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Her performances in the late 1970's to late 2000's are absolutely banger and are minblowing performances (Sophie's Choice, The Devil Wears Prada, Doubt and Kramer vs Kramer). However, after 2010, all of her performances have been actively hammy and bad. Her performance in The Iron Lady definitely shouldn't have been the one to get her her third Academy Award, it feels like a bad SNL impersonation. She was bad in August Osage County, Into The Woods, Florence Foster Jenkins and The Prom. The only good work of hers was The Post, which was also not up to her usual standards. She was good in the TV show, Only Murders In The Building.
I feel like people assign her the above moniker purely due to her early work, ignoring the fact that her later filmography has more misses than hits. Thus, her title's effect has been diminished in my view, due to her churning out more bad movies. It also keeps back actors/actresses who have made a few movies and are low-profile, but are consistent and excellent in all their projects.
Even if you believe this, which I don't, why would her not having great roles/performances for like one decade out of the 50 or so she's been acting diminish her greatness?
If the mediocre roles/performances are part of the whole, then it will diminish it. That's what some people believe, anyways. I've heard that's the reason why Tarantino insists on only making 10 movies. He doesn't want to produce sub par works late into his career.
As for Streep, I've only watched her in Bridges of Madison County, which I thought she was great in, but obviously I can't speak to her career having watched only that one role.
So he hasnt made a decent movie since inglorious bastards?
Django is phenomenal. Hateful Eight is excellent but with some flaws, notably pacing. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is tired out, unimaginative, with a meandering plot that goes nowhere and events that come outta nowhere, and generally just wanking it over how cool Hollywood is.
Funny, I agree on Django, but not on the other two. I think Hateful Eight is one of his worst movies, and OUATIH is one of his best.
Without giving spoilers, here is my problem with The Hateful Eight: We spend a good hour establishing that our characters are forced together into an inescapable situation. Then, one of the characters is killed, and that killing is used as cover for a second killing. At that point, another character stands up and begins playing the role of the detective, giving his theory about what really happened. On the conclusion of the monologue, there is a reversal of fortune, and our detective character is now in dire straits.
At this point, the movie switches to a flashback. We are now seeing everything that the detective character just told us about. What I as the audience am expecting is that the flashback will show us what the flaw in the detective character's thinking was, and how that led to the reversal of fortune. In actual fact, the flashback shows us that he was exactly right, but that the reversal of fortune was just circumstance. This takes all the punch out of the reveal.
Bottom line is, Tarantino sucks at mystery plots. (See also: Jackie Brown)
But, I loved Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Here's why, and this time I need to use spoilers. Right up until the end, it does seem meandering, but when we reach the climax, it reveals QT's thought process behind the whole movie:
I want to make a revisionist history, like Basterds, but this time about the Sharon Tate murders. What point of deviation can I use?
Tate lived in a cul-de-sac where there were four houses. What if the killers went to the wrong house?
In that case, I could put someone in there who would be a threat to the killers. What kind of characters could fit that bill?
This being Hollywood, it might make sense that an action movie star and a stuntman would be living there, and that they could legitimately be tough guys. But how do I establish that?
I need to write an original story about a buddy relationship between the two, how the challenges of late-60's Hollywood would mess with their careers.
If I do that, I can also bring it lots of cool stuff from that era. Period cars. Set dressing the buildings. I can hire Clu Gulager for a cameo.
Tate and the Manson family will move in and out, but the main thrust of the movie will be the two guys, in a Newman-Redford kind of relationship, and I can use the killings to redeem that relationship.
And at least to me, seeing all of that at once when Brad Pitt sics his dog on one of the killers made the movie one of his great ones.
???
Once upon a time in Hollywood received universal critical praise and was objectively well received.
It was a pretty fun and cool reimagining of the 60s. If it’s not for you, that’s alright, but your opinion is also a significant outlier.
Ah, but have you considered that he really, REALLY wanted to wank it over how cool Hollywood is?
Tarantino made one of the most amateurish, b-level movies of all time with Django Unchained. Just a terrible , terrible, nonsensical movie.
