Continuing the Conversations...

Though I had a won-der-ful time on vacation, I do love the movie conversations. Some recent comments I wanted to respond to (for the patient and/or longwinded-like-me among you).

Clint totally approves of the Jodie Foster casting of God of Carnage (I agree that it's interesting and I hope she pulls it off) but I'm sure he'll be relieved to hear that Matt Dillon is no longer with the film. Not me.

Er... okay, I don't know which husband is which.

I was actually just discussing this with friends recently who had all seen the play and were kind of annoyed that John C Reilly will be playing Kate Winslet Jodie Foster's husband. He's not... handsome. Hollywood loves to pair anything from average to ugly men with ridiculously beautiful women, but it's clearly audience pandering to feed male ego fantasies: i.e. I can have / deserve to have a supermodel in my bed, no matter what I look like. It's okay once in awhile of course but all the time? Not realistic. Reilly is a very good actor but it's kind of silly when you stop to think of his screen conquests; he's already had (implied) movie sex with Julianne Moore, Renée Zellweger, Marisa Tomei, Jenna Fischer, Melora Walters, and Jennifer Aniston! Has he ever been paired with a homely woman? He's like a less cocky/noisy version of the Philip Seymour Hoffman phenomenon.

But mostly I'm just annoyed that...

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Whither Karen Silkwood?

Tim here again-

"On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, an employee of a nuclear facility, left to meet with a reporter from the New York Times. She never got there."

And 34 years later, we still don't know exactly what happened to her, though anyone who has seen 1983's Silkwood probably has their suspicions. After all, the film brings the woman back to life in the form of Meryl Streep, at her most lifeforce-tastic, while depicting the manager whose lives she was making so difficult as a pasty, puffy, shifty sort of fellow, the kind who looks like he's constantly about to break into sweat. We don't have the slightest difficulty believing that he and his cronies are just the kind of people to take out a hit on a troublesome young activist, especially since Silkwood is always so engaging and easy to like, and darn it, just plain good, despite some troubling details about her personal life that keep creeping in, adding just enough ambiguity that we can't be absolutely sure that she wasn't maybe at fault for her supposed single-vehicle car crash.

I assume that everybody visiting this site knows why they, at the very least, ought to have seen Silkwood by now (I just finally did *cough* thismorning): Streep in one of the great performances of her early career (it netted her Oscar nomination #5), Cher's breakthrough as a "serious" actress, Kurt Russell's most nuanced dramatic performance ever. Certainly, the combined talents of those three actors, feeding off of each other and giving back so much intimacy, each member of the triangle driving the others to reach their peak, is enough to make Silkwood an excellent human-sized story; personal and observant in a way to make it far more than what the concept threatens to make it, another routine "social activist" picture in the Norma Rae mold.

Less obviously, but just as importantly, the film relies heavily on the careful handling by director Mike Nichols of Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen's fine script: Nichols was on his very best behavior here, opening up the characters through unstressed details and very delicate use of the camera frame to suggest the ongoing shift between the main characters, and their environment.

And it's that ending where Nichols does some of the best work of the film- nay, of his career. With the script rightfully refusing to conjecture what happened that night, Nichols finds an uncanny way to clearly indicate what he wants us to think, while steadfastly maintaining ambiguity. The tension-raising long shot of a car following Karen on a lonely road, which in one steady take shows the lights of that car slowly appear and then draw painfully near, suggests a lot, but it shows absolutely nothing, other than Karen's panic and paranoia. Or the quick insert of Cher's Dolly, Karen's best friend and possible betrayer (foreshadowed in another directorial coup on an airplane), silently crying: it tells the viewer nothing, but creates a feeling of intense foreboding.

Does Silkwood assume, for the sake of drama, that its heroine was murdered? Absolutely, and yet there's not a frame of the film that I can use to prove it. It's that same haunting ambiguity that made the circumstances of Karen Silkwood's death so compelling in the first place; and the filmmakers' ability to honor both her memory and the known facts at the same time is one of the surest reasons that this movie is one of the great true-story thrillers of its decade.

