Christopher Walken Rocks my Socks

I'm still in Hawaii, we leave tomorrow night. As far as I know "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" should be waiting for me when I get home. I got an email from the ebay seller letting me know the item had been mailed. If it isn't there I may cry.

Not much has been going on other than being in Hawaii which, is always a production. For fourth of July we were in Hilo and had an excellent view of fireworks over the bay. Hilo, for those who have never visited, is my mother's hometown. I don't that in itself makes it a tourist attraction, but in Hawaii I rarely feel like a tourist. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons to visit, I just don't know what they are yet. We divide our time between the yacht club (which has no yachts) and my grandfather's house. I spent many long hours in the downstairs of that house as a child. When I was about twelve I started working my way through the bizarre set of books in the room I slept in. I read Sirens of Titan, some book by Kennedy (obviously memorable), Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story in a compilation novel, and Rosemary's Baby. In retrospect, at the exceptionally mature age of eighteen, I'm not sure Rosemary's Baby was the thing to be reading at age twelve. But that's okay, half way through the reading of the book it mysteriously disappeared. And I have no fucking clue where it went. This visit I spent a dedicated half hour to digging through everything looking for that book. At the time, I assumed my mother had thoughtfully censored the books available for my reading. But now she swears she didn't take it. So my options are either my uncle removed it or the geckos.

The real point of this post, other than for me to vent my frustration over lost books about Satan, was a post dedicated to Christopher Walken. Because he's just that fucking cool.

As evidence of this fact:

more graph humor and song chart memes

Personally, I'm not positive Christopher Walken beats boobs on the awesomeness factor, but if Graph Jam tells me it is so, then it is so.

There are no words for how cool Christopher Walken is. He's awesome.

To further demonstrate, Eddie Izzard pretending to be Christopher Walken, and Christopher Walken himself.

Also a shout out to the cast of [title of show] who started previews on Saturday. I'll be doing a big [title of show] post for the opening night, but until then: tell nine people.

Manhattan

On my way home from my bike ride, I saw a deer at the end of my street.  It was a young guy, nice head of antlers.  All I could think of was "The Deer Hunter."  Run, I wanted to shout, Robert De Niro is trying to shoot you.

I think that's a bad sign.

Also that I'm starting to compulsively notice Meryl movies.  I was at my favorite bookstore yesterday, looking at the movies.  Why did they have movies?  It's a bookstore.  Anyway, I was looking at the movies and immediately noticed the two Meryl movies, without needing to look at the cast list ("Marvin's Room" and "Before and After") and was trying to remember if they were in the magic four I need to buy.  They weren't.

But I think that's a bad sign too.

Somewhere, in the craziness of the past few days (film festivals are insane, don't even ask) I managed to finish "Manhattan."  

This movie contained two firsts for me.

1 - It was the first Meryl movie I've watched since starting this project where no one died.  That was kind of nice.

2 - It was my first Woody Allen movie.  Woody Allen will always remind me of this speech I heard once at debate practice.  Yes, I was nerdy enough to be on the debate team.  The prompt was the Allen quote, "Should sex be dirty?  Yes, if it's done right."  The result was a speech entirely about fluids.  It was memorable.

But what should I think of Woody Allen?  Is he a comic genius?  If so, his humor may be a little too deep for me.  I liked his dialogue.  This may be optimistic, but I think I caught about half of his references.  Or should I immediately remember that his wikipedia page has a section devoted to each of his major relationships?  On the other hand, so does Henry VIII.

So, lets start at the very beginning, which, as Julie Andrews tells us, is a very good place to start.  When you read, you begin with ABC.  When you watch movies, you begin with the first ten minutes.

We start with some truly epic shots of New York City.  I read someplace (wikipedia) that New York is a character in the film and it's true.  The shots of Manhattan are gorgeous.  It's not just the touristy bits, we get scenes of bridges and random buildings.  What the hell is this?  Who cares, it's New York.

Behind the views, or in front of, I'm not sure which, is Woody Allen's omnipresent voice.  He's narrating the first chapter of his book, or attempting to.  We never get more than a sentence in when he starts over.

"Too corny, too corny for my taste."

"No, it's going to be too preachy.  Lets face it, we want to sell some books here."

And each time he does the opposite of what he's pointed out.  I'm not sure if this is supposed to be funny or it's simply Allen doing his thing.

