STREEPS OF FIRE: *SEASON PREMIERE* POLITI-STREEP

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SEASON 8 PREMIERE: STREEPS OF FIRE! 

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE & THE IRON LADY 

Our Streep season begins! In 2022 Streep is an untouchable icon, as beloved as any actor in the modern era. You know what? To get there it took a whole lot of work in a whole lot of movies. Streep was once (we're talking the 1980s here) seen as a too-serious actress, good with accents, dismissed for solely making hoity-toity films with awards aspirations. The cultural movement of the 1980s toward stupid stuff gave her that silly reputation for a minute. Crazy, right? Streep kept following the roles that interested her with filmmakers she wanted to work with and, slowly, built as varied a filmography of either straight-up good films or, at the very least, films that looked good on paper, as any actor the last fifty years.  And she did it all while continuously working through middle age and beyond when Hollywood generally tends to toss out actresses for younger models. Hopefully her career will be a beacon to change all of that. She is one of a kind. 

In THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (2004) Streep plays a senator who's son may become president through slightly unorthodox means in Jonathan Demme's ill-advised remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 paranoid classic (covered on our season 7 premiere!). Denzel Washington plays a PTSD-ridden veteran who thinks Streep's son (played by a baby-faced Liev Schrieber) is not the war hero he remembers and may be part of a scheme of a large company to install a puppet president (thank goodness this kind of thing never happens in real life). Streep has the daunting task of filling the late Angela Landsbury's legendary shoes in a role heavily changed to reflect the early 2000s along with being expanded to suit someone of Streep's stature. Does it work? Listen and find out!

THE IRON LADY (2011) is Streep's turn as controversial UK PM Margaret Thatcher. Streep disappears into the role as one would expect, and won an Oscar, as was deserved. But the film itself? It's timey-wimey with a fascinating structure and framing device. It has a less-than-stellar reputation and we'll discuss that between marveling at Streep's effortless, beautiful, and nuanced performance that almost makes you forget who she is playing. 

BONUS: Super Streep fan Andi is joining us all season to quickly strike down any negative Streep talk.

BONUS 2: We begin a new feature this season: WHAT WOULD MARGARET THATCHER THINK OF THIS MOVIE? Prepare to roll your eyes so hard they get stuck.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I. (ft. Sam Peckinpah)

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