for Sophie's choice. Yeah, it's interesting. So we've only got three greens so far, even though we've gone through a very big historical period for her where she's making some of her best movies.

In 1995, we get the Bridges of Madison County, which I revisited for the first time in probably 20 years yesterday. And I just find it be terribly moving. And it's a weird movie because the framework of the movie is that this woman Francesca Johnson has died and her children are discovering. things, letters and photographs and information that she's left for her family to discover after her death to explain where she wants her ashes scattered. And that takes her son and her daughter back to the past to this romantic affair that she has.

Street plays this Italian war bride. Clint Eastwood, very memorably, plays a National Geographic photographer who comes to their home. Is it which state is it Wisconsin? Iowa. Iowa, thank you. And I just want to say that the framework of it

and the performances around it is terrible. Terrible. Some of the worst shit I've ever seen in a movie. I can't believe it's the same movie because inside of the movie is this such a sweet and emotionally deep portrayal of two middle-aged people finding each other at this time in their lives.

And Eastwood and Streep, like, honestly, never better. Like, they're just so great together. it's very schmaltzy but in a good way, a way that I enjoy. And I was blown away revisiting and being like watching these actors at the beginning and end of the movie, kind of fuck the movie up a little bit. In addition to the level of performances, which is not on Streep and Eastwood's level,

there's just a very basic, why do you need to be revealing this to your children aspect of it? But I had a different reaction. I was like, why do you care? It's so nice that your mother had this. they're so offended. It's, I agree with that. And I guess it's because, you know, funeral preparations and everything is very intense.

Yeah. I guess Iowa family at that time in history, you know. I don't know. I was just kind of like, do they need this much detail? And then I guess part of it is because it was like the only part of her life where she really felt truly alive. And so she needs to communicate that to someone even after the fact. And that's kind of what's driving the novel. And I get that.

And I get that. Yeah. So I understand I mean she and Eastwood Just in that kitchen Is electric I know it's so so good I will say

The Italian accent Oh I thought it was good She's doing Anna Maniani Like there's a there's a Yeah she's like she's kind of imitating other actresses You know she's a little bit thicker in that movie You know like she's clearly like She's transformed a bit

But I think she's so beautiful And so funny And that is really one because I rewatched it as well. And the asides and the observations and the way that she reveals that that character is not just the traditional Iowa housewife and feels very cut off from another part of herself and cut off from the world at large. It's in small observations or jokes or things that she almost mutters under her breath to herself and that he catches. I love the way she answers his questions about, like, how she's supposed to feel about her life in Iowa. And, you know, that stuff is so great. This is a really weird movie.

I mean, it's an Amblin film, and it was developed by Steven Spielberg, and Eastwood. I think this is their only major collaboration. And they have kind of, this is like Americana, this movie. And it's very much an interesting movie about an immigrant and the way that you kind of assimilate or don't assimilate and how lost you can feel inside your own family, inside your own life. and also Eastwood, you know, who's always so restrained, but it's so appropriate for this character, for the robber character. And that look on his face when he sees her in the car at the end

and the rain is falling on him. It's just some of the best stuff they've ever done together. I really like this movie. And then the way that it stays with her in the car for so much longer than you expect it to. And that's when you really like get the Merrill moment. But even there, just all of the emotion bubbling up, but it can't totally because she's.

in the car with her. With her husband. It's really, really good stuff. Green. It's great. Great. I'm with you. 1996 before and after.

Do you watch this? I did. Pretty bad. Yeah. Barbay Schroeder story about a family whose son may or may not have committed a grisly crime and how the parents react to it. You know, I did think of this new movie Josephine that's coming out later this year and

the kind of like dynamic between two people who are like worried about their children. And there is something that they have some things in common. But this is just like very clunky. the story is bad. The story is very silly and it's Liam Neeson, right? Yeah, what Liam Neeson is going for it in ways that I don't really think are matched with the rest of the movie. His performance is not good. And so she's playing a doctor.

And again, she's a mom and she's a mom reckoning with like what is the right thing to do and how am I supposed to raise my kid? How am I supposed to be fit in this world? What's socially acceptable? What's expected of me? But her decision is sort of at a left field And then Alfred Molina just like yells at her Yes, I do love the scene where they first meet Alfred Molina And he kind of explains how things are in these cases

That's very entertaining He's really chewing the scenery, but the movie itself is very forgettable Yeah Okay, so that's red 1996 Marvin's room Perhaps best known now as the name of a Drake song But it was originally a drama A reunion between Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep

and featuring a very young Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes. This is a movie about two sisters, getting back together after the death of their father. And one of them needs to have a transplant. I haven't seen this movie in a long time. Diane Keaton has leukemia, which is also what killed their mother.