That’s like.. your opinion man!
I thought Django unchained was pretty good, but I think in the hands of a different director it could have been an absolute classic.
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Well that’s a hot take. Given with nothing to back it up.
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Wrong?
Wrong?
Pulp Fiction is all one needs to ruin a legacy
Yeah like Marlon Brando phoned it in for the last 25 years of his life. Still considered the greatest actor of all time, or very close.
De Niro’s made like three good films out of 50 in the last 25 years.
Pacino maybe three in 25 films in 25 years.
Really don’t know what OP is trying to get at.
Meet The Parents, Meet The Fockers, and Little Fockers. The true De Niro magnum opus.
Many people think that has diminished their legacy as great actors. It doesn’t mean they are no longer great actors but it has made them less bulletproof. Unlike say, a Daniel Day Lewis.
I'd never say that Brando was one of the greatest actors of all time but I will say that he delivered some of the greatest performances of all time. Yeah, I know that's pretty chickenshit but still, the man put out some terrible efforts and that takes him down a few notches in my eyes at least.
That's a lot of decades
I think we need to investigate a woman living 500 years more than her acting abilities.
I guess she wasn't acting in Death Becomes Her.
Ironic considering it's one of her best roles and I'm firmly standing behind THAT correct opinion.
Ok now, she ain't young but she hasn't been acting for fifty decades (yet).
It doesn't diminish her previous roles in the slightest. It shouldn't, because an actor's previous works shouldn't affect their current and vice-versa. But in all the TV shows and movies that I have seen, she is referenced as THE Actress, which I don't agree with. (Modern Family-Meryl Streep could play Batman and still win Best Actress/ Red, White and Royal Blue-Not even Meryl Streep could pretend to like him). There are actresses in the same generation as her (Judi Dench, Helen Mirren) have much more of a consistent filmography and recent stars like Emily Blunt and Emma Stone have not starred in very many movies, but all of their performances are consistently excellent.
This is not a knock on Meryl's acting abilities in the slightest. I still think her performance in Sophie's Choice is the best female performance ever to be put on screen.
That modern family quote was from 2009 so it can’t be thought of as evidence that she gets too much credit relative to her performances in the 2010s. And no prolific actor is immune from ups and downs - Aloha certainly isn’t a huge win for Emma Stone, to pick from another of your examples.
And even though I loved Mary Poppins Returns it wasn't critically acclaimed. So, Emily Blunt ain't perfect, either.
This is the basis for the lebron/MJ argument, does the value of your accomplishments go down if you average performance goes down?
Nice try but actors can hit their prime in old age. Meryl isn't worried about blowing her hammy every scene
Maybe OP is taking the professional combat sports approach. You either leave the sports young and undefeated as a legend or stay long enough to have your career tainted by one big loss.
Because the word "was" needs to be used
Why does 14 years of her career being a little on and off negate the previous 35 that earned her the title?
What other living actress do you think deserves the title?
I don't necessarily think her bad performances negate her moniker, just that they don't do anything to make me believe why I should believe it, especially considering other actresses,like Emily Blunt, who are much more consistent.
Most actresses don’t have 35 years of consistently good work under their belt like Streep though. Why would a relatively newer actress like Blunt deserve more praise for their consistency when their whole careers arent even as long as Streep’s prime? It just seems like recency bias rather than a bigger loom at her whole portfolio
I definitely think this is part of the problem right here; Meryl has an abnormally large body of work, more than anyone else. This is probably the reason why her stinkers stand out more than her early-career successes. I feel like people constantly treat her as THE Actress, which is not necessarily unjustified, but it sure has lost a lot of it's meaning, when her more recent movies are sitting at 2.9 at Letterboxd.
That seems a bit unfair though. Her bad movies stand out because theres so many ones is a point in her favor rather than against it. Again, this is the main flaw in your view in that youre throwing away or devaluing her past work because you didnt like mamma mia
And that doesnt address my main point that it doesnt really make sense to say one actor is more consistent than the other when the formers career is so much shorter. The vast majorityo of actresses havent strung together careers of 35 years, let alone have a consistent stretch like Meryl’s. They could still absolutely drop a stinker, whereas we know that she’s got a solid portfolio
THE actress refers to “of all time,” not current “it girl.” You seem to be confusing one for the other.
