The Tories seem very forgiving of infidelity these days. Just look at the mayor of London's rising popularity
Hoping to alleviate the torment of Kristen Stewart, the 22-year-old film star who has outraged parts of the teen world by cheating on Robert Pattinson with the rabbity looking director of her most recent film, a man 19 years her senior, the actress Jodie Foster counsels her that "this too shall pass". Just give it time. How long? Well, as a rough guide, how long did it take in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter? It is now reported that, as well the undying hatred of millions of terrifying Twilight enthusiasts, Stewart is further to be punished by losing her central part in the sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman – or The Huntsman as the first film is already known in prayer groups all over Hollywood.
Jodie Foster is probably right to predict, in The Daily Beast,...
Hoping to alleviate the torment of Kristen Stewart, the 22-year-old film star who has outraged parts of the teen world by cheating on Robert Pattinson with the rabbity looking director of her most recent film, a man 19 years her senior, the actress Jodie Foster counsels her that "this too shall pass". Just give it time. How long? Well, as a rough guide, how long did it take in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter? It is now reported that, as well the undying hatred of millions of terrifying Twilight enthusiasts, Stewart is further to be punished by losing her central part in the sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman – or The Huntsman as the first film is already known in prayer groups all over Hollywood.
Jodie Foster is probably right to predict, in The Daily Beast,...
- 8/18/2012
- by Catherine Bennett
- The Guardian - Film News
By focusing on gender and class, the biopic The Iron Lady paints Margaret Thatcher as a feminist icon. But was she? We asked a number of influential women
Natasha Walter, writer and campaigner
Thirteen years ago, in The New Feminism, I wrote: "Let's start with Margaret Thatcher. No British woman this century can come close to her achievements in grasping power. Someone of the wrong sex and the wrong class broke through what looked like invincible barriers to reach into the heart of the establishment. Women who complain that Margaret Thatcher was not a feminist because she didn't help other women or openly acknowledge her debt to feminism have a point, but they are also missing something vital. She normalised female success. She showed that although female power and masculine power may have different languages, different metaphors, different gestures, different traditions, different ways of being glamorous or nasty, they are equally strong,...
Natasha Walter, writer and campaigner
Thirteen years ago, in The New Feminism, I wrote: "Let's start with Margaret Thatcher. No British woman this century can come close to her achievements in grasping power. Someone of the wrong sex and the wrong class broke through what looked like invincible barriers to reach into the heart of the establishment. Women who complain that Margaret Thatcher was not a feminist because she didn't help other women or openly acknowledge her debt to feminism have a point, but they are also missing something vital. She normalised female success. She showed that although female power and masculine power may have different languages, different metaphors, different gestures, different traditions, different ways of being glamorous or nasty, they are equally strong,...
- 1/6/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Despite a note-perfect performance by Meryl Streep, the Margaret Thatcher biopic lacks much cutting edge
Poor Margaret Thatcher: her transformation into biopic drag queen is now complete. Daringly, screenwriter Abi Morgan and director Phyllida Lloyd have made a movie about Baroness Thatcher's flashback-riddled dementia while their subject is still alive. Britain's most important and controversial postwar prime minister has been recast – rather like Judi Dench's Iris Murdoch 10 years ago – into a bewildered old lady cherished in dramatic terms for her poignant vulnerability and decline, rather than for the mature achievements of her pomp. And, like the screen Iris, she is paired off with kindly Jim Broadbent.
Margaret is played with cunning and gusto by Meryl Streep, and it is a pious critical convention to praise performances like these on the grounds that they go beyond mere impersonation. I'm not entirely certain that Streep does go beyond mere impersonation,...
Poor Margaret Thatcher: her transformation into biopic drag queen is now complete. Daringly, screenwriter Abi Morgan and director Phyllida Lloyd have made a movie about Baroness Thatcher's flashback-riddled dementia while their subject is still alive. Britain's most important and controversial postwar prime minister has been recast – rather like Judi Dench's Iris Murdoch 10 years ago – into a bewildered old lady cherished in dramatic terms for her poignant vulnerability and decline, rather than for the mature achievements of her pomp. And, like the screen Iris, she is paired off with kindly Jim Broadbent.
Margaret is played with cunning and gusto by Meryl Streep, and it is a pious critical convention to praise performances like these on the grounds that they go beyond mere impersonation. I'm not entirely certain that Streep does go beyond mere impersonation,...
- 1/6/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Liz Hoggard and Peter Lilley debate the accuracy of Meryl Streep's film portrayal of Margaret Thatcher
Liz Hoggard, author and journalist
The Iron Lady is not a hagiography. But nor is it a political biopic. The film is filtered through Margaret Thatcher's consciousness, from her 10-year bid to win her first parliamentary seat to the sheer physical assault of entering the macho House of Commons. It's very much her story. The film's director Phyllida Lloyd has described the treatment as operatic. We see a woman who has sacrificed everything for politics. Who can barely live in the real world when the party dismisses her. For Lloyd (a veteran theatre director), her story is like a female King Lear.
But for me it is too soon – too dangerous – for such an abstract treatment of recent events. Meryl Streep inevitably makes Maggie a radiant figure – even I found myself cheering...
