Tuesday, November 21, 2006

I was watching the 1999 movie, "Music of the Heart" the other day. The movie is based on the life of Roberta Guaspari, who apparently influenced a lot of youths through her violin program at schools in East Harlem. Meryl Streep stars as the music teacher with a heart of gold.

The premise was nice and so was the music. But what kept me glued to the television, despite the barrage of meaningless adverts on Zee every other minute, was Meryl Streep. Young actresses looking for role models can do worse than see Meryl in this movie for a quick course in grace and dignity. No gesture wasted, no exaggerated emotions, an economy of expression; I could go on.

Now I have not had a chance to see much of her work before. Mostly because her genre choices are very far removed from mine. But I did a bit of investigation to find out a bit more about her films. I was not surprised to learn that she is most nominated actor for the Oscar of all time (13 nominations). Just goes to show I suppose that quality is not beholden (at least all the time) to hype. In any case, I just wish there were more actors out there of her quality.

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