Of the honorees on the list below, I’ve maybe only seen fewer Barbra Streisand movies than Meryl Streep movies. And most of the ones I have seen (SHE-DEVIL, THE RIVER WILD, DEATH BECOMES HER and even A.I., if that counts) won’t be mentioned among her finest works. So even though many of her movies aren’t for me, I respect and appreciate her talent, which has been in great evidence in her movies I have seen, films like THE DEER HUNTER, KRAMER VS. KRAMER, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, SILKWOOD (bits of it, anyway), and ADAPTATION.

The show, which’ll air on USA on June 21, was taped at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, the go-to place for awards shows. The stage itself was adorned with pictures of Streep in films I’d never seen, but recognized, anyway. And luckily, the one of her movies I now want to see the most, OUT OF AFRICA, was given to all of us in the parting gift bag.

To open the show, Jim Carrey, Streep’s co-star in the upcoming LEMONY SNICKET: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, came out. Now, at times, Carrey’s mugging and schtick approaches Robin Williams-like levels of annoyance, and for a show honoring such a serious actress, it seemed an odd first note to strike. Until he talked, anyway. Then we were all reminded how damned funny and shameless the guy can be when he’s “on.” Then he proceeded to kill the room with his impersonations of other AFI honorees’ less-than-amazing first appearances, his boisterous and at times touching praise of Streep’s work and then his walk across the entire room, singing love song after love song at the top of his lungs. (While singing THE BEATLES’ “All You Need is Love,” he said “that one’s for you, music clearance department. Good luck.”) He ended his effusive opening by crawling halfway across Streep’s table to embrace her.

The format of this show is much the same as the other AFI Life Achievement Awards that came before. Clips of the star’s best movies are shown in chronological order, and in between are cut-ins of a career-encompassing interview with the star. A significant co-star in some of the bigger movies comes out to introduce the clip and to share anecdotal stories about working with the person on that project. Tonight followed suit.

Robert DeNiro came out and talked about working with Streep on THE DEERHUNTER. Somehow, she’s worked on so many grueling, emotional movies and yet all of her co-stars say she’s able to move from one project to the next without feeling the after-effects of portraying doomed characters or working in dour movies. She went right from THE DEERHUNTER to THE HOLOCAUST with James Woods, playing a concentration camp victim. Woods came out and talked about spending time in Austria with Streep, and he refreshingly didn’t mention either his penis size or his MENSA membership for once.

Mike Nichols factored big in this show, since he’s been responsible for so many of Streep’s great movies. He was featured mostly in clips, talking about her work, and also was the subject of a few jokes about his facial resemblance to Streep (they share a nose, it seems).

Dustin Hoffman was noticeably absent, but maybe he’s still taking the Kramer divorce hard, I don’t know. But Jack Nicholson was there, and he came out and promptly repeated an old phrase from Hoffman, namely that “Streep is a cunt.” That line’ll be edited out, he said, so don’t worry. What he meant was to praise her, to say that she’s so perfect in every way, but it didn’t seem to go over all that well. Jack seemed a little manic and off-kilter, but that could have been because of that game 3 loss to the Pistons that concluded soon before he came out.

Carrie Fisher came out and talked a bit about how sad it was to see that Streep was better at playing her, Fisher, than she herself was. Which was funny enough and delivered in Fisher’s droll style, except for the fact that Nora Ephron was on stage maybe five minutes before and said the same thing in even funnier, more droll, style. Tough timing.

Nearly everyone that talked had something interesting to say about Streep, and nearly all talked about what a wonderful wife and mother she’s been all these years. And then there was Goldie Hawn. Goldie, looking now just like Streep’s character in DEATH BECOMES HER (I’m pretty sure her neck might be able to twist completely around now, too), just seemed…artificial. In her words, I mean. Granted, not everyone is a great public speaker or great public teleprompter-reader, but Hawn’s bit about Streep being like a fine Stradivarious violin, with each strong representing something or other, seemed like it was from the Book of Awards Show Praise. There didn’t seem to be anything genuine behind it, and the analogies were just that sort of pat, glad-handing B.S. you dread sitting through at these shows. Still, Streep was very gracious, smiling and offering sincere expressions of thanks throughout.