Right. And so she needs a match, like a donor match, I think, for a bone marrow transplant plant. some type of transplant and so the so Meryl Streep is hoping that one of her sons or she you know that

some of them are a donor and so they all like are brought back together to care to try to help the Diane Keen character and there's something really interesting about the premise of this which is you know it's written by this playwright Scott McPherson who used his experience of caring for his partner who died for AIDS

but he's kind of transformed it into this family drama which I think makes it a little bit more bland. And if perhaps the adaptation had more closely reflected his own personal experience, it might have been a little bit more interesting. This feels, this, this is kind of like the soft middle of Merrill Streep's career where she's making some kind of sincere and thoughtful movies, but they all feel a little mushy to me. And then they did not leave a big impact. I purposely didn't revisit this because I don't remember loving it. Did you, were you into it? I didn't really. It was fine. I mean, it was fun to see Merrill Streep and Leo.

And I hadn't seen young Leo in a long time for whatever reason. So to revisit that and their moments, he plays also like his character's got a lot of problems and I think burned their house down. And so he has to be removed from an institution of sorts. I don't know. It wasn't that good. It doesn't need to go in. Marvin's Room Red. Yeah.

Ninety-eight, one true thing. Yeah. Another family drama. This time about Merrill Streep's character is the one who has cancer. Yeah. It's very sick. Renee Zellweger needs to come home to be with her family. She's a daughter.

She's a hardworking young woman. She works at New York Magazine. Yeah. Amazing. And they, I mean, they even have like the logo in the lobby. William Hurt is her husband,

is Treep's husband, and he's got a past. Yeah. William Hurt once again fucking stuff up. Yeah. But also just in the corner looking confused. You know, they're an interesting match. And I think as actors,

they actually have a lot in common. They pursue similar kind of roles. They both project a kind of intelligence. I don't remember really liking this movie very much, though, when I saw it. No, so Merrill Street plays... Is sick and gets sicker throughout the film. And, you know, she's very affecting

and very good at that. And when she is really sick and kind of has that one moment of this is what I want to, you know, say before it all goes. She's... It's upsetting. She's really good at what she does, but the movie itself...

is you can it doesn't need to go in 1998 dancing at lunassa this is an Irish film directed by Pat O'Connor based on the Brian Freel play love Brian Freel's work this is a movie about five sisters living in a house in Ireland together and they're getting older

and they're looking for happiness in different ways they're looking to be seen as real people that's more than just these these gals stuck together small fine movie Like, you know, no great shakes. Her part is fairly modest, given the ensemble approach to the movie.

Definitely not going on the whole fame. 1999 Music of the Heart. Did you see this? I sure did. Okay. This is best known as, in addition to an Academy Award nomination vehicle for Merrill Street, as West Craven's only non-horror movie. It was his life's biggest dream to direct the story of Roberta Guaspari,

who was a Harlem music teacher. And it is fascinating that an artist who gave us so much and evolved horror filmmaking and helped launch and oversee the Scream franchise and Nightmare in Elm Street and all the incredible work that he did

that this is the movie he really wanted to make which is a completely bland Miramaxie character drama from the late 90s. Right. What'd you think? I was happy when all of the famous violinists showed up at the concert at the end of Carnegie Hall. I was like, wow, it's Zach Promen, Joshua Bell.

That was like for you when Captain America caught the hammer. Yeah, I was like, hey, I remember those people from the late 90s classical music scene. They're invoked in the film, you know, she's like, and let me tell you this about it's Sack Proman, you know. Yeah, I mean, that was nice. I believe in the goals of this program to share music with children. Tough scene, though, where she woman-splains to a black mother about why it's okay to only be performing the music of old dead white men. I agree. That was a scene you wouldn't see in a movie in 2026.

That's true. And I'm sure that they've rethought the program somewhat in terms of the, you know, the limitation. that it's only violence. Recently I told my mother about my son's drum lessons. She said, what about the violin? I like the violin. I'd like to learn how to play the violin. I wish that I had done the violin.

For whatever reason, I did every other instrument. But I, you know, I think music heals the soul and otherwise we don't ever have to talk about this movie again. Music of the Heart is Red. 2001, she has a very small role as Blue Mecca in AI, artificial intelligence, which is a film that is a massive. masterpiece. Okay.

But it is not going in the Merrill Street Hall of Fame. All right. 2002 adaptation. Interesting one. I love this movie. Yeah, this movie is amazing.

Probably found us at the right time, right? Yeah. Very bold and exciting performance for Merrill Street, who plays sort of Susan Orlean. Right.

The journalist and the author of the Orchid Thief around which this movie is sort of based, but not really. And Charlie Kaufman's screenplay and Spike Jones's direction make this

I think one of the more kinetic and exciting and unpredictable movies of its time. And she does stuff in this movie. Yeah. And also lets us think that Susan Orlean did stuff in this movie. It is very unusual. She has this amazing affair with this Chris Cooper character. And she seems just baddie. But also the funny part of it is that so she's playing a real person.

And again, this is, you know, contemporaneous Merrill. She shows up. She's playing a New Yorker writer. She's talking in a fairly normal voice, dressed normally, gets into the car with Chris Cooper and starts interviewing him. And I even thought just the cadence of her interview questions and how she asked follow-ups was perfect. And natural, but also, you know, she knew that she had a job to do.