"Behind his black rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat."

Woah there.  Cue major orchestral drama and major landscape shots of Central Park.  The overture ends with fireworks over the city.  This may say a lot about my generation but for a second I thought it was an explosion.

We find ourselves in a crowded restaurant facing a guy who is not Woody Allen.  He's Michael Murphey, and he's trying to describe the purpose of art to Muriel Hemmingway.  Hemmingway, granddaughter of Ernest, would later be nominated for an Oscar for this film. 

"Talent is luck," Yale (Murphey) says to Tracy.  Huh?  Talent is talent, recognized talent is luck.  The camera expands and we get Yale's companion and Isaac (Allen).  

"But the important thing in life is courage," Isaac says and launches into a hypothetical situation in which they see someone drowning and if anyone will jump in to save the poor person.  He finishes with "I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it."  And that sentence pretty much sums up Allen's character.  Throughout the film he is constantly excusing himself from things.  Of course, at four minutes and 46 seconds in, we don't know this yet.

Allen makes a big show of smoking a cigarette but not inhaling.  Lucille Ball said she never inhaled either.  Tracy excuses herself.

Yale: She's gorgeous.

Isaac: She's seventeen.

Excuse me?  She's seventeen and he's forty two.  As he points out, he's older than her father.  As someone who is frequently attracted to people older than me, even I have to say, how is that not awkward?  And illegal.

We also get to hear about Isaac's ex-wife (who will later become Meryl Streep) who is writing a book about their marriage.  Or disintegration thereof.  It's deemed tacky.

"Gossip is the new pornography," Yale says.  Deep.  Hasn't it always been?

They leave the restaurant and Yale confesses he’s having an affair with Diane Keaton.  Great, so everyone’s relationships are convoluted.  If they weren’t convoluted we probably wouldn’t have a movie.  They discuss this with the women walking half a block behind them, what are they? Deaf?

Yale and his wife, Emily, (Anne Byrne Hoffman) head home to their extremely artsy fartsy apartment (there are potted plants in the kitchen) and discuss how Isaac is wasting his life.  And not by dating the seventeen year old.

Emily brings up kids.  Uh-oh.  Tension is in the air.

Morning, someone is leaving a building.  It's Meryl Streep.  I don't actually remember what her character's name is.  She's very loose and gorgeous and blonde in this film.  She left Isaac for a woman.  Sucks for him.  No wonder he's dating a seventeen year old.  He's waiting for her behind a pillar.  Creepy.  And he's very upset about the prospect of a book about their marriage.  One might think that'd be a major plot point, but it isn't.  It comes and goes and most of the time we just forget about it.

Meryl's part is pretty minor.  Isaac comes over to pick up their son and they bicker.  That's about it.  The book eventually comes out and we kind of forget about it.

This is Woody Allen's movie.  Woody Allen and Diane Keaton.  But mostly Woody Allen.  If you let that go to your head, it's extremely narcissistic.  Separation of Isaac and Allen is extremely important.

Cast-y bits: Diane Keaton's ex-husband is played by Wallace Shawn in his first film.  Wallace Shawn is otherwise known as the Sicilian in the Princess Bride.  He would like to appear in a quick PSA reminding you not to get in a land war in Asia.

Overall cool movie scale: 7.  I think this is a well crafted movie, but I need to see it a few more times before I get all of it.  As such, it was enjoyable and at times I giggled.

Action scale: 1.  Woody Allen jogs through Manhattan.

Hot sex scene scale (I've been leaving this one out, sorry about that): 4.  People in bed having discussions about sex.  One assumes sex has or will occur.  Or maybe people just like to talk in their underwear in New York.

Script scale:  7.  At times the dialogue was a bit pretentious and at times it made me feel stupid.  But I liked the banter stuff between Allen and Keaton, it was charming.

Other creative-y stuff: 9.  Loved all the shots of New York and it's in black and white.  

Nerdy bits scale: 8 Lots of references to artistic culture.  I didn't get all of them.  I really liked Woody Allen's list of things to live for.

Streep scale: 8.  Bit part.  There's a scene where Allen's pestering her to not write the tell all book about their marriage.  She smirks and says "Look at you, you're so threatened."  It's kind of my favorite part of the movie.

I'm going to Hawaii tomorrow, but I'll try to update while I'm gone.