(Incidentally, the fact that she was able to face the presenters on the stage and then see her image projected onto a huge screen overhead as they sang her praises, and still offer genuine looks of appreciation, is a real talent. I couldn’t see my face projected for a crowd like that and feel anything but self-conscious. Then again, the self-conscious gene is, by necessity, a recessive one in most actors. Still, I was impressed.)

That was the biggest thing I took from the night, just being impressed at Streep and her ability to stay grounded and seem so likeable even while being praised non-stop for three hours by some of the best living actors of our day.

Tracy Ullman, who seems even less shameless than Jim Carrey, praised Streep while at the same time decrying a “still male-dominated” business. Clare Danes came out and seemed a bit over-matched on a night like this. She talked in that typical Hollywood psychobabble that says a lot and means nothing. Talking about Streep’s ability to “infuse the human condition with fearless love and compassionate mercy of demonstrable efficiency” or whatever. You know what I mean, the kind of gushing that no one speaks outside of awards shows. Mike Nichols finally took the stage to sum up Streep’s appeal, and then brought up the honoree herself.

Again, she came off as light-hearted and not too outwardly buying into all this praise. “I wish I WAS her,” she said about the “Meryl Streep” that was honored all night. She mostly spent her time talking about a new disease that afflicts only those who get honored too often and results in swollen heads and other problems. It was funny, and rather charming. Again, to someone who hasn’t seen many of her movies and only hears about the accents and the gravitas of most of her movies, it was nice to see that she was a gracious, funny and mostly humble type, none too caught up with herself. The fact that she’s managed to stay outside of Hollywood as a wife and mother while also remaining maybe Hollywood’s best actress is even more impressive.

These sorts of events are well-orchestrated. The AFI does a great job of presenting solid clips, upswelling music and good presenters, all of whom make you feel a little bit better about the business of making movies. Even better to see someone so deserving be the recipient of such an occasion.

AFI Life Achievement Recipients
1973 John Ford
1974 James Cagney
1975 Orson Welles
1976 William Wyler
1977 Bette Davis
1978 Henry Fonda
1979 Alfred Hitchcock
1980 James Stewart
1981 Fred Astaire
1982 Frank Capra
1983 John Huston
1984 Lillian Gish
1985 Gene Kelley
1986 Billy Wilder
1987 Barbara Stanwyck
1988 Jack Lemmon
1989 Gregory Peck
1990 Sir David Lean
1991 Kirk Douglas
1992 Sidney Poitier
1993 Elizabeth Taylor
1994 Jack Nicholson
1995 Steven Spielberg
1996 Clint Eastwood
1997 Martin Scorsese
1998 Robert Wise
1999 Dustin Hoffman
2000 Harrison Ford
2001 Barbra Streisand
2002 Tom Hanks
2003 Robert De Niro

Feeling Like a Freak and a Geek

Pretend it’s five years ago, so my righteous indignation over NBC’s bad decision to cancel one of their shows is current and not as dated as it seems. But man, the Peacock’s bungling of FREAKS AND GEEKS is one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen.

Relevant, right? Never let it be said that I’m not right on top of these things. But I have to say, I never once saw FREAKS when it was on the first time. (Which I guess makes me partly to blame for its demise) I never signed any petitions to save it or got overly upset about its premature cancellation. Only now, with the Complete Series released on DVD have a seen what all the uproar was all about. And man, is this a terrific show.

Amidst all the crappy pilot episodes of new shows for this fall’s TV season, I’ve been watching the entire run of FREAKS AND GEEKS. And with every one I watch, it becomes that much harder to throw in something like Andy Richter’s Fox show instead of watching another episode of F&G. The show has everything I ever want out of a TV show. Comedy, drama, real-life situations, relatable characters, clever writing and solid acting. And it failed?

I’ve seen this happen before, of course, we all have. A couple years ago, SPORTS NIGHT was easily the best show on any of the (Three? Four? Five?) networks and it was allowed to die an ignoble death. It happens all the time. But after watching a half-dozen FREAKS episodes, this really does seem like one of the very worst losses. And no, it’s not just because Sam reminds me a lot of me at 14. But I’m sure that’s a part of it.