When people praise Meryl it’s for her entire body of work through her life, not that she’s “THE actress of the moment” which is a different thing.
You can't compare Emily Blunt to Meryl Streep since the latter has decades of movies over the former. Only after you see what kind of movies will Blunt make in her sixties you will be able to compare, since by your own admission Meryl was doing great movies when she was Emily's age too.
Filling say a decade or fifteen years with only good movies is one thing, filling forty years or so is a whole different beast and I doubt any actor would be able to be "consistent" for that long.
Perhaps the way I should rephrase it as is that Emily Blunt is the best actress working in recent years, while Meryl's best performances peaked with the 1980's-2000's. So, Meryl is THE Actress of the previous generation, while for me, Emily Blunt is the best actress of this generation. Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn also have a lot of excellent performances under their belts, (perhaps more so than Streep) but I don't see anyone referring to them as the best actress of Meryl's generation, simply because they weren't doing good work any more at that time. Similarly, Meryl (or rather, her fans) should make way for othe, newer actresses to be recognized, the same way Davis and Hepburn did.
You seem to be obsessing over Emily Blunt
She's very talented but one of many, many working actresses of a similar level.
Emily Blunt is nothing special, what? She’s certainly not the greatest of this generation.
Meryl Streep's "Golden years" span almost 15 years longer than Emily Blunts entire career.
50 years in Hollywood as a Woman with consistent work is an achievement by itself.
Emily Blunt has won 26 awards and 152 nominations including 1 Oscar Nomination in her 20 year career which includes 51 roles.
Meryl Streep has 185 wins including 3 Oscar wins, and 390 nominations in 50 years over 96 films.
At approximately 2 films per year Meryl has won 1.9 awards, and nominated for 4.1 awards, on average per film after 50 years.
Emily Blunt has made approximately 2.5 films per year and has 1.3 wins and 3 nominations on average after 20 years.
They aren't even in the same league but Emily is an amazing actress so we should see where she is in 15 years for a better comparison.
Do you think it would be fair to say that Emily is currently in her "golden years" and still has many years of hard work to go before her consistency is comparable to Meryl?
Emily Blunt has been in a lot of great work, but she has only been active for around 20 years. I’m not sure you can be the greatest living professional performer or artist of any type after 20 years. Consistency over the decades, through artistic trends and political shifts, is pretty unique.
I think another way to put it might be that Emily Blunt is still eligible for her first Oscar, but she is too early in her career to be eligible for a lifetime achievement award from anyone.
Popular performers almost always do more broad work to pay their extra bills. Streep has done some garbage movies, and Blunt was the lead in Jungle Cruise. De Niro is among the greatest alive today, and he also did Dirty Gandpa, The Intern, and almost a full decade of Fockers.
Meryl Streep is close to twice Emily Blunt's age and has a career that's longer than Blunt's whole life. When Streep was Blunt's age, she was considered consistent too. Don't compare apples and oranges.
What performance of Emily Blunt's puts her in the category of a great actress? Getting consistent work and being a master of the craft are two different things.
Emily Blunt can’t even move her face anymore
I can't believe you didn't bring up Mama Mia. The academy should have taken one of her previous Oscars back for thar role. That performance was Razzie worthy.
Or maybe after decades in the business she thought: wow, I've done it all and more, proved everything there is to prove, got awards and recognition, all I want to do now is having silly fun in silly movies with people I like. Which would be totally fair. She has proven often enough why people think she is the best, she is allowed to catch a break and just having fun without getting all her accomplishments invalidated in the process. She did amazing roles, had a decades long career with many shifts and excelled at any point. There are some great actors in that generation like Helen Mirren or Judy Dench, but I think she is still the best and no other younger actress is quite as accomplished over such a long time who had to shift their acting according to their age and different characters as much and were through it all at such a level of performance
I think OP’s contention lies in “living actress.” Meryl Streep is the greatest actress who is still alive, of that there can be zero doubt. Is she currently the best actress? No, she is miles upon miles away, which is fine. I think the same of DeNiro. Very few living have such a body of work (maybe Daniel Day Lewis and it’s close). Is he currently the best? No, these days he plays parodies of himself. Al Pacino is even worse.