There are four Meryl Streep movies that aren't on netflix.  I've bought two off ebay so far, still looking for the last two.  "Seduction of Joe Tynan," the next movie on the list is one I had to buy and looks like it's going to get here while I'm gone.  After that is "Kramer vs. Kramer" and "The French's Lieutenant's Woman."

The Deer Hunter

Spent the weekend in Ashland, Oregon seeing family.  We all converged for my cousin's birthday and spent three days doing crossword puzzles.  Now I'm back home, doing crossword puzzles on my own and I feel incredibly stupid.  I didn't even get half of Monday.

Yesterday the saga of getting a new computer concluded.  My new MacBook showed up a few weeks ago with a bad memory card.  So every time I turned on the computer it would beep at me.  Terrible for my self esteem.  We sent it back and it returned, as good as new, yesterday.  Much too much fun.  Also came with an iTouch, which is more fun than the computer.  My dad is very jealous of the whole thing.

Aside from messing with my new computer, I watched "The Deer Hunter" yesterday.  It wasn't as depressing as "Holocaust," but close.  We've moved from World War II to Vietnam and from Berlin to rural Pennsylvania.

So, made in 1977, released in 1978, directed by Michael Cimino.  Stars Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken.  Oh and Meryl Streep.  Of course.  Tells the story of five guys in a mill town in Pennsylvania.  The story starts on the eve of Steven's (John Savage) marriage to Angela, who is pregnant with another man's child.  The next week Steven, Nick (Walken) and Michael (De Niro) ship out to Vietnam.  They don't waste time.  But before leaving they must go through the male bonding experience of hunting for deer.  Hence the name.  I'm sorry, I cannot understand the appeal of hunting for some reason other than survival.  It's destructive and the mountains look really cold.  But very symbolic.  They head off to Vietnam and it all goes downhill from there.

I never know when to stop recapping.  I don't want to give away the whole film, but there's no point in talking about it if I'm rambling on about base abstractions.

Meryl plays a woman named Linda who starts off the film involves with Walken's character.  I thought she was interesting because she's a witness to events the main characters experience.  By being distanced (literally, she stays in the US while the men go to Vietnam) we can see it in another perspective.

It's one of those movies where stuff just happens.  The audience is plopped down in the middle of a story.  We're expected to pick things up as we go and hope a story appears.  Lack of exposition, that's what I'm trying to say.  Luckily, Cimino's knows what he's doing and we don't get lost, but I could see it going very badly.  I'm slow, I didn't have a clear handle on the plot until fifteen minutes in.  Before that we witness Steven's Russian (I think) mother in a church bemoaning her son's marriage to a strange woman and quick departure to Vietnam.  "I don't understand, father," she moans to the priest.  Don't worry, we don't either.

But we get it eventually and it's a very gripping story.

I took notes for the beginning for the movie, before I lost interest.  Christopher Walken stole his hairstyle from Luke Skywalker.  There's an excellent scene in which we get the a pre-show to Hairspray while all five guys lipsynch and play pool in flannel shirts.  If it were a different movie it might lead to gay love.  It's not.  Still very much a buddy movie though.  But enjoy those happy scenes.  There's only like two.

Cast-y bits:  John Cazale, who plays Stan (who plays one of the five guys), was Meryl Streep's fiancee at the time.  He was really sick with bone cancer during filming and the producers were worried he might die before the project was finished and wanted to replace him.  Meryl threatened to quit if they did.  Isn't she awesome?  Unfortunately, Cazale died shortly after filming finished.  He was only in five films in his career but all of them were nominated for best picture.  Quite the legacy.

Overall cool movie scale: 8.  It's the kind of movie that makes you think.  I always recommend those.

Action scale: 9.  This was intense!  I got my car chase (more of a drag race, but close enough), and machine guns and setting people on fire and helicopter rescues.  Crazy crazy!

Script scale: 6.  Much more of a show movie than a tell movie, but I liked it.

Other creative-y stuff scale: 8.  I know nothing about cameras and filming and angles and whatnot, but I really liked the way this was shot.  It was very up close and personal and kind of unpolished and that was perfect for the story.

Nerdy bits scale: 7.  I read on imdb that Walken's character and De Niro's character could have been switched.  I thought about it and that totally changes the message of the movie.  Cool idea.  Also, wikipedia tells me the movie was inspired by a story by Erich Maria Remarque.  So we can take Germans after the first world war and they can lead to Americans in Vietnam.  Fancy that.

