Meryl Streep – Yesterday's Movies

Mamma Mia!

February 3, 2023temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

This month I will be focusing on jukebox musicals, and for me in my experience, there’s no more obvious jukebox musical film than Mamma Mia!, having spent 20 years of my life being very aware of the music of ABBA being in the world.

I think the plot they’ve woven around these songs has to do with a woman about to get married and wanting to include the father she’s never met, only to find out her mother isn’t sure who that is because she was seeing three men at the same time. There are some details I’m more certain of than others, but finding fathers is definitely involved. I think the “sequel” is a flashback to that time frame entirely.

The music has already stood the test of time, but the story has to live up to one episode of Community that spent all its budget on the gag that the Halloween party playlist was just ABBA’s entire catalog.

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The Devil Wears Prada

April 29, 2021temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I think the main reason I was never especially drawn to this movie was because I’m not that into fashion, but then movies can be themed around anything without requiring intimate knowledge of them. And maybe it was also something that didn’t appeal to me because it’s a women-oriented movie and I wasn’t as interested in those in 2006.

I do vaguely recall it being among the movies that I first got a real glimpse of what’s interesting about it at the Academy Awards that year, but like most other movies that I never really considered until the Oscars showed me more than any trailer did, I never really followed up.

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Julie and Julia

January 10, 2020temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I’ve always been aware of Julia Child as an important figure in cooking, but I’ve only known of her indirectly. Of the PBS Digital Studios remixes, the Julia Child video was the only one I didn’t have my own experience with the source material of.

I actually watched the Academy Awards presentations for a few years, and I remember that this was one of those years. I had the impression this was about a direct mentorship or friendship, but apparently what happens is that a blogger challenges herself to cook every recipe in Childs’s book. But over the course of the movie we also learn Childs’s own story, so maybe I’ll finally understand why she made an impact on so many people that seems to go beyond writing a popular book and presenting a cooking show.

Also how have I been reviewing movies for ten years and this is the first time I’ve tagged Meryl Streep?

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