I have a lot to make up for. Never watching this show back in the day. Dismissing Linda Cardellini in my head by only acknowledging her in the SCOOBY DOO movies (it’s tough to really stand out when you’re cast as Velma, no matter how cute you are. Kind of like playing Peppermint Patty in a movie, it’s a bit of an uphill battle.). Mocking the people who petitioned NBC to keep this show going. For all of these things, I apologize.

We ran a contest for three sets of this show recently, and I can see now why we got such a great response, why these were such desired prizes (had I know then what I know now, I might’ve make you guys work a little harder to earn it). The collection itself is great—the packaging is very cool, with each of the six discs given its own plastic slot, each one adorned with the mug of one of the kids. It’s got a great array of extras, from multiple commentary tracks (even some from the teachers in character), a nice little diary with comments from show creators Paul Feig and Judd Apatow and a whole lot more.

Speaking of Judd, he’s another reason I’m so surprised I didn’t catch the show before. He’d previously worked on some of my favorite shows, THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW, THE BEN STILLER SHOW, even THE CRITIC and Jim Carrey’s THE CABLE GUY. And now that I see his name there, I recall people talking about his 2001 show UNDECLARED with about the same level of fondness as they did F&G.

The show reminds me of everything I remember fondly about high school—the uncomfortable, awkward times. I think I never quite do well with the good times, so those memories are never as good (in hindsight) as the ones that form the person you become. So what I remember from high school is feeling insignificant next to many of the other students, having a hard time talking to girls, fumbling through the year with my equally fumbling friends. Good times, good times. And Sam Weir and his friends, while thankfully more exaggeratedly geeky than me and mine, are similar enough to jog all kinds of memories. The years this show was set, the early ‘80s, are before the years I attended high school, but still, I have a brother four years my senior, so all the music is familiar (and great), too. I can only imagine the 2004 version of this show ending with “Tonight’s episode of FREAKS AND GEEKS featured music by Van Halen and Foghat.” There would be about four soundtracks (featuring music from, and inspired by, the show, of course) floating around the music stores. And I think we all agree that we’re better off without that.

The acting on this show, as mentioned above, is uniformly excellent. Linda Cardellini is perfect in her role of the good kid learning to be slightly less good and slightly closer to finding herself with each situation she finds herself in. She’s cute, alternately strong and needy, funny, sensitive and communicates a lot with just a slight change of expression or body language. It’s under-acting of the highest degree.

Similarly, Sam and his friends are great, familiar to pretty much anyone who ever attended public high school. The only one on the show who started out being a bit grating is Harry Osborne himself, James Franco. Franco seems to have studied the early oeuvre of Matt Dillon and seeks to emulate his teen-punk roles with every eye squint and bit of posturing. But even his Daniel has grown on me, becoming more than just a burned-out rebel. Every character in the show gets their chance to be humiliated, and to grow and develop in realistic ways, and Daniel's comes in the episode that Feig says has the best ending of any TV show he’s ever seen. And he’s mostly right—in that one, Cardellini breaks out in unforced, unself-conscious laughter after a particularly ridiculous bit from Franco’s character.

Am I just telling you all things that you’ve known for years. There's nothing more obnoxious than when someone finally sees or hears something old and then proceeds to talk about it like it’s still current and should be top of your mind, too. But still, listen to me when I say that, if you’re somehow possibly even more behind the curve than I am, and you have any fondness toward high school, your more geeky period of development or even the themes touched on in THE WONDER YEARS, you have to get this set. Hell, if you just want to say you watched a show that features VAN HALEN’s “Ice Cream Man,” then this is for you. As you all have known for a lot longer than me, this show’s for everyone. See what you missed the first time around. And then feel as guilty as I do that it’s no longer on the air.

Happy Birthday to Us

We officially turn two years old this Thursday, which feels pretty good to me. Thanks for sticking with us.

Next Week: Steven Spielberg's THE TERMINAL, Richard Linklater's BEFORE SUNSET and the musical stylings of Hal Hartley

/chris

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