A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

Since my teenage years, I have always had a strong affinity for old-time radio. To this day, the radio in my truck can often be found tuned in to the Sirius Radio Classics network. It’s an amazingly underrated art form that, sadly, for the most part, was forced into retirement with the advent of the television. One of the few outliers from the golden age of radio was a weekly 2-hour variety show called A Prairie Home Companion that aired every Saturday, broadcasting out of Minnesota. It was hosted by Garrison Keillor and it originally ran from 1974 to 1987 (it would be revived in 1992 and air through 2016). The show appealed largely to a mid-western audience and featured a variety of country, bluegrass, and folk music mixed with recurring comedy skits and storytelling.  

THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN

 

The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) would earn Meryl Streep her third acting Oscar nomination. The film would reconstruct the book it was based upon by reimagining it as a movie within a movie. Streep and Jeremy Irons play dual roles. In the current day, they are both actors, having an affair while working on a movie together. The movie they are filming, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, has them playing Victorian-era characters who are also embarking on an affair.

The movie uses the two contrasting time periods to question topics of social growth or stagnation as it regards women’s abilities to have independence, the consequences of infidelity, social oppression, and sexual repression/hypocrisy. The two main actors give standout performances… Streep in particular as she flawlessly inhabits both a current day American actress and a Victorian age British character.

HEARTBURN

Meryl Streep has starred in two films opposite Jack Nicholson. The first of those films is Heartburn, released in 1986. The two play Rachel Samstat, a food critic, and Mark Forman, a newspaper columnist. They meet at a wedding they are attending in the opening scene. They soon leave the wedding, have sex, get married, and move into a house that requires major renovations. Then their lives carry on. This movie tries very hard to make the intimate and mundane seem interesting, though it doesn’t succeed.

IT'S COMPLICATED

In 2009, Meryl Streep starred with Alex Baldwin in It’s Complicated. Like most films directed by Nancy Meyers (Private Benjamin, Parent Trap (II), The Intern) it’s a lightweight, feel-good romp.

FALLING IN LOVE

 

My quest to view all movies featuring Meryl Streep continues. This time around it’s Falling in Love, released in 1984.

Molly Gilmore (Streep) and Frank Raftis (Robert De Niro) are strangers who bump into each other in a bookstore while buying Christmas gifts. Turns out they often take the same train into Manhattan. Both are married to other people but eventually fall in love with each other. And that’s about it. Both actors give solid performances, but the story is completely uninspired and trite.

LIONS FOR LAMBS

In 2007 Lions for Lambs was released. This war-themed drama features Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, and Tom Cruise.

The film is actually three different stories being told simultaneously that revolve around the United States' “War on Terror”. One story involves the smug up-and-coming Senator Irving (Cruise) who is attempting to sell his new military strategies to the well-respected journalist Janine Roth (Streep). The second story revolves around two military personnel (Michael Pena and Derek Luke) whose lives are affected by the senator’s strategy changes. The third story is that of a college professor (Redford) trying to reignite the passion of a student (Andrew Garfield) whose attendance and drive have waned.

THE RIVER WILD

In 1994, Meryl Streep took on the action/adventure genre with The River Wild. This is the story of a family outing gone extremely wrong.