Before There Were Websites... (Pt 1)

...there were scrapbooks!

My parents are moving, abandoning my childhood home, and I spent my holiday going through old boxes in storage. It's hard to part with any of these secret keys to unlock my childhood. There's heaps and heaps of homemade comic books featuring my own superhero creations which I shan't share (because they were never optioned for movies... not because they are totally embarrassing. Uh, yeah. Not because of that). Plus lots and lots of drawings of various X-Men, Madonna, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker.

Many photo scrapbooks were uncovered including "MOVIES OF THE EIGHTIES"

front cover: Raging Bull (I hadn't seen it. I just knew it was
"important" somehow), E.T. and Aliens

Turns out The Film Experience was no fluke. I was always writing about movies... but when I was in junior high and high school, the writing was in list-making form and smelled like rubber cement instead of Apple computer.

inside covers: Silkwood , Crimes of Passion, Terms of Endearment

The front and back covers are completely mainstream / boy friendly, and yet the inside jackets are so actressexual. It's as if my love for actresses was still reasonably contained, with Meryl Streep and Kathleen Turner whispering to me in pupa stage.

I was absolutely obsessed with the unseen-by-me Crimes of Passion (MPAA ratings scandal!) though I'm not sure I ever asked myself why... Kathleen Turner was enough cover for and emblem of any prurient reason.

back cover: the infamous gold bikini, Return of the Jedi

Somewhere -- I cannot find it! -- there is a half-formed MOVIES OF THE NINETIES scrapbook which I began in college... but abandoned once the glorious internet took over my life and made scrapbooks actual items of nostalgia rather than just containers for the same.

Part 2 coming soon. some random funny clippings from the book.
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Streep at 60: Chamaeleonidae Erotica

Streep at 60, a retrospective (June 11th - July 14th)

I wear body armor as I type this, for fear of your collective outrage but the time got away from me. We're jumping forward. You see, Streep's second act, those legend making years from 1981-1988, in which she morphed through one of cinema's all time hot streaks like some genetically enhanced superfreak chameleon, is too large a topic. I need more time with The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Sophie's Choice (1982) and Silkwood (1983), in particular. Perhaps I should write a book. For disparate reasons all three are deserving of chapter length essays.


For now, some general observations about this time period and the first of Streep's collaborations with director Fred Schepisi (Plenty).

Chameleonidae Erotica

Streep's penchant for shape shifting, particularly in the vocal arena, is well known. Though many actors collect several character voices and accents in their life's work, the vocals became an unusually significant part of Streep's mystique not only for her skill (considerable though not always unimpeachable) but for how many she tackled in quick succession. Here's how the 80s went down: British and American for The French Lieutenant's Woman (a neat trick), Streepian for Still of the Night, Polish for Sophie's Choice (insanely great), Oklahoma blue collar for Silkwood ( ♥ ), Streepian (Falling in Love), British again for Plenty (today's topic), Danish for Out of Africa (Hmmm), Ephronish for Heartburn (I haven't yet rewatched), simultaneously soused and hoarse Noo Yawk for Ironweed (freaking marvelous), Australian for A Cry in the Dark (!!!) and honeyed nouveau riche for She-Devil (funny if laboured).

Costumers and makeup artists usually go thankless in the accolades that greet an actor's transformation. That's a real shame. But Streep is the rare actor whose shape shifting is more than just cosmetic. It's literally aided by the shifting of shape. As an actress she uses her whole body. This is most obvious, I think, in Silkwood and Ironweed: Karen Silkwood and Helen Archer don't move like any of Streep's other characters. Watch and marvel.

