MERYL THATCHER

It looks a little too Julie & Julia at first glance, but I have absolute faith that Streep can pull this off without being that broad. After all, she's fucking Meryl Streep. 

I hope this film is as scathing as a Maggie Thatcher biopic should be, but I somehow doubt it. Still, Streep certainly looks the part and no doubt has the accent down.

If this turns into Thatcher's hagiography I'll be pretty pissed.

This needs to be Thatcher's W. Instead it'll be Thatcher's THE QUEEN.

Also, fucking Phyllidia Lloyd. I've had bowel movements that were directed better than MAMMA MIA.

If Streep does this in her Prada/Manchurian remake "evil" mode then I might be interested, otherwise forget it. Pretty much everything that's worth knowing about Thatcher was covered decades ago by Spitting Image, Mike Leigh, Alan Clarke etc anyway.

OK, I'm going to hijack this thread to ask British and European chewers: what is it exactly that you guys hate so much about Thatcher? Specifically. I've never heard more than broad strokes, I get the general gist, but I've never been clear on her exact policies that made her so hated. Aside from the fact that she was apparently pretty racist and homophobic, and was buddy-buddy with Reagan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

This needs to be Thatcher's W. Instead it'll be Thatcher's THE QUEEN.

 

Also, fucking Phyllidia Lloyd. I've had bowel movements that were directed better than MAMMA MIA.

Damn right. At the height of her power the woman ran this country like no has done since. The biopic needs to show how good and how bad she actually was.

I have to echo the sentiments that if this ends up glossing over what an epically evil toxic fascist bitch Thatcher was I too will be fucking pissed off.

...and Streep just looks extremely surprised to me in that photo.

"This movie is not suitable for miners"

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Prankster 

OK, I'm going to hijack this thread to ask British and European chewers: what is it exactly that you guys hate so much about Thatcher? Specifically. I've never heard more than broad strokes, I get the general gist, but I've never been clear on her exact policies that made her so hated. Aside from the fact that she was apparently pretty racist and homophobic, and was buddy-buddy with Reagan.

I'm going to let the British give more details, so as to not appear more offended than the actually offended ones. But as a pro-union person I absolutely detest the way she treated the blue collar class during her time. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Allen 

"This movie is not suitable for miners"

Nice!  I could argue Arthur Scargill was as much to blame as Thatcher for that but it's to early in the morning.  There was a great drama on BBC 1 recently about the coup to oust her during the last days of her PMship.  I hope they take notes from that because it shows the Tory party for the bunch of slimey weak chinned schemers they all were.
 

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

Margaret Thatcher, 1987

Also:

-The poll tax

-Slashed education and housing budgets

-Crippled higher education

-Invaded the Falklands!

-Killed the coal industry and devastated the communities that surrounded it

-Sold off as many nationalised institutions as she could to private industry

-Set the tone for two decades of deregulation by pretty much letting the banks and traders do whatever they wished

-Signed up as a consultant for Phillip Morris following her departure from the House of Commons

-Loooooved Pinochet and led calls for his release in the late '90s

She's a real peach, alright.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

-Invaded the Falklands!

 

 

Not entirely true! However, she ignored reports which predicted the Argentine invasion in a cynical move to have a good war to improve public opinion. If Shitwitch was a real thing and there were many of them, she'd be Queen of the Shitwitches.

How the *fuck* did I butcher that bullet point so badly? I blame Thatcher. She took my school milk!

The north-east shipyards, done up like kippers and sold down the river was a personal sticking point for me. There was even a minister in her own cabinet who half-killed himself trying to show how unnecessary her plan of action was and to be fair really went above and beyond to present a alternative that would prevent their closure and she essentially told him 'yes, you're right but so what?'

She was also intensely eurosceptic, absolutely the opposite of her predecessor - Ted Heath - in that regard, fostering a horrible attitude to the EU that sadly prevails in the party (and much of the country) to this day. And yeah, the Miners' Strike, the neutering of the trade unions and decimation of the coal (and most manufacturing) industry; Section 28 (local authorities "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship"); the selling off of just about every state-owned service that wasn't nailed down; the instigation of the process of financial deregulation, the ultimate results of which have been seen these last few years; putting an end to free school milk (admittedly, as a kid I hated the stuff so I never cared about this one!); the shameless and cyncial handling of the Falklands conflict; the god damn Community Charge (ie. the Poll Tax) and about a thousand and one other things to boot.

"She wanted concentration camps for AIDS victims, wanted to eradicate homosexuality even as an abstract concept, made poor people choose between eating and keeping their vote…ran the most shameless vote-grabbing artificial war scam in fifty years. England was a scary place. No wonder it produced a scary culture."

A little over the top description but one sadly not that far from the truth. Social unrest, industrial strife, high unemployment and a culture of greed and selfishness were her legacy. It's a running joke among many that her grave is a dead cert to to become the most popular public lavatory in the UK. But then again, she'll probably hang on in there like Vigo the Carpathian and outlive us all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sentinel Red 

It's a running joke among many that her grave is a dead cert to to become the most popular public lavatory in the UK....

http://www.isthatcherdeadyet.co.uk/

Good post Sentinel Red, pretty much sums up my feelings (except I liked milk!)