Streep Scale: 8.  Nominated for a Oscar.  She's gorgeous in this.  The perspective of her character is fascinating.

Now I have to go watch the rest of "Manhattan" even though I'd rather watch old [title of show] show episodes on YouTube.

Holocaust Day 2

I first saw footage from concentration camps when I was nine. It was at PATS, this rather cultish gathering a group of us went to twice a week because we could add better than the rest of the class. The footage was part of this series called "Great Events of the Twentieth Century." I remember the whole class was pretty crazy about the series, we got to learn about fascinating things, like the death of Queen Victoria, the Boer War, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the defeat of Nazi Germany. That last segment included original videos taken when the Americans first liberated the death camps. Probably not the best thing for nine year olds to be seeing, but it happened. I remember we watched it right before lunch, I also remember not eating that day.

At the moment, I feel nine years old again.

Don't watch this movie. I'm not saying it's a bad film. No, it's a really well made, well written film. But don't watch it unless you're prepared for seven and half hours of pain and awful and death and general inhumanity. The whole theme of this movie is "this isn't going to go well."

And there are other options these days to get equal amounts of horror in an experience that's slightly shorter, like "Life is Beautiful" or something.

So I think it's important that people see movies like this, and I'm glad people are making these kinds of movies. I subscribe to the theory that if we don't remember history we are doomed to repeat it. But if you are going to watch it, at least be prepared for what it will do to you. And if it doesn't leave you emotionally ravaged, something might be wrong with you. It made me cry. I do not cry. Before this, I had only cried in five movies ever. And this movie made me cry.

One thing I did think was interesting, that I haven't seen much before, is how much time they spend with the Nazi officials and how they deal with what they're doing. There was a little in the new "Sophie Scholl" film that came out a few years ago but not as much as this. Seeing them discuss it amongst themselves and the power plays within the party is really interesting. What it does to the Dorf character is like watching a drug addict rationalize his addiction. The propaganda eats him alive.

Cast-y bits: A young Ian Holm (aka Bilbo Baggins) shows up as Himmler.

Overall cool movie scale: 9. Shows an important piece of history that we shouldn't forget, but god is it hard to watch. It's like getting a hepatitis shot. Really important, really painful.

Action scale: 6. Lots of fighting in this, not really very pleasant. At times pretty gory. Still no car chases or martial arts battles.

Script scale: 8. The parts with the Nazi officers remained the most interesting (and horrifying) and it wasn't overly wordy.

Other creative-y stuff scale: 7. Still too clean. And the part where the German guy (played by a British guy, speaking English) meets the American guy (played by an American guy, also speaking English) and they can communicate just fine, when the Germans and the Russians couldn't communicate, requires heavy suspension of disbelief.

Nerdy Bits Scale: 8. I now need to look up Jewish resistance in the ghettos. This movie shows a lot of that and it's not a topic I know much about. I think the creators also used original pictures and videos from the camps, which is hard to watch but important to see.

Streep Scale: 8. She's still awesome and heartbreaking. And, this is kind of a spoiler, but she's lucky too.

Now "The Deer Hunter," which will hopefully be a little less painful to watch. And Christopher Walken is in it. I'm a proud member of the Christopher Walken can beat the shit out of Chuck Norris facebook group. Looking forward to it.

Holocaust Day 1

I don't know guys, I'm really not sure I'm going to make it through this. Watching this is sort of like watching people kill puppies. And after almost three hours I'm only half way done.

From the DVD menu I could tell this was going to be an unpleasant experience. Gritty colors, images of people who look in severe pain, barbed wire slashing through the center. Generally unpleasant.

I was right. This movie is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Not a bad movie, but it's about a Jewish family living in Berlin during World War II. How can it possibly go well? The movie follows their lives from 1935 to where we have left them in 1941. I don't want to spoil everything, but let me just say they're not all still alive. Meryl plays a Christian woman who marries a Jewish man before the Nazis went nuts and she continues to try and help her in-laws after it is made illegal to associate with Jews.