So she starts off kind of normal, Merrill. And then the genius and the fun of the movie and the performance is that she's just doing all kind of stuff. And you're like, what? I think it's really fun that she did this. This is my favorite of the Spike Jones Charlie Kaufman collaborations and probably my favorite Charlie Kaufman. So I will yell it for sure. I mean, if it were just up to me, it would go in because I think she's so wonderful.

Wonderful. Let's do it. All right. 2000 and two the hours. As I told you, I would not be revisiting it. I didn't revisit because you told me to. Not too. I don't care about this movie.

I don't think it's very good. Yeah. So it's read for me. I didn't like it either. And I think I even read the novel, like the hours in addition to... Michael Cunningham? Yeah, in addition to Mrs. Dalloway at some point. Nothing has stayed with me.

Okay. The hours is out. 2004, the Manchurian candidate. Now, I don't think this is going in, but I do think it's a very good villain performance for Merrill Street, which she has not done a lot of till this point. Right. They are coming for more and more. So you're identifying this as the turn.

A little bit of a, yeah, a little bit of a linchpin moment for her. This is a remake, of course, of the Frankenheimer movie from the 60s. I think a very underrated movie. I wrote about it at length on Letterbox some years ago during the pandemic when I wrote about it. And I was kind of blown away by it. And then Brian Raftery covered it, I thought, quite well on his series around movies, around the sort of Bush era. Right. I rewatched it for that, and so I did not rewatch it for this.

Really interesting movie. I think a movie that kind of sees the future. It's got a real, like, uncomfortable energy inside of it. And Denzel's character is very uncomfortable throughout the entirety of the movie. But I think it's worth checking out, just not going in her Hall of Fame. Fair? Yeah, I agree. Though it does linger in my mind as when I think of late period mean elder Merrill, that's the image that I see.

So it does introduce a new Merrill archetype. Yes. She's like a hard-bitten senator? I think so. 2004 also a series of unfortunate events, the Lemony Snicket Adaptation, which I guess is a book that her children liked and so she made it. I saw this when he came out and I can't remember a thing about it, but it's obviously not going into her Hall of Fame. I did see it. She plays the aunt who is very nervous and goes along on the ride with them for a while.

I didn't really get what this movie was about. Is this a thing for you guys in the booth? For me, no. Lucas just said to me that he does enjoy this stuff, but not really personal. You read the books? No, he did not read the books, just the movie. All right. Well, it's not going in.

Sorry. 2005 prime. Yeah. Merrill Street plays a mother who discovers that one of her, she's a psychotherapist, and one of her patients is dating her younger son. It's played by Brian Greenberg. Yes. The woman, the patient is played by Uma Thurman.

This is fine. This is okay. You had everything for Brian Greenberg? So this introduced Brian Greenberg to a lot of us. This was in 2005, I was 21. This is sort of like a cortex. Like Juliet Lippman also loves prime. Yeah, yeah.

We were just kind of like, oh, what's going on here? I like Brian Greenberg. And he is like very young and very handsome and Uma Thurman's very funny in it. It's not going in. Another very unfortunate wig. That I remember. She's like our classes, the brown hair.

Kind of like a road test for the big little lies. Yes. Styling. Yeah. She's fine in it. Yeah, it's okay. It's a perfectly fine movie Yeah

But definitely not a Hall of Fame movie No 2006, a Prairie Home Companion Yeah She is a part of the big ensemble Robert Rulman's final film It's sort of like Garrison Keeler Roadshow adaptation

Of the radio performances She's very good in the movie Singing a lot Yeah Did you have a Prairie Home Companion face? Not really I don't really have a lot of experience with that I did for whatever reason

Just listening to the show Yeah I think it was because it was pre Spotify and pre-streaming services. So I listened to a lot of books on tape and then it had sort of like a produced radio quality sort of like pre-podcast podcast folksie. And then I also, I went to a summer camp where Garrison Kieler came and performed a lot. So

I don't know. I listened to all of it. Then I think he got canceled. I think he did get canceled. Yeah, yeah. And this film also famously just kind of shadow directed, co-directed by Paul Thomas Anderson because Altman was near the end of his life. It was very sick. And also famously features Lindsay Lohan as Merrill Streep's daughter, but at a not productive time in Lindsay Lohan's life. But not a bad performance by her.

No, no, no, but I think it was just sort of tumultuous. Things are going downhill, yeah. Prairie home companion, not going in. Sure. 2006, the devil wears a product. Yes. Green. Yes.

Do you feel the need to speak about it, or should we just hold it until we do our episode? Did you revisit it for this? I will. I have not yet. But you did. I want to see it close to the scene number two. Okay, but will you see it before or after? I'll see it before.

Okay. I see two. She was nominated this year. Yes. And I believe she lost to Helen Marin for the queen, which is a performance that I like. But and a movie that I like. And shout up Peter Morgan for making five good seasons of the crown. But the Devil Wars Prada is, I would pick Merrill to win.