Which brings us to Streep's life of the body. Though it's largely forgotten now, Streep was once quite a sensual screen presence. Anna and Sarah wield this eroticism carelessly and dangerously in The French Lieutenant's Woman. You don't need the narration in Sophie's Choice to tell you that Sophie escapes her dark thoughts through carnality. It's right there in the performance, in the way she's constantly clinging to her dangerous lover and the way she seems hypnotized when she's caressed. Karen Silkwood is obviously a good lay. Karen Blixen memorably gets her groove on in Out of Africa. In Plenty, based on the play by David Hare, we get the last of the regular erotic within Streep's work. Foregrounded sexuality began to slip away after 1985 with the notable exception of The Bridges of Madison County. If you ask me, Mamma Mia! needed a lot more of this former Streep specialty to justify its plot.

Susan Traherne, French Resistance Badass

Plenty (1985)
We first meet Susan Traherne (Meryl Streep) on a chilly still night in France during World War II. She's all chic war time cool with beret, barked orders (in French!) and loaded guns. But within minutes of meeting a parachuting soldier (Sam Neill) she loses her cool facade. Minutes later she's in bed with him. This, we soon understand, is how she's been living for some time. Her stealth life in an occupied country is full of pretense and fleeting anonymous erotic encounters.

Her new lover receives a morse code the next morning and departs without hesitation or fanfare, leaving her only a memento as reminder. She keeps it with her from then on.

Abruptly we jump forward in time, the war now behind us. Hare's screenplay never clues us in exactly to how far we've jumped ahead and it seems like we're leap frogging whole years. The point, one assumes, is that Susan's life is like this: impressions, momentary diversions, new careers and new lovers.

Susan insinuates herself into the life of a stuffy diplomat (Charles Dance), though we know before she does, that this romance will never satisfy her sexually or romantically. In spirit, if not in social strata, she's closer to the moneyless bohemians she hangs with (including Tracey Ullman in fine form in her first dramatic role). Before long Susan is viciously attacking her lover's vernacular in a fit of boredom

Push off. Bit of a tight corner. One helluva spot.

Afterwards, though she's never apologetic she admits to him that she's not fully present.

I think of France more than I can tell you... I often think of it. People I met for only an hour or two...

And she promptly leaves him. Susan, as we're increasingly aware, is impossible to please. She's always reaching for something new and always unsatisfied with whatever it is she's grabbed hold of -- check out the zombie stare, the careers abandoned the very scene after they're introduced and the continual drift of her conversations.

But reach and grab she does. Her next pitiful capture is Mick (Sting). She wants to get pregnant and she chooses him in no small part because she finds him attractive and disposable (not on her level).

Meryl mounts Sting in a scene that's both chilly and hot... Well played.

She's unapologetic and honest about using him for stud service. It's no surprise that she's on top when they make love. He enjoys her shameless blend of chilly business and hot pleasure. Like the diplomat before him, he's besmitten by her contradictions. Until he isn't.

Susan Traherne is not, as you've probably surmised, a pleasant woman. Plenty remains an underseen curio in Streep's filmography, completely eclipsed in its year by Out of Africa, and some of this is undoubtedly due to Susan as a character. Streep's two collaborations with Fred Schepisi are both on the chilly side but with Lindy Chamberlain in A Cry in the Dark, there was so much electricity in the character work that one hardly needed Streep's usual warmth for entertainment value. Susan Traherne is a less satisfying creation. Schepisi often shoots her in longshot but whenever he zeroes in for a closeup, Susan chooses that moment to drift off which makes for an alienating experience. For Susan's voice, Streep has chosen something like Hollywood Upper Crust British (close your eyes and you can almost hear Audrey Hepburn at times). In the French Resistance framing scenes, there's some strange notes as if Streep is overselling Traherne's former liveliness to contrast it with the bulk of her spiritlessness.

Dance hopes in vain that Streep won't embarrass him at a posh dinner.

Which is not to say that Streep's performance isn't a good watch. In the second half of the film, Susan's deep unhappiness derails her sanity and we get the expected thespian fireworks. At a terrifically savage dinner party, Streep gets one of the best monologues of her career and dives in with beautifully controlled force. At first she's there with the party, making small talk, and then she's floating in her wet dream of France again... wondering what the hell the rest of her life has been for.