I think it’s a matter of whether it’s legacy or current performance. All of those legends are decades past their prime, some of them cranking out utter trash in their later years. It does not diminish their legacy, yet neither does their legacy shield them from recent poor performance.
It doesn't help that the Academy Awards rarely reward the best acting job. Rather, their awards make more sense if you think of it as the Most Acting Award. They reward big, showy, "look at how much I am Master Thespian" acting performances, not the small, quiet roles that get inhabited. To me, the essence of the kind of role that should be rewarded with awards, but isn't, is something like Stanley Tucci's performance as Abraham Erskine in Captain America: The First Avenger. Because he's actually doing something that is really, really hard for an actor: he's turning an info dump scene into a warm, human character moment between himself and Steve Rogers. The film and the character of Steve Rogers doesn't work if this scene doesn't work, and it's Stanley Tucci who wins the audience over with warmth, kindness and humor rather than any big or showy dramatics.
But that's obviously not the kind of role that Hollywood wants to shower with awards. Hollywood has always been really self-conscious about its status as producing "real art", and that's only gotten more true as it became a business juggernaut. While I certainly agree that Meryl's work has gotten significantly less subtle and subdued over the years, you can't blame the woman for giving the performances that are asked of her by the director, or going where the money clearly lies.
Hrm, maybe an alt example, Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Moneyball.
He's like invisible in that role. You don't catch a skitch that "this character is PSH playing an integral part in hitting some key character beats/moments".
It's a very authentic feeling performance, it's not showy, it's not a major arc focus.
(Compare to say, Lebowski)
I think you're mixing "bad performance" with "not so good material". Meryl has been consistently great even in small , less serious roles.
She was great in "Don't look up", she was an amazing comedy/musical actress in "Mamma Mia" (which is not a bad movie but it's definitely a silly one) and she's awesome in "OMITB", a series I couldn't keep on watching because of Selena Gomez' stinker of a performance.
The only actress who can "rival" her is Cate Blanchett whom I believe is the greatest actress at the moment. However, Cate doesn't have the portfolio Meryl has. Over 180 award nominations is not easy to achieve, and that has to count for something.
Meryl is the golden standard and there's no one, and won't be no one like her for a while when we count the amount of projects, nominations, wins, accents/dialects she has mastered and the constant good-great performances over her entire career. That lady is almost 80 and keeps on outshining everyone in her cast. Compare her to Al Pacino for instance. That man can barely say three sentences now.
Do you also feel this way about:
• Sportsmen/women who retire into lesser leagues to continue playing?
• Singers who stop performing/producing new music?
• Artists who stop creating past a certain age?
Ali reigned over boxing from the 60s to the 70s and then did nothing in boxing, yet he is considered the GOAT.
Dylan is considered one of the greatest musicians ever yet his best albums are now close to 60yo. Is he diminished by his lack of recent productions?
This argument applies to everyone.
People tend to have a peak.
The simple fact that Streeps peak lasted from the mid 70s to the late 2000s is astonishing in an industry that values youth above many other qualities.
She is the GOAT and deserves every bit of it, even if she decided to only have fun playing in z movie
Right, is Messi out of the GOAT conversation now that he's playing for Inter Miami?
Some people believe this, that ending ones career at the peak is better than ending on mediocrity, but most people don't choose when to retire, they get retired.
I don't think this is the case with Maryl, she is giving great perfomances, she's just choosing more unserious roles i guess.
Personal opinion obviously, but I think Dylan's late 90s-00s albums are his best
Rough and Rowdy Ways has to be a top 10, if not top 5
Yeah, I listened to that one a lot during Covid
Bob Dylan is a bad example. If his career were just the past 25 years, he’d still be a heralded artist. Different, but extremely well regarded.