It's transformative in her career. And I also think in like pop culture, pop culture understanding of her. We hear that she's nominated for lead actress, though, isn't it? She is the lead. It is... More than Anne Hathaway? It's a two-hander. And she's really, ultimately,

she's like the anti-hero of the movie once you grow up and understand. I haven't seen it in a while. I trust you, but I always felt like it was very clearly Anne Hathaway's, we went home with Anne Hathaway, you know? Yeah, but you go home with Meryl too, and you hear her, she has that scene in the...

Yeah, with Miranda. She has that scene when they're in Paris, and she's telling the Anne Hathaway character that she's getting a divorce. and Rupert Murdoch should cut a check for all of the papers he's sold off of me. You know, you learn about Miranda's inner life. So I think lead actress is fine.

But if Manterian candidate is sort of now she's become a villain, she's not really the villain in Devil Wars product, but she is, it's a larger-than-life character. And like it's, I guess it is IP in that it's based on a novel by Lauren Weisberger. But it's a character that exists outside of just the merit. illness. Miranda Priestley is her own person. And I think just obviously this movie makes a ton of money, puts her back in the, you know, center of the box office, introduces her to a new generation of

people really starts like her whole, now I make movies that people see in theaters. Yeah, for mainstream audiences. Yeah. Totally. This is, um, it's a watershed moment in her career as a movie star. And it's also, you know, as a performance, amazing. She doesn't raise her voice once. in the movie. She is this terrifying figure and everything is done at a whisper. And no, no, it wasn't a question. And like every choice that I or anyone else would make to try to communicate power and strength and fear by going big, she goes really, really small, which is just a great Merrill Streep choice. She says that she based some of it on Clint Eastwood, which is wonderful. And you can see it as soon as she says it. color too. And, you know, in terms of lime readings and memes, florals for spring, groundbreaking, you know, like

it's, please bore someone else with your questions. By all means, move at a glacial pace, you know how that thrills me. Like, you know, I know all of them. It's very, it's a one-of-a-kind performance, so green. Going right in. We're going to do these next four

really quickly. Okay. The Ant Bulley voice performance, Red. 2007's Dark Matter Yeah Quite possibly the least seen Of all of her films Right I did look at some of it

Okay Completely unnecessary She's not in all of the film Right Um red 2007's evening I have seen this I didn't revisit it

It feels as though it is lost to time Yes Red Remarkable cast But Who else is in it I think Vanessa Redgrave Definitely Hugh Dancy

And Clarenes Because there are two timelines And they play the younger one This is that I saw this when I was in Brazil, and it was, I think it was subtitled and not dubbed, but you couldn't, I couldn't guarantee it in any way. Okay. But adapted from a novel and totally forgotten. Her next film is also somewhat forgotten. It's called Rendition.

It's about the practice of extraordinary rendition. I rewatched this. Did you really? Yeah, because I couldn't remember what was in Manchurian candidate and what was in this. She's playing kind of the head of the CIA or someone who oversees the CIA. She keeps taking these parts in these kind of political films that have a very, that are clearly very critical of the way that these organizations work, but the films themselves are not always successful.

This one I think is very unsuccessful, Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon of the stars of the movie. Did you like it watching it again? No. I didn't think it was very good. To me, this is most notable because this is where Jake Gillenhall and Reese Weatherspoon met. and then started dating, which was a very late-aughts moment, for those of you who know. So rendition's out. Yeah.

2007 Lions for Lambs. Yeah, didn't revisit this one. On paper should be one of the best movies of the year. Yeah. It also comes in one of the best movie years in recent history. Robert Redford directs Tom Cruise, Merrill Streep, and also Robert Redford and a number of other people. In a kind of political thriller slash allegory about the relationship between government, the the military and the intellectual class and the way that we all understand those things.

Merrill Street plays a kind of thinly veiled stand-in for Judith Miller, I believe, the New York Times journalist. I think I've got that right. And Tom Cruise plays a very unctious senator, young senator. And the movies are very bad. And it pains me to say that it's very bad, but it is very bad. So it is not going in. 2008 Mama Mia. Yeah.

So we have six greens right now because we're about to go on a little run here. Yeah. So we need to kind of know how much space we have and what we're working with. And I think no matter what Mamma Mia has to go in. I fully agree. Because just because of how much money it made. It is a box office smash. Yes, I'm with you.

centered around. I wouldn't have known this two months ago, but now I do. And all leading up to Meryl Streep singing the winner takes it all at Pierce Brosnan below a beautiful hilltop church. Nothing funnier in my life than when my daughter stops, looks at me and says, money, money must be funny in the rich man's world. She does that all the time now. Mom Mia is green. Yeah. We spent a lot of time on it on our movie swap episode.

She's very likable in this. Yeah, she's great. She's definitely not the problem. Weird movie. Okay. 2008 doubt. Yeah. You're not a doubt person, right?

I rewatched it. Okay. And I was like, yeah, this is pretty good. I think it's pretty darn good. It is pretty good. And it's on paper, it should be sort of just a, like a filler. You know? Well, but also just kind of, oh, they, you know, made another one with some of the generation's greatest actors where we're talking about morality.