Is it getting a bit chilly in here? October nights.

Those poor parachutists I do know how they feel even now. Cities, fields, trees, farms dark spaces, nights. Parachutes open. We descend.

There's a beat there that's just beautifully sad. But Streep's Susan is suddenly aware that she's drifting off and shifts into performance/attack mode towards the diplomats in her presence. She can't maintain this either and retreats to the sensuality of France again. It's a thrilling seesaw effect.

Of course we were comparatively welcome. I mean, we did make it our business to land in countries where we were wanted. Certainly the men were. Some of the relationships… I can’t tell you. I remember a colleague telling me of the heat of the smell of a particular young girl. The hot wet smell he said and nothing since...

Nothing since then.

At this point Susan is despair and fury, aware that she's killed the party and furious that her life is filled with only these parties and these people she feels infinitely superior to.

I can’t see the Egyptian girls somehow -- No, not in Egypt. Not now. I mean there were broken hearts when we left. I mean there are girls today who mourn Englishmen who died in Dachau – who died naked in Dachau -- men with whom they’d spent a single night.

Well, even for myself , I do like to make a point of sleeping with people I don’t know. I find once you get to know them you don’t want to sleep with them anymore.

At this, her emasculated husband loses his patience "Please can you stop? Can you stop fucking talking for fucking minutes on end". (Which is, I suspect, what people who don't thrill to Great Acting are thinking at this very moment should they ever stumble upon this movie). Streep's lacerating ugly response

Well I would stop. I would stop. I would fucking stop talking if I ever heard anybody else say anything else worth fucking stopping talking for!

Sir John Gielgud, surveying Streep's wreckage, announces his departure from the party, ending the festivities with a delicious Ingmar Bergman barb. The scene comes with the added jolt of recognition: you're finally watching Streep share the scene with an actor who isn't the least bit intimidated by her legend or her pyrotechnics. Streep even turns her back to the camera as if she's passed him the baton.


If I know Sir John Gielgud and Meryl Streep they were both fully aware that the movie was in a bit of tight corner, a helluva spot. If it didn't get livelier, the audience was going to push off. I bet they had a grand laugh in their trailers afterwards.

Streep retrieves the baton from Gielgud as he exits and in truly inspired fashion reveals an almost orgasmically present Susan, inexplicably giddy from her public breakdown. She's alive. She's ready for another round. She invites the alarmed guests back to the dinner table.

Why not, we have plenty?

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Next: A Cry in the Dark
Previously: Julia, The Deer Hunter, Kramer Vs. Kramer
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60 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Meryl Streep Month

Happy 60th Birthday to Meryl Streep

1. Be your very best
2. Be dramatically potent.
   
3. ... then unexpectedly hilarious.
   
4. Fake a new accent every hour.
   
5. Imitate the dial tone on your phone.
   
6. Run around like a joyful madwoman with your hands in the air, stopping only to kiss people.
7. Run around like a joyful madwoman whilst singing your favorite ABBA song.
8. Accentuate your WASPiness... (or fake it).
   
9. Stay married to the same person for decades, confounding Hollywood protocol.
   
10. Pretend your significant other is a sculptor, make them use their hands.
11. Befriend Cher.
12. Watch Kramer vs. Kramer again.
13. Watch Angels in America again.
14. Consider yourself overrated... "but not today!"
    
15. Be highly quotable.
    
16. Memorize the entire Miranda Priestley "Cerulean" monologue.
    
17. Ask your best friends to call you "Mary Louise" for the remainder of the week.
18. Stweep!
19. Give to charities.
    
20. Sing more spectacularly than is humanly fair considering all of your other talents.
    
21. Watch Julia to see how it all began.
    
22. Say "That's ridiculous" with a Polish accent all day.
23. Visit Simply Streep and Meryl Streep Online.
24. Idolize your mama.
25. Make out with someone who looks like Robert Redford, Bobby DeNiro, Kevin Kline, Kurt Russell or Alison Janney
26. Send mixed messages to someone who looks like Jeremy Irons
    