A subplot includes this young lawyer named Erik Dorf (Michale Moriarty) who joins the SS to make a living and slowly rationalizes his way to being truly evil. The scenes with him and Heydrich (who in the credits is too creepy for a first name) are some of the more well written and terrifying I've seen so far. They talk about "reading the Fuhrer" and his policies and what is "practical" for German as it tries to talk over the world. Seeing on what level they are conscious of what they are doing and how they are swept up in the idea. It is bizarrely comforting that the creators of this series made the Nazi officials as creepy as possible. It's also interesting to see how the Jewish people believe what is happening is for political reasons, because at the time that's how it seemed. Now, looking back, we're so dominated by Hitler's grand master plan we forget how it appeared at the time. The family's utter faith in the system is a little heartbreaking.

The cast is very good. There's an young Rosemary Harris, aka Peter Parker's aunt in Spiderman. Michael Moriarty, who was on Law and Order for a while and reminds me a little of Peter Sarsgaard, wins for creepiest person ever. They have a bunch of British actors playing these German people living in Berlin, but I'll ignore that.

Overall Cool Scale: 9. This is amazing movie, just extremely difficult to watch.

Action Scale: 2. Not really an action movie. Lots of death, but no car chases or martial arts battles.

Script Scale: 9. The way they're developing the Dorf character is fascinating and I'm curious to see what will become of him. His wife is also interesting and evil and manipulative.

Other Creative-y Stuff Scale: 7. Looks very period, but it's one of those movies where everyone is ridiculously clean and you actually believe people looked that good in the middle of a war. Also having some lighting issues where people enter a building in daylight, it's dark out when they're in the room, and leave in the sun again. But minor stuff.

Nerdy Bits Scale: 8. My knowledge of WWII history is only decent, so I can't say how accurate this is. They reenact Kristallnacht and mention the Munich Pact and the murder of Ernst Rohm. It looks like they've done their homework. The whole thing is over seven hours long, I'd hope so. I do know enough to predict most of the things that happen. At one point I found myself muttering, "Oh don't go to Poland, really bad plan."

Streep Scale: 8. She's incredible in here. There's this one scene where she has to do something she really doesn't want to do, and I really didn't want her to do, to save her husband. The look on her face was so heartbreaking it was difficult to watch.

If this sounds at all interesting, I also recommend "Judgment at Nuremberg," "Sophie Scholl, the Final Days," and "Life is Beautiful." After those I highly recommend some Marx brothers movies, "Dumb and Dumber," "Pirates of the Caribbean," and whatever else silly and light is around just to cheer yourself up.

Hope to finish the series tomorrow and get on to "The Deer Hunter." That one better be slightly cheerier or I might not make it.

Happy Father's Day

Ah Dad - you do way more than just contribute sperm. That's a very important task, I really like the 23 chromosomes I got from you, but your job is more than that. In my family, more often than not you're the voice of reason. You also taught me the wonderful philosophy, "when in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout." I apply it so much.

So, a shout out to dads everywhere, your job is never overrated.

Julia

M Cubed is officially underway.  This afternoon I sat down and watched "Julia," Meryl Streep's first movie. It was a really hard film to watch.  Not because it's bad or there are dead babies in it, I just have a lot less free time than I thought I did.  I almost didn't make it through because people kept calling me.  I had no idea I was so popular.  Next time I will turn off my phone.

For some background, "Julia" was directed by Fred Zinnemann, made in 1977, and won three Oscars.  The plot is based on a story by Lillian Hellman.  For those who don't know, Hellman was an American playwright who's works include "The Children's Hour" (later adapted into a film staring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine), "Candide" and "Pentimento."  The story follows Hellman (Jane Fonda) during the thirties up until the start of World War Two.  Other literary giants of the era, like Dashiell Hammett and Dorothy Parker have cameos.  If you don't know who these people are, look them up, they're major figures in American literature.  The plot focuses on Hellman's interactions with her long-time friend Julia (Vanessa Redgrave) and Julia's work with an anti-fascist movement in Nazi Germany.

The cool thing - the character of Julia is fictional.  According to wikipedia (where I get most of my answers to life's great mysteries), it's believed Julia was based on this woman named Muriel Gardiner who was doing the right work at the right time.  Except for the fact Gardiner and Hellman never met.  Go figure.  Makes for a nice little mystery.  

I first heard of this movie in one of those books about lesbian movies I read a while ago.  It's one of those movies that isn't a lesbian film, but wants to be.  There's so much subtext at times it's painful.  At several points I found myself on my feet howling, "For the love of god, just make out already," while Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave were ridiculously oblivious.