It's John Patrick Shanley, though. I know. I mean, he's wonderful. But what was the B's movie? The one with Jamie Dornan Yeah And Emily Plant Yeah what was that one called?

Wild Mountain Time Yes Wild Mountain Time Yes Wight M-H-Y-M-E I've rarely been so surprised by a film Anyway I think that I I don't know

I hadn't revisited it I wasn't giving it the time of day It's really good I mean is Merrill Street Philipsie Morhoffin and Violo Davis doing some of their best work Yeah. It's not a movie I want to rewatch.

It's a tough movie. It's a painful movie. I'm going through in my 40s this clash with spirituality, and this movie would not make me feel good about that. I think it's yellow. Yes. I think you could make a case for green. Well, we'll come back to it.

Let's say. We have to have this conversation. 2009, Julie and Julia. I love this performance. And this is, she's having. so much fun with it. You can't have it all here. No, I know.

You're going to try to have it all. I'm not going to, well, I'm not going to have it all in the same way. But, you know, this is a character. Well, this is a real person, Julia Child, who was also turned into an S&L character before this movie. And so you are dealing with like a real person with a very distinctive style of speech and a lot of visual references in the TV show, which is how we all got to know her. And then also already a parody of it.

Okay. So that's a tough assignment, right? And she brings such like a joy and like a carefree kind of very open quality as we were discussing in defending your life. But like honestly, even more so because Julia Child was like very over the top, you know? Bon Appetit! And there is she finds both like the over the topness and also. like the regret and the sadness is a very romantic half of the movie

her marriage was Stanley Chucci plays her husband and you really like you feel all the ways that she feels let down by the world but is just kind of like barreling through them

I honestly think it's amazing my take here is that she should like she should have won for this and not the Iron Lady and that you got to take away the Iron Lady and give it because it's the same type of performance but this one is good and Iron Lady is just like

a ridiculous Harvey Weinstein Oscar that she got anyway we don't have to put it in but I really it should be yellow at least it's quite good

let's yellow it we do have some decisions to make here this back half of her career so here's the thing is that I think she's great and fantastic Mr. Fox also

you can't go in but I know what you're saying I know what you're saying the thing is did we put it in the Clooney Hall of Fame did we do a Clooney Hall of Fame we did do a Clooney Hall of Fame it has to be in the Cooney Hall of Fame

I don't remember if we did that. So, he's so good. I do think we probably put Toy Story in Tom Hanks's Hall of Fame. Fantastic Mr. Fox did make the Clooney Hall of Fame. Okay, good. Okay. So you feel fine about that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's obviously like the star of it. Yeah, she doesn't have a time. She's great, but she's great. She's great. All the voice performances in that movie are A plus. Yeah. But we'll just say Red.

Yeah. 2009, it's complicated. I'm not going to, I'm not going to throw a tantrum for this one. Interesting. I don't think that. I like it. I really like it. And I think it's kind of the,

most under-celebrated of the Nancy Myers movies. I think Merrill Streep gives a great performance as a woman in a Nancy Myers movie in it. She brings exactly what you want. And... Remind me, she's married to Alec Baldwin. Well, she leaves her. No, she's divorced from Alec Baldwin. They're divorced.

Yeah. He's remarried to the wonderful Lake Bell. Yes. She falls for an architect played by Steve Martin, who's remodeled. their home. Remodeling her home, renovating. She's rebuilding the kitchen that she's building the kitchen that she always wanted, which is a metaphor for how she didn't, wasn't really living her full life. But then she's going to. Oh my God. She and Steve Martin make chocolate croissants while high at her bakery because she owns. Yeah. Yeah. She owns, um, she owns Jones on third. But,

but also, but she has an affair with her ex-husband. Yes. Yes. I recall the look on Alec Baldwin's face after they have consummated. Yeah. Good stuff. And then she has that scene where she tells all her friends. She was like, I'm having an affair with, like something Adler's, Agnes Adler's husband. She seems like a really fun hang in this movie. And I would love to be able to shop at her store and eat there all of the time, though it seems cost prohibitive.

Alec Baldwin in 2026 comes to you and says, I want to throw it all away. I'm going to leave my wife, Albarino, or whatever her name is. Yeah, Agnes Adler. No, no, no. His real way. His real life. His real way. What's his?

Hilaria, Hilaria, Baldwin. And I want to be with you. I've been listening to the big picture. I want to be with you. Would you go? Would you join him? Never been an Alec Baldwin person. How interesting.

It's not even a question. I'm like honestly a little grossed out by him and it's complicated. Merrill's very good and it's complicated. A film that I like primarily because of the exteriors that's set in Santa Barbara. I think that you could recast both guys and make a more interesting movie, in my opinion. Noted. Yellow for as complicated. We have 18 films and 18 minutes.