27. Enjoy Silkwood all over again.
28. Flash your left tit and laugh about it.

29. Appreciate one of her rare underappreciated performances like the one in A Prairie Home Companion.
30. Stare off into space while dreaming of that farm in Africa, the French Resistance, your life as a singer, Virginia Woolf, the drugs you wish you were on or that French Lieutenant who will never return.
31. Wear a Vassar t-shirt.
32. ...or Yale paraphernalia
    
33. Pretend you've won an Oscar.
34. ...and another.
    
35. Pretend you've won a third since you deserve it.
36. Polish Meryl's star at 7018 Hollywood Blvd.
37. Stare at the sea provocatively whilst practicing "Obscure Melancholia"
38. Speak highly of New Jersey
    
39. Take your family white water rafting.
    
40. Watch Out of Africa again (you haven't seen it since the 80s).
    
41. Lighten the room when you walk in.
    
42. End your conversations with a dismissive "that's all".
43. Work towards making lots of "All Time Great" lists in whatever it is that you do.
    
44. ...actually deserve the honor.
45. Don't take yourself too seriously.
    
46. Proclaim "the dingoes got my baby!"
47. Have some cream of watercress.
    
48. Mix a drink for your friends (or frenemies) and pretend it's an immortality potion.
49. Be a legendary household name whilst avoiding any personal drama.
50. ...stop to consider and then appreciate how truly difficult that is to do.
    
51. Read up a little on the amazing Julia Child before Meryl's next picture Julie & Julia arrives.
52. Take a hot bath and fantasize about Clint Eastwood.
53. Make your significant other wash your hair outdoors.
54. Play dress up like Sophie or Kate Gulden
    
55. Be proudly liberal and politically active.
    
56. Make the world a better place.
    
57. Inspire future generations in your field.
58. Raise talented children
59. Age more spectacularly than a good wine.
    
60. Share this tribute post & video with Meryl-loving friends!
    

THAT'S ALL.
Click here for full blog / fresh posts
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Streep Noms #4-5 and Oscar Trivia

Streep at 60: More movie discussions to follow but today we're discussing Oscar competitive fields again
(the winner links take you to their acceptance speech)

The Best Actress races of 1982 and 1983 hold special meaning for me as they were my inaugural Oscar years. On April 11th of 1983 I saw my first Oscar ceremony. My only point of reference for the glitzy tradition was that my parents and my older siblings didn't like it -- something about Star Wars being way better than Woody Allen??? --and even though my parents didn't take me to that many movies, I had somehow seen and liked 3 of the 5 Best Picture nominees (Gandhi and the two blockbusters Tootsie & E.T.) For the first two years of my Oscar watching I saw a total of ZERO Best Actress nominees. My how life has changed.

1982...

• Julie Andrews, Victor/Victoria -this is the one I desperately wanted to see, being in love with both Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp. My parents refused to take me, muttering something about Julie Andrews appearing in a porno ... I was very confused.
  
• Jessica Lange, Frances
• Sissy Spacek, Missing
  
• Meryl Streep, Sophie's Choice
• Debra Winger, An Officer and a Gentleman
  

Other '82 female leads for context: Diane Keaton in Shoot the Moon, Teri Garr in One From the Heart, Carol Burnett in Annie, Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Nathalie Baye in The Return of Martin Guerre and Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2

Streep Stats: With this win Meryl became the 4th actress to win an Oscar for a Nazi/Holocaust related drama. It didn't happen again until Winslet won this past February for The Reader. Meryl was not, at 33 then, the youngest actress to win a second Oscar. Luise Rainer still holds that title winning her second Oscar in 1938 when she was only 28. Even Jodie Foster couldn't top that (her Silence of the Lambs win came at 29 years of age).

1983...