I don't know what you're talking about, she totally killed the Iron Lady. Her brilliant performance included mastering her very unique accent that not many even attempt. And her acting as various ages was great too.
I’d never really thought about her much before but that episode of OMItB where she does her audition on stage absolutely blew me away and made me realise how amazing an actress she is.
I think CMVs on stuff like this are a little pointless, because there’s no real objective criteria involved about art. You respond to it or you don’t. But I’m just curious, just to clarify, you think she was bad in August: Osage County? In Into the Woods? Not just beneath her usual standards, but actively bad? I think that’s a wild assertion.
I think it’s a little unfair to blame her for Into the Woods.
That’s like blaming Judy Dench for what happened with her Old Deuteronomy performance in Cats. When the whole project is a big old trainwreck of not getting the stage show, typically I give the cast a pass.
I think she was fantastic in Florence Foster Jenkins.
I couldn't agree more and the only reason I can think of for someone to feel otherwise is that they simply weren't on board with the film and its tone in general.
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Seriously. She loves it and it shows.
Mamma Mia and the dopey sequel were like watching A-list actors who'd gone to summer camp and decided to put on a show, such was their joy at making that silliness (and having to listen to Pierce Brosnan sing).
Honestly an unbelievable cast it's wild that this was her follow up to devil wears Prada
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To be fair to OP, what you’re saying isn’t an argument against what he’s suggesting. It’s not like Meryl Streep herself is claiming she’s the greatest living actress; if she was, then your argument would be relevant. OP is pointing out reasons that go against the majority of other peoples opinion.
Yes it is. The very first sentence.
I still don’t see Meryl Streep saying anywhere that she claims she’s the best. Your argument only holds true if Meryl Streep herself was suggesting she’s the best, but no where does she say that.
Your entire argument (which got deleted lmao) was to indicate why OPs opinion doesn’t matter to Meryl Streep. OP isn’t saying anything to Meryl Streep herself, he is going against the grain of public opinion and articulating the reasons to support his claim.
Let me give you an analogy. Imagine I bought a Mercedes and said it’s not as nice as most people claim, knowing that most people believe it’s a very nice car. Your argument is the equivalent of supporting the person who made Mercedes, and arguing with me that the maker of Mercedes worked very hard and doesn’t care about the opinion of people like me. No shit. But you miss the entire point, it’s about expressing arguments against the public opinion.
Hope this makes sense.
I never said she did. I said the POSTER and many others put her in this rare air that a role must be worthy of her esteemed legacy
Counterpoint: you're only familiar with Mozart's best work, and still consider him a genius, even though you've just never heard his lesser known stuff.
You’d have to make this same claim about many celebrities then. Just because they tail off in the later stages of their career doesn’t mean they aren’t great.
Who would you put in her place?
Viola Davis
Who?
From 2010-present? Cate Blanchett and Emily Blunt.
Emily Blunt !!!!? I like her and all but what roles is this based off?
Sicario, Mary Poppins Returns, A Quiet Place, Oppenheimer and some more
This is... certainly a take. You understand that there is pretty broad critical consensus that Meryl Streep is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Hollywood actress. I would say that Cate Blanchett might be able to get there one day (although buy your own logic, the upcoming Borderlands movie might reduce her chances!). Emily Blunt… is a decent actress. I agree she was really good in some of her roles, but she didn’t really undertake anything like the level of challenging roles that Streep or even Blanchett had. And she had certainly had her share of turkeys. Why is your opinion of her acting skills (and fair enough, this is your subjective opinion) not affected by dire movies like Jungle Cruise, Wild Mountain Thyme (ugh) or the bizarre Wolfman movie?
Her last three roles were IF, The Fall Guy, and Pain Hustlers, which are all hot garbage, so by your logic she’s out of contention.
Mary Poppins Returns lol. This is an excellent troll
No Anne Hathaway?
Don’t look up?
Her performance as the president was both funny and frightening.