We're going to make this happen. 2011, the Iron Lady. She plays Margaret Thatcher, Felita Lloyd, who directed Mamma Mia, directs this film. She could not direct Mama Mia, and she cannot direct The Iron Lady. She did win an Academy Award for this performance, a portrayal of a real person, and people tend to win awards like this all the time. We would see five years later that Gary Oldman would also win a,

Oscar for portraying the British Prime Minister, Iron Lady is not going in. Yeah. I mean, he won for portraying Winston Churchill, who won the war. And Margaret Thatcher's legacy in the UK, it's, you know. You know, Anthony Hopkins won for playing Hannibal to Cannibal. You know, it takes all kinds. It's not going in. I mean, she does a good impression, you know?

2012 Hope Springs. Did he never watch this, but I have seen it. I've not seen it. Yeah. I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to watch it. I'm going to watch it. and then I just didn't get a chance to watch it.

So I know what it is. It's a movie, it's directed by David Frankel, who directed the Divorce Prada, and it's about a couple in their 60s or even their 70s who are trying to patch it up, we're trying to understand themselves better. In the latter half of their life, Steve Crowell plays their therapist.

Yeah. Is it good? No. Okay, Red. And she's also doing a little, it's like Folksey Meryl. Got it. Okay, 2013, August Osage County,

how to speak about this movie so complicated, of course, based on the Titanic award-winning play by our friend Tracy Letts, which is really one of the great works of stage writing in the last 25 years in America and 30 years in America. And the movie has a complicated reputation because it's not very well directed, and it's John Wells who directed it.

And it feels as though he was not the right person for this. But it is such a platform, such a stage for great performances. She gives an Academy Award-nominated performance as Violet Weston, the matriarch of this family that is coping with the aftermath of the death of the patriarch of this family, played by your beloved Sam Shepard, is a very big and showy performance, but it's a very big and showy character. It's a person who commands whenever she speaks. Did you rewatch this?

I did. Okay. And I also remembered the reputation. And I, so I was pleasantly surprised. Yeah, it's very watchable. Yeah, and especially that dinner scene, which is when you can kind of dispense with, you just get Tracy's writing and you get all of these amazing actors acting towards each other. And I was into it.

And I think it's a, it's supposed to be a big performance. So she's obviously horrible. But then in that merrill way, like infuses a little bit of, humanity or dials it down just, you know, 10% as the character is supposed to. But that's very hard to pull off. So she, you know, she handles it well. She does. She shows incredible vulnerability in very quiet, small moments when you least expect it from her.

I would just love to see a slightly less conventional direction of the movie. It's sort of like it's either shooting singles on people's faces or it's shooting landscapes in Oklahoma. Yeah. And then they're kind of no, there's nothing, there's very little else that the movie seems interested in visually. But the writing is so strong and so powerful and so memorable. There's so many great lines in the movie that it is highly watchable. I don't know where you think it stands in her career.

Oh, I don't think it's going in. Okay. We'll read August O'SH County. 2014's The Giver didn't revisit this. She plays the big leader in this dystopian sci-fi epic. The Big Leader. Did you read The Giver? No.

Yeah. It was very big. for me. Was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lois Lowry, I believe. Okay, cool. Oh, no.

Huge. It's not going on. She's fine. 2014's The Homesman. Didn't see it. I didn't either. Directed by Tommy Lee Jones. She has a small part.

She does not have a big role in the movie. It's Tommy Lee and Hillary Swank, Homesteaders. It's got to be read because we haven't seen it. It's probably the one movie we both haven't seen on this whole list. 2014's Into the Woods. Into the Woods. Into the Woods. She plays The Witch.

Yeah. Very important part. This is Sondheim. It is. But it's not my flavor of Sondheim. What is your flavor? That's company? Okay.

Yeah. Directed by Rob Marshall, who is a terrible filmmaker. And I don't mind saying so because I don't like his movies. I didn't think this was very successful. I didn't go back to look at it for this episode. I didn't either because I knew we would not be putting it in. It's red. 2015, Ricky and the Flash.

This is the final feature film from Jonathan Demi. And she plays Ricky Rendezzo a kind of, one part Chrissy Hind, one part Bruce Springsteen style rock star, who is good at the rocking and not so good at the family stuff. I actually have not seen this movie since I saw it in 2015, but when I saw it in 2015, I loved it. Yeah, who doesn't love it? Nobody saw it.

Well, that's true. And it is also, it has that, Passion project-y feel of Merrill just, like, really wanted to do this and to work with Demi. And so I don't, we can yellow it. Yeah, I don't think it's going in. I don't either. Maybe this is my blue. Oh, that's a nice one.

This will be my blue. That's a good blue. A movie I really, really enjoy. 2015 Suffragette, a supporting part for Merrill. This is a film about how you got the vote. Congrats to you. Thank you. Sean, for giving me the vote.

And thank you, Merrill. I, it was my forefathers who had to be dragged, kicking and screaming. Right. To ensure women's rights. And how does they feel to have those rights? And now I'm doing so great. So thank you. You feel you happen?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, great. It's all leveled out. Suffergette is not going in. Florence Foster Jenkins, she earned an Academy Award nomination for this film about a rich old lady who wants to sing and thinks she can sing and can't sing. Right. Movie stinks. Hugh Grant is also in this movie.