• Jane Alexander, Testament
• Shirley Maclaine, Terms of Endearment
  
• Meryl Streep, Silkwood
• Julie Walters, Educating Rita
  
• Debra Winger, Terms of Endearment

Other '83 female leads for context: Arielle Dombasle in Pauline at the Beach, Mariel Hemingway in Star 80, Bonnie Bedelia in Heart Like a Wheel, Sigweavy in The Year of Living Dangerously, Susan Sarandon & Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger and Babs in Yentl.

Streep Stats: Despite being only 34 years old when her 5th nomination rolled around, Meryl doesn't hold the record for fastest to get there: Bette Davis held the record for 65 years (accomplishing it by the age of 33) until Kate Winslet took over earning her fifth nomination (Little Children) at 31. I'm guessing that record holds for as long as Bette's did.

Give or take Norma Shearer who is either tied for 3rd place or in 5th
place depending on how you count her nominations

What are your ideal Oscar shortlists / wins in 1982 and 1983?
If you haven't seen very many early 80s movies, which are you most eager to finally get to?

April Showers: Changeling

April Showers evenings @ 11 all month long

Showers in real life are comforting and cleansing. In the movies, they're often harrowing ... if you survive them that is. If my math is correct there are five types of shower/horror in the movies.

1. being murdered
2. being raped
3. being spied on (possibly for the purposes of #1 or #2)
4. seeing something you didn't expect to see (like blood or Kevin Bacon's penis)
5. being violently hosed down...
   

...is more specialized. It's generally spotted only in the wilds of prison movies or in the sub genre of Women's Pictures dealing with the martyred crusader. Think Meryl Streep in Silkwood or this recent demonstration from Angelina Jolie in Changeling.


Most of us will never experience the hose down (water fights on your childhood lawn don't count) so who knows if it's as painful as it always looks? The point is surely humiliation, rather than pain. It's another chance to build yet more sympathy for the heroine.

This isn't meant as a knock against Clint Eastwood (calm down) but why must workers in unfortunately dehumanizing facilities like asylums or prisons always be portrayed as evil themselves? This happens in a lot of movies, not just Changeling. When Eastwood grants these actresses shots of their own they're completely unforgiving and possibly malevolent.

Evil Worker #1 "spread your legs" she intones mercilessly
Evil Worker #2 has no voice. She wields her hose with committed intensity

Maybe these two ladies could just as easily have starred in a Woman's Picture themselves? Perhaps they're widows or hard up single mothers like Christine Collins? How easy was it for them to get jobs in the 1920s? Maybe at the beginning of their movie they were circling want ads just like Erin Brockovich did in hers. Maybe this is the first job they could find to feed their kids and they hate it with a passion? Surely not everyone who works at miserable jobs is evil themselves?

Hunger is the only recent film I can think of that understands that it can be even more emotionally potent and despairing to humanize the people doing the dehumanizing work. There was a brief shot of a crying prison guard after a particularly brutal "beat up the prisoners" sequence that was just devastating. Caricaturizing worker drones as evil simplifies your movie but it does dehumanizing work of its own.
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Weekly (Streep) Horoscope

It's Meryl Streep Month here at the Film Experience. And you know what that means: She's your theme for this week's horoscope. Each sign will be given a famous Streep role with which to identify/self-examine this week leading up to her birthday (June 22nd). Next week's horoscope, ushering in the summer, will come from a special guest and since response to the horoscopes haven't been equal to the amount of work they are this feature will then go on the back burner for the summer.

Weekly Movie Horoscope
June 14th - June 20th The "Mary Louise" Edition

Aries (3.21-4.19)
Your Streep talisman this week is Karen Silkwood. Don't worry about her sorry fate. I'm thinking more along the lines of your natural courage and impulsiveness. Like that aforementioned crusader you'll make good use of those. Stay alert --accidents can happen when we're reckless. Helpful hint: Keep your friends close by and sing yourself a few bars of Amazing Grace.

