Thelma Adams: Novelist, Critic, Oscar Expert

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Meryl Streep Berlinale Masterclass: on Directors Mike Nichols and Clint Eastwood

February 17, 2016 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Meryl Streep talents BerlinOn Sunday, Meryl Streep addressed a select group of actors and filmmakers at the Berlinale and I was fortunate enough to attend as tickets were scarce. While I wrote about her for VF.com, here’s more from the event, and the actress discussing directors Mike Nichols and Clint Eastwood:

MERYL: “Mike Nichols used to say to me each subsequent time that we worked (Postcards from the Edge, Heartburn, Silkwood, The Seagull in the park and Angels in America on TV), each time he would drill me on other directors. I said it’s like asking about other boyfriends: does he do it better than I do?

“The most interesting thing about having a long career is how many different ways you can get to a good result. Each has his own way in, talking to actors. Clint Eastwood only betrayed himself once, I never felt that he was watching me as we were acting together. He never says ‘action’ so as the director [of The Bridges of Madison County] I’d have to divine when he’d start acting. He’d stroll from behind camera and walk into the kitchen and say ‘okay, you can put your knitting down,’ and we can start acting.

“He was sort of seamless; he doesn’t play a wide range of roles. He looks like Clint Eastwood. He was fully committed as an actor and very self-denigrating. He would make a comment after — ‘Well, that was adequate,” about himself. But he would very often shoot the rehearsal and then move on so I have never in my life seen a crew so terrified on the tips of their toes trying to solve all the problems that normally they solve on take four. Everything was ready on the first time we encountered the scene because Clint might just move on. That was a lesson on fascism that I thought was interesting (I’m joking).

“But Clint only betrayed himself once. In one scene we were having a big fight in the kitchen and it was going particularly well speaking for myself. He was watching me and I saw it in his eyes and I said you were watching me you weren’t with me. He said, ‘It won’t happen again’ and it never did. We shot the whole film in 5 weeks.”

 

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV Tagged With: #MerylSoAfrican, Berlinale, best actress, Clint Eastwood, Masterclass, Meryl Streep, Mike Nichols

“J. Edgar” gets Hoovered

November 8, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Clint Eastwood, J. Edgar Hoover, Leonardo DiCaprio, forbidden gay love, blame the mother

Leo: desperately seeking seriousness

Do you hear that sound, like ice cracking in Antarctica? That’s the impact of Oscar hopes — for Warner Brothers, for Clint Eastwood, for Leonardo DiCaprio — being dashed on the shore of reality. Oscar insiders across the country have returned to their abacuses to rejigger the odds in the top five, as J. Edgar fails, albeit nobly, on the big screen at 137 minutes of wrong-choices and self-aggrandizement.

The opening scene, with Leo as ancient FBI honcho J. Edgar Hoover (1895 – 1972) inspires snickers. I apologize to the man in the screening room who shushed me; I couldn’t help myself. The make-up is just that bad. Here’s a part that Jack Nicholson could play — or Eddie Murphy in the latex to transform him into an old white man from Coming to America. If that had been the movie’s only problem — is there a Razzie for worst make-up? — then the snickers in the theater would have quieted, and the snores that soon erupted from my neighbor’s gaping mouth would never have occurred.

The central flaw to this big budget “behind the music” style biopic is Milk Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black’s script. It tells every thing and nothing about the man. With an abundance of voiceover, it narrates the story, shows the story, explains the story as if it were a Weekly Reader expose.

Yes, it addresses Hoover’s homosexual tendencies, his rumored cross-dressing, but those scenes arrive late and are few and far between, and overwrought. Let the guy have a kiss, an urge, a spot of warmth — but, no, [Read more…]

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Armie Hammer, Clint Eastwood, homosexuality, J. Eggar Hoover, Judi Dench, Leo, Leonardo DiCaprio, man-on-man kiss, Naomi Watts

Oscars 2012: Best Director First Look

October 18, 2011 By Thelma 2 Comments

Alexander Payne,George Clooney,The Descendants

Payne: Running Man

And now we turn our gimlet eye to the best director category. Full disclosure: of the top five men in the race, I’ve only seen two of the movies: The Descendants and The Artist. Any women directors in the race? Oopsy!

Alexander Payne, The Descendants

Steven Spielberg, War Horse

David Fincher, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Michael Hazanavicius, The Artist

Stephen Daldry, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Other directorial contenders: Bennett Miller, Moneyball; Clint Eastwood, J. Edgar; Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris; Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life; Tomas Alfredson, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Martin Scorsese, Hugo; Oren Moverman, Rampart; and George Clooney, The Ides of March.

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Alexander Payne, Best Director, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Stephen Daldry, Steven Spielberg

Clint Eastwood & me

April 7, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Clint & me at the NY Film Critics Circle Awards the second year I was chairman, 2005. He won Best Director for Million Dollar Baby. Highlight of the night: getting Clint to laugh when I whispered something snarky in his ear while Al Franken rambled on pompously from the dais.

Filed Under: Celebrity Tagged With: Awards Season, Celebrity Photos, Clint Eastwood, Director, Million Dollar Baby

Movie Review: Rango

March 3, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Rango (voice of Depp) hangs on by a smiley face

Us Rating: **1/2

Lonely pet chameleon Rango (voice of Johnny Depp) gets separated from his owners and lands in a desert town. Once in the wild, Rango teams up with a spunky frontier girl (Isla Fisher) and takes on a villainous rattlesnake (Bill Nighy). While Depp turns his bug-eyed reptile into a charismatic character, the plot gets lost in a maze of tangents and the story has too many tasteless jokes — like a prostate gag — that are not kid-friendly.

Filed Under: Movies & TV Tagged With: Clint Eastwood, Gore Verbinski, Hunter S. Thompson, Isla Fischer, Johnny Depp, movie review, stoner movies, Us Weekly

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