Liz Hoggard, author and journalist
The Iron Lady is not a hagiography. But nor is it a political biopic. The film is filtered through Margaret Thatcher's consciousness, from her 10-year bid to win her first parliamentary seat to the sheer physical assault of entering the macho House of Commons. It's very much her story. The film's director Phyllida Lloyd has described the treatment as operatic. We see a woman who has sacrificed everything for politics. Who can barely live in the real world when the party dismisses her. For Lloyd (a veteran theatre director), her story is like a female King Lear.
But for me it is too soon – too dangerous – for such an abstract treatment of recent events. Meryl Streep inevitably makes Maggie a radiant figure – even I found myself cheering...
- 1/4/2012
- by Liz Hoggard
- The Guardian - Film News
The definitive verdict on the biopic from former Guardian political editor Michael White, who observed Thatcher up close as a young sketchwriter in the 1970s
It would be easy to imagine saying to Meryl Streep, "I knew Margaret Thatcher. You're no Margaret Thatcher," as an American politician once did to a rival who compared himself to President John F Kennedy. Easy, but wrong. Streep's interpretation of Thatcher in three distinct stages of her career, before, during and after her 11-year premiership, is a remarkable and sensitive achievement. Give the woman another Oscar, the pair of them can share it. Hollywood would like that.
The jibe could be levelled against Phyllida Lloyd's film. The Iron Lady certainly contains a selection of Thatcher's greatest handbaggings – which everyone much over 40 will remember with nostalgic glee or a shudder. We all knew her. But it is background. What cinema-goers will remember from this film is its foreground,...
It would be easy to imagine saying to Meryl Streep, "I knew Margaret Thatcher. You're no Margaret Thatcher," as an American politician once did to a rival who compared himself to President John F Kennedy. Easy, but wrong. Streep's interpretation of Thatcher in three distinct stages of her career, before, during and after her 11-year premiership, is a remarkable and sensitive achievement. Give the woman another Oscar, the pair of them can share it. Hollywood would like that.
The jibe could be levelled against Phyllida Lloyd's film. The Iron Lady certainly contains a selection of Thatcher's greatest handbaggings – which everyone much over 40 will remember with nostalgic glee or a shudder. We all knew her. But it is background. What cinema-goers will remember from this film is its foreground,...
- 1/4/2012
- by Michael White
- The Guardian - Film News
Wishy-washy and unfocused, Phyllida Lloyd's Margaret Thatcher biopic fails to embody the indomitable spirit of its subject
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Entertainment grade: C+
History grade: C
Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.
Structure
The Iron Lady tells its story as a series of flashbacks experienced by the ageing Thatcher (Meryl Streep), suffering from dementia and haunted by the imagined ghost of her late husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent). Streep is terrific, carrying off Thatcher in her prime and Thatcher in her dotage with equal aplomb. Regrettably, however, so much of the film's screentime has been devoted to the dotage – and so many of the flashbacks are, unlike Thatcher herself, preoccupied with her role as a wife and mother – that little time is left for the interesting stuff. A few of those who are relegated to blink-and-you'll-miss-'em status, or don't appear at all: Cecil Parkinson, Nigel Lawson,...
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Entertainment grade: C+
History grade: C
Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.
Structure
The Iron Lady tells its story as a series of flashbacks experienced by the ageing Thatcher (Meryl Streep), suffering from dementia and haunted by the imagined ghost of her late husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent). Streep is terrific, carrying off Thatcher in her prime and Thatcher in her dotage with equal aplomb. Regrettably, however, so much of the film's screentime has been devoted to the dotage – and so many of the flashbacks are, unlike Thatcher herself, preoccupied with her role as a wife and mother – that little time is left for the interesting stuff. A few of those who are relegated to blink-and-you'll-miss-'em status, or don't appear at all: Cecil Parkinson, Nigel Lawson,...
- 12/29/2011
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
Your chance to buy a Stallone-stamped red carpet; Streep is in the frame to play Thatcher; and transatlantic problems with 'the world's biggest bender'
Glamour footprint
You can own the ground Sylvester Stallone walked on. The Hollywood action legend will be in Leicester Square next month for the premiere of his new film The Expendables, joined by Jason Statham and Jet Li. Other action Gods such as Dolph Lundgren, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis are rumoured to be joining them on the red carpet — a patch of which you, dear Trash reader, can then purchase. Can you imagine… it would be like having a rock from Mount Olympus in your back garden. The 10x10ft section of carpet will be taken from just in front of the cinema, where the stars gather for their photo calls, and you even get to own the pics of the actors posing on your patch.
Glamour footprint
You can own the ground Sylvester Stallone walked on. The Hollywood action legend will be in Leicester Square next month for the premiere of his new film The Expendables, joined by Jason Statham and Jet Li. Other action Gods such as Dolph Lundgren, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis are rumoured to be joining them on the red carpet — a patch of which you, dear Trash reader, can then purchase. Can you imagine… it would be like having a rock from Mount Olympus in your back garden. The 10x10ft section of carpet will be taken from just in front of the cinema, where the stars gather for their photo calls, and you even get to own the pics of the actors posing on your patch.
- 7/5/2010
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
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