Taurus (4.20-5.20)
Remember that path less travelled that Karen Blixen took in Out of Africa? Let her be your guide. Stubbornly hack your way through whatever wild brush you come across. Stick to your guns with that earth energy and you'll prosper. It might be time though to let a loved one go if they want out. Helpful hint: Let someone pamper you. Remember when Robert Redford washed her hair? Mmmm.

Gemini (5.21-6.20)
Your Streep talisman this week is appropriately dual in nature. InThe French Lieutenant's Woman the film that brought Streep her first lead Oscar nomination (and yes career success awaits you too) she played two characters: a temperamental actress and the artist she was portraying. Helpful hint: Sketch a little self-portrait this week. You may be surprise by what you come up with.

Cancer (6.21-7.22)
One more week until your life lights up with the sun in Cancer for your b-day. So -stay right in the moment. Your Streepian alter-ego this week is Yolanda in A Prairie Home Companion. What? You haven't seen it yet. Git yourself to a theater. She's a hoot. Like her, you may be feeling easily hurt and a bit moody. Still, you're undeniable sympathetic and winning this week. Helpful hint: Embrace your sibling/s.

Leo (7.23-8.22)
You know you're a star. It's OK to embrace that but don't let your vanity get the best of you. Don't go to the extremes that Madeline Ashton went to in Death Becomes Her. Embrace your natural charisma and humor --hell, even your horniness. But stay away from the dark recesses of your need for the spotlight. Helpful hint: Make sure to ask for a warning before you down the magical cure-all.

Virgo (8.23-9.22)
Your Streep talisman this week is Lisa Metzger from Prime. Your intellect always serves you well and you're probably doing well with your career right now. But watch the inflexibility when decisions involve more of the heart than the mind. Helpful hint: Make sure you to carve out your own space. If you're not successful enough to have a private office, find a private place.

Libra (9.23-10.22)
You probably know that Suzanne Vale in Postcards from the Edge was basically Carrie Fisher fictionalized, right? If this week feels a little meta in its autobiographical qualities just deal. Learn to live in and love the moment, however exasperating it may initially feel. Just like Carrie Suzanne Vale. Helpful hint: Check out of that Heartbreak Hotel. Don't live on lonely street no more. No more.

Scorpio (10.23-11.21)
The role tailor made for you this week is "Susan Orlean" from Adaptation. I put the name in quotes because Orlean is also a real person but the movie is fictionalizing her. You probably dig the fluidity of that. Think about pushing your own persona into new territory this week. Experiment a little. Helpful hint: Dial tone. Take your shoes and hum along with the phone.

Sagittarius (11.22-12.21)
That fire and enthusiasm you have needs somewhere to go. Your talisman this week is Susan Traherne in Plenty who felt alive in the war and dead as a peace time society wife. Helpful hint: Chant the following phrase to yourself "There will be days and days and days like this." If the thought of that being true makes you crazy, change the dynamic of your life.

Capricorn (12.22-1.19)
Divided loyalties may be hard for you just as they were for Francesca who had some thorny emotional issues to deal with in The Bridges of Madison County. If you aren't feeling grounded as usual, don't stress. Focus on your passion and/or lovelife and take it as it comes. Helpful hint: We all have short stretches of time that take on deep resonance in our lives. Do something this week that you'll always remember.

Aquarius (1.20-2.18)
If you hear me say that your Streep role is Helen Archer of Ironweed you may feel a twinge of defiance. Before you go hurry off to choose your own role remember that Helen had admirable qualities: proud, fierce, independent, talented. She just let other things erode her gifts. Be your best self this week. Helpful hint: Lay off the sauce. If you feel like belting a torch song, by all means, do. Just sing it sober.

Pisces (2.19-3.20)
This week could bring a you renewed creativity in some form or another, so be open and sensitive to it. Consider the intuitive warmth of Clarissa Vaughan in The Hours. She may have felt like she was unravelling, but deep truths and profound connections don't always come painlessly. Helpful hint: Get lost in a really great book you've always wanted to read. Kiss your signficant other passionately.

tags: movies, Meryl Streep, film, celebrities, horoscope, zodiac