MAMMA MIA!
RUNNING TIME 108 minutes
WRITTEN BY Catherine Johnson
DIRECTED BY Phyllida Lloyd
STARRING Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters

Amid the summer junk-movies that are already going down in history as artifacts, some folks will welcome, I suppose, the nauseating cornball music of the Swedish pop group ABBA which pounds its way through the monumentally inconsequential Mamma Mia! To me, the popularity of the jukebox blather of this gang of no-talents is only slightly less understandable than the war in Iraq. And the movie they’ve made of the bafflingly popular tourist attraction still playing on Broadway is only slightly more unbearable than finding myself the real-life star of all the Saw movies rolled into one.  read more »

Oskar Eustis is the creative director of the Public Theatre that put on Bertolt Brecht’s play Mother Courage and Her Children in the summer of 2006, translated by Tony Kushner and starring Meryl Streep. John Walter is a director that made the film Theatre of War documenting the production of the play that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival yesterday.  read more »

The Film Society of Lincoln Center presented a gala tribute to Meryl Streep on Monday, April 14, 2008. It was the 36th such ceremony, all directed and edited by Wendy Keys, with a writing contribution on this occasion by Joanna Ney. Meryl and I have had our publicly aired differences over the years, but in this instance I must say that she and the evening were total triumphs.  read more »

For all his winning charm, Tom Cruise is despised by his Lions for Lambs co-stars Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, an insider told the Huffington Post. When the subject of Ms. Streep and Mr. Redford’s absence from a recent dinner honoring Mr. Cruise was raised at the event, the source reportedly spilled the beans.

“Meryl and Bob can’t stand Tom. In London, Tom kept trying to push himself into interviews. Bob said, No. Tom wouldn’t listen. Meryl has done almost nothing for the movie. She wants nothing to do with him.”

Another source, however, tried to take the stirring spoon out of the pot, saying, “That’s mean. They’re great friends. Just look at their interview on Good Morning America.”

Oh, and Nicole Kidman said that her life didn’t feel “relevant” when she was married to him. Oh, snap!

Tom’s Co-Stars Meryl Streep And Robert Redford Skip Tribute Dinner [HuffPo]

The liberal actor-director’s A-list new political drama is topical, tripartite—and honestly, somewhat tortuous.  read more »

Despite starring Tom Cruise, Robert Redford’s antiwar diatribe is totally toothless.  read more »

Meryl Streep has signed on to play jolly cooking icon Julia Child in Nora Ephron's new film Julia & Julia, based on the adaptation of the 2005 book by Julie Powell, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.

Reuters/The Hollywood Reporter writes:

The Columbia Pictures film follows Powell, a government worker who decides to cook her way through Child's classic "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year out of her small Brooklyn kitchen. Powell blogs her daily experiences, gaining a loyal following along the way.  read more »

This January, after 62 months, heiress Libet Johnson sold off an $18.5 million penthouse at Trump International on Central Park West, the last chunk of the 20,000-square-foot sprawl she’d once had at the building.

But it took her much less time to shake her 162-year-old, 25-foot-wide townhouse at 19 West 12th Street.  read more »

Like mother, like daughter, according to Page Six:

Meryl Streep's daughter Mamie Gummer, is headed to The Great White Way. She was overheard at The Plumm telling a pal that her play "The Autumn Garden," which she starred in over the summer in Williamstown, is coming to Broadway and she'll be in it. Gummer was at the club with her boyfriend of three months, Eric Murdoch, who was also in the play and will join her on Broadway. The two were drinking, dancing and cuddling all night.

Move over, Meryl! Reese steals scenes from Streep in this timely political thriller about the government’s overzealous treatment of suspected terrorists.  read more »