Yeah. It's really quite bad. And it involves a lot of her singing poorly. Yes, which is kind of funny at first. And then you're like, okay. Well, then it's a whole movie of this. Yeah. Huge miscalculation.

I mean, it is an S&L sketch stretched to an entire film. 100%. It's tough. 2017 is the Post. I mentioned I did this all the President's Men episode. And Brian was like, the Post, is that good? It's not very good. I liked it.

I did too. He was like, we all agree that the Post isn't good. I'm like, did we agree on that? Well, I do feel that the, the journalists feel, particularly the journalists at the New York Times, feel that the Post presents sort of an outsized impression of the Washington Post's role in the publishing of the Pentagon Papers. Yes. Similar situation with all the President's men.

Seymour Hersch will happily tell you that he also participated in the Watergate uncovering. I don't think The Post is going in, though she is very good as Catherine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post in that film. We can make that red. 2018's Mamma Mia, here we go again. Haven't seen it. She's good, but she doesn't have as much to do. It's not as much focused on her because Lily James is playing Donna in flashback.

Right, of course. Maybe she's also, I don't want to spoil things for you. You think Lily James is Merrill Streep's essence? In the films of Mamma Mia, in terms of being able to play someone who sings and dances to a lot of Abba in the 70s, of wearing bell bottoms, which is what happens in the film, I think it's fine. I didn't revisit it. I remember several plot points that I don't want to spoil for you, but I also don't remember what ultimately happens in the end.

So we'll just read it and keep moving. This movie also made a lot of money. Sure did. 2018 Mary Poppins returns. We saw it. A reunion with Rob Marshall? Mm-hmm. Not a film I like.

Yeah. A reunion with Emily Blunt. That's right. Who plays Mary Poppins. She's just like... This is kind of wicked before wicked to me, where I'm like, we have Mary Pappins. We're good. Like, we did it. We did it. She has a, she plays like an old lady, an old magical lady that they go.

Topsy. Yeah, what's Topsy do? She's kind of in the same race as Thanos. Mary Poppins returns not going in. 2019 is the laundromat. Yeah. A not very liked movie that you and I like. We did. And we defended pretty hard on this show in 2019. And I stand by that. And I stand by her performance as Ellen Martin and Elena. And also Merrill Streep. She plays three different people. We should point out that the alien character takes on some, you know, there's some racial difficulties.

So some cultural appropriations, are you indicating? Yeah. Yeah. So it's not the best. No, it's not the best. I think the movie's just got a really pugnacious attitude towards how the world works that I found to be amusing. It's not going in her Hall of Fame. She plays Aunt March in Little Women.

She's very funny. It's a small role. You know, handing on... She's a big woman, not a little woman. Hanging it on to the next generation, but she's very funny in it. Yes. Not in her Hall of Fame. You know, another one of those things where...

I mean, she's now in this stage of her career where... You know, her in a supporting part kind of affirms the film is having a level of importance. 2020, let them all talk. The aforementioned Steven Sutterberg film or Union very quickly thereafter. She plays a woman. on a cruise with two close friends and they're just talking, talking, talking. They just got so much to say,

Lucas Hedges is there. Yeah, as the son or the grandson helping them, they're on the QE2. Okay. Or the Queen Mary too. I think the QE2 is maybe not sailing anymore. I don't know. Okay.

Have you ever sailed done a transatlantic No. Crossing? No, and I won't. Okay. I have airplanes. I like this movie. Okay.

And it's probably too small to go on. Maybe it'll be my blue, but I don't know. I have some other place. Intriguing. 2020 is the prom, written and directed by Ryan Murphy. Have seen this. Red. Very angry.

Very bad movie. Not good. Really, really angry. 2021 Don't Look Up. Bit of a defender of Don't Look Up. Yeah, it was fine. I think it has now like a weird reputation. This is the last movie Adam McKay's made.

It's been five years since this movie came out. One of the most watched movies in Netflix history, of course, Leo, Jennifer Lawrence, Timothy Chalmay. Yeah. Cape Lanchette. Ariana Grande. Cape Lanchette. Tyler Perry. Unbelievable cast in this movie.

It's another one. It's ensemble and she's just playing the... Well, she plays the president of the United States of America. And kind of evil, but... Kind of evil, kind of funny. Yeah. Binglorious asshole. It's good.

It doesn't need a green. It's red. 2026, she plays, as you mentioned, the insect queen in hoppers. Is that going in? No, but it's good. Okay. She, for a vanishing woman,

moment voices Rocky in Project Helmary, which I thought was a good bit. But I don't think it should go into her whole thing. I agree. We have yet to see The Devil We're as prodded to. Correct. And the real scuttlebutt, and maybe we'll have to redo this episode, is that she may be playing Joni Mitchell in Cameron Crow's story of Joni Mitchell's life. She'd be playing Johnny Mitchell at closer to the current stage of Johnny Mitchell's life.

