Movie Review: ‘The Iron Lady’

Yesterday was a fun and productive day for me … I saw my last movie of 2011 and then I attended my last concert of 2011. The movie was The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep … the concert was Matthew Sweet at the Echoplex performing his 1991 album Girlfriend in full. ‘Twas a great day full of fun entertainment. Click below to find out what I thought of both the movie and the concert.

I’m calling it now … Meryl Streep will win the Best Actress Academy Award in February for her stunningly magnificent work in The Iron Lady. She absolutely gives the best performance of the year and almost literally becomes former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the film. That said … the overall film itself is just OK. I am not a fan of telling a story in flashback so that was the first strike from me against the film. I also wasn’t very impressed with the focus on the ailing Thatcher‘s life, full of delusion and sadness. That said, those scenes do give Streep ample time to shine as an actress. The film is strongest, I think, when we see Streep portraying Thatcher when she was in her prime. I just marveled at the brilliant performance that Meryl Streep gives in this film … truly, she is a wonder to watch. I was pleasantly surprised to see that former Buffy actor Anthony Stewart Head has a role in the film. All in all, I found the film good and entertaining but it wasn’t my favorite biopic. Make no mistake, this is a film that you MUST see because Meryl gives one of the peformances of her lifetime … but generally, the overall film felt disjointed and didn’t really gel for me.

After the movie, I met up with my friend Jen and we made our way to the Echoplex to see Matthew Sweet in concert:

It’s crazy to believe that his album Girlfriend is 20 years old but … yeah, it is. It was quite a treat getting to hear him perform the album in full. I must admit that I was very surprised to see how much Matthew let himself go … but he sounded great and his guitar work was still excellent so it was a great, great show. Jen and I had a lot of fun last night.

And that’s it, y’all. 2011 is *almost* over and we are about to start a brand new year. Tonight, David and I will be dining with our friends Tam, Ollie, Rob and Caleb and then a bunch of us will be hanging out at Ollie & Caleb’s place downtown for the rest of the night. I sincerely hope that all y’all have a happy and very safe New Year’s Eve! See you in 2012!!