I liked Hellman's character, but she took a while to get used to.  Fonda played her as a very demanding and explosive character in the beginning of the film.  This worked well to show her transformation through the story, but was a little shocking at first.  She'd be going along and suddenly explode into yelling, or, one time, throw a typewriter out a window.  

Redgrave is incredible and gorgeous.  She has the crazy ability to look optimistic and pessimistic at the same time and it made the excessive foreshadowing much more believable.

And Ms. Streep shows up 46 minutes in and is on screen for about 57 seconds.  I know this because I timed it.  I almost didn't recognize her, she had dark hair and was insanely young.  But it was a pretty intense 57 seconds of conversation.

Cool trivia courtesy of imdb - Hellman (who was still alive at the time) has a cameo in the film.  During the credits she's sitting in a boat fishing while tied to a dock.  Also, both Faye Dunaway and Julie Christie turned down the part of Julia.  Barbara Streisand turned down the role of Lillian Hellman.  

Overall cool movie scale: 8.  The end was crazy intense and heart breaking.  I recommend.

Hot sex scene scale: 0.  There are no hot sex scenes.  It's not that kind of movie.

Action scale: 1.  Nothing explodes.

Script scale:  8.  I liked the dialogue and the characters were interesting, but at times it was a little clunky.

Other creative-y stuff scale:  9.  Throughout the film I conducted a small love affair with Jane Fonda's sweaters.  The costume designer should get a cookie.

Nerdy bits scale: 9, cool blend of a fictional person (however fictional she actually was) and real events.  The scenes between Hammett and Hellman were some of the best pieces (despite how little chemistry the two had) and made some interesting points about writing.

Streep Scale: 2.  It was an intense 57 seconds, but it was only 57 seconds.

Next film is "Holocaust," a three disc miniseries that might make me want to lose all faith in humanity.  Looking forward to it.

Mission Statement

Yesterday was my high school graduation. Now, facing the sudden chasm of free time, I decided I needed a project. Something to fill the void in my abnormally boring life usually taken up by excessive homework. I’m too lazy for a feat of athletic prowess, don’t have the space for collections and don’t have the attention span for building things, like fish ponds. And I really like movies. So this was the result of my quest:

The project:

To watch all of Meryl Streep’s films, 45 movies in all, including three TV miniseries.

The catch:

All films must be seen in chronological order, starting with “Julia” from 1977, up to “Lions for Lambs,” the most recent DVD release. The project must also be completed in the 75 days between the end of my high school career and the start of my college career.

This blog is to see if I can do it. And for anyone who wants to watch the spectacle.

Credit must also be given to the awesome Julie/Julia project, because that was my inspiration for all of this.

FAQ

FAQ

What’s with the name?

Honestly, M Cubed stands for Meryl Marathon Madness, but it could stand for whatever you want it to. Like Mostly Mobile Monkeys. Or Many Merry Martyrs. Whatever floats your boat.

Why are you doing this?

Because I can. Why not? With the power of netflix, crazy ideas like this are possible. I just graduated from high school, I need to do something a little nuts.

Isn’t this a little obsessive?

For me, not really. I’ve been working through the movies of Humphrey Bogart since I was thirteen. Some of his earlier stuff is exceptionally hard to find. If anyone has “The Return of Doctor X” in any form (VHS, DVD, other) please let me know. Last year I watched most of the movies referenced in the opening song of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I just wanted to see if I could actually finish this set in the limited time I have before I leave.

So do you like movies?

What gave you that idea?

Is Meryl Streep your idol?

Not really. Idol implies someone I’d like to emulate. And while I think she’s really cool and extremely talented, I have no interest in following in her footsteps in any way. I have no interest in acting at all.

As a footnote to that: I am not Meryl Streep, nor affiliated with her, endorsed by her or supported by her or her peeps in this crazy endeavor.

Did you plan any of this out beforehand?

Not really. Any suggestions, feel free to email me or leave something in the comments.

What was the order of the wives of Henry VIII?

Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, Katherine Parr. This can be remembered with the handy rhyme: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

Did that have anything to do with the films of Meryl Streep?

Absolutely not.

Have you been asked these questions before?

Sure. In this context – no, not really. Frequently – nope.