I think just two. Who's the other? The rumor is Anya Taylor Joy. What about Amanda Seifred? I guess she didn't get the part I think that sucks I think it should be Marilyn and Amanda Seifred I mean Amanda Seiford's a little older

Mama Mia reunion I think because Amanda Seiford is in her mid-30s and Annie Taylor-Roy's in her mid-20s it's about sort of when Joni became very famous in her mid-20 That's my understanding Also Amanda Seifred's 40 but God bless you

I know, listen Giving hope to us all Exactly this is what I'm saying We've got to claim the over 40s Okay so let's do some accounting here We've got yellows and greens. Okay. We've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven greens. Those greens are Kramer versus Kramer, Sophie's choice, a cry in the dark, the bridges of Madison County,

adaptation, the devil wears Prada and Mamma Mia. Mm-hmm. Feel good about all of those? Yes. The yellows are the deer hunter, the French lieutenant's woman, silkwood, heartburn, postcards from the edge, defending your life, death becomes her, the River Wild doubt and Julie and Julia. So maybe I'll make heartburn my blue. Okay. I like it. Which, you know, it has. It has. It's core audience, but other people should check it out. Really underrated. I'm going to throw an idea at you.

Okay. Silkwood, postcards from the edge. Okay. And Julie and Julia. I'll take it. You think that's good? Yeah, I think Silkwood is the right choice. And I think in terms of, like, Dear Hunter...

This works in the 80s is like, this is her best shit, in my opinion. She's very entertaining in a lot of movies in the future. She's always good. But this stuff in the 80s, I don't know. I feel like you really have to acknowledge. So we've got... And it is the lore of Merrill. Yes.

And I agree that she's great in the Deer Hunter, but Kramer versus Kramer is a good opener. Yep. French lieutenant's woman is fine. If you had more enthusiasm for it, I would push for that. But I think we have it covered with Sophie's Choice. Okay. Which you won an Oscar for,

and which is like really amazing, whatever you think of the film or the source material. So if you have Sophie's Choice Silkwood and A Cry in the Dark, that's three 80s movies, and those are three great performances, and kind of the breadth of Merrill characters also, where Silkwood is a more normal,

you know, just an American woman. Yeah, Strait-Henad docket drama. Right, Sophie, Sophie's Traces, like a high accent, you know. And then a cry in the dark is just like, wait, who is that person in the wig in the Australian? And also kind of unlikable, Merrill. I think postcards from The Edge also gets us comedy. Okay.

I mean, she's very funny in that. And you've got a great romance. You've got kind of a... I think her participating in the Jones Kaufman thing, too, is like a nod to her willingness to take chances even in the second half of her career. I mean, I think adaptation and then Delaware wears Prada are kind of... Like, that's when it turns around.

And those are the two types of things that she does. She gets really weird, does something really broad, and she is, like, surprising and excellent in both of them. I agree. I think this is good. I think this is actually not as hard as I thought it was going to be. Okay. Great.

So that means the list in full for Greens is Kramer versus Kramer, Sophie's Choice, Silkwood, a cry in the dark, postcards from the edge, the bridges of Madison County, adaptation, the Devil Wars Prada, Mamma Mia, and Julie and Julia. The Blues, for you is heartburn, and for me is Ricky in the Flash. I feel like we did it. Amazing. Did we do it? I feel good about it.

I have no issues. Is there anything like hugely controversial? I guess some people will defend doubt. Some people will defend. Doubt's really good. I think there are many people who have death becomes her on here. Yeah. I really like that movie.

I think there's a case for River Wild. There's like a step in her career, but not essential. Sure. And the Bridges of Madison County was like broadly seen enough that you can get to that. I don't know if there's like a beloved movie that we really overlooked here. I mean, maybe out of Africa has its defenders. Okay. But I'm not one of them.

So no worries there. For your own podcast, you know? Yeah. All right. We fucking did it. That's great with two minutes to spare. If we get, if the, if the Johnny Mitchell film is great and is like a capstone. Yeah.

On her career. Then you get greatness in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. And Bill actually posed this question recently of how many people can cross that many decades. Right. Not many. Though we don't have anything in the Hall of Fame from 2010s. But I have my love for Ricky in the Flash. Okay.

And I think the post and little women are good. So there we go. We did it. I feel good. This was a lot of work. We got more Hall of Fame coming up later this year. It's really intense. A lot to do.

I want to give a special shout out to the estimable Seth Woodhouse, who has done research for this episode and supplied it. lot of materials for us. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his production work. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his support. Next week, we are headed to Las Vegas for Cinemacon, which will be really fun. Before we do that, before we see any of the information

that the studios are going to share with us, we're going to play the summer movie preview game. I'm going to refine it. I'm going to make it more coherent. I'm going to make it more legible to you and the audience. Okay. And to fix the scoring system. I don't know when I'm going to do that because I don't have a lot of time,

but I'm going to do it. And then we're going to play that and then we're going to go to Las Vegas. Sound good? Awesome. Thanks for listening. See you then.