Greatest Second Acts: 7 Refutations of that Gatsbyan Axiom
Meryl Streep
At the beginning of this decade, it seemed clear that Streep was gonna slide into acting old age with nary a bother. No real roles, but she’d already equaled Hepburn’s nomination total and as we know, the roles for older actresses diminish into dotty aunts and boring cameos. But no one told Streep. The decade started slowly, by 2002 she was running on all cylinders. The dramatic actress of years past was leting her hair down, giving relaxed comic performances with nary a foreign accent in sight. And while she’s doing this, she rewrote the rules of the game, spearheading some of her biggest hits with Mamma Mia! The Devil Wears Prada and won more awards than you can shake a stick at. The grand dame of Hollywood was having a ball, and we were all invited.
Robert Downey Jr
There once was a time when insurance firms wouldn’t insure this actor, despite the fact that he had an oscar nomination to his credit. And yeah, the reminder that this remarkable actor is enjoying his second wave, a comeback if you will, has become rather irritating as he seemingly coasting to praise based on that. But we can’t deny that spearheading a major blockbuster or two, getting another oscar nomination, along with kicking the demons that haunted him qualifies him for this list in a big way.
Comic Books
Comic books (and their hoity-toity kin, the graphic novel) got a bad rap in the 90’s (as did all things genre). Everything about them was for a niche group, a group defined by arrested development slacker-dom and a narrow view of culture and life. But something happened this decade. Maybe it was the fact that it was a largely visual medium with lots of stories to tell, but they exploded this decade. The Watchmen was declared one of the greatest works of modern literature by Time Magazine. Comic-Con became one of the most recognized conventions. And the movies: all the heroes snuck into the big screen in one way or another to the point where they choked the box office. As revivals go, it might have been the most dominant one.
Ellen Degeneres
She’d already made history once, but had been relegated to the sidelines a bit. But with an acclaimed Emmy stint (the tonally difficult post-9/11 awards), a hugely admired vocal turn in Finding Nemo and a daytime talk show that suited her, she’d come back in a big way. Embracing her relatively edgeless brand of comedy and her interesting position politcally, she returned to the mainstream (up next? Judging on American Idol) in a big way.
Cable Queens: Kyra Sedgewick, Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, Mary McDonnell
What were actresses of a certain age supposed to do nowadays? There’s only a handful of roles for older women, and they’re given to Meryl Streep (unless they’re meant to be British, in which case Helen Mirren and Judi Dench get first and last dibs). Well, they migrate to television of course. But during the recently ended Golden Age of television, cable networks started producing shows of uncommon brilliance and depth, and these silver screen actresses (ten oscar nominations between them) grabbed at them ferociously, and so the next act came about. And, for the most part, these shows are huge successes. So what is cinema waiting for?
Michael Moore
Okay, George W. Bush was the best thing that ever happened to Michael Moore. That’s right, I said it. Bush was the ultimate cartoon president, and for the rabble-rousing propagandist that Moore is, the perfect foible. His exhaustingly simple catalogue of miseries could be hurled without regards to aim and work, simply because Bush was… well, Bush. And in the mean time, he created blockbuster documentaries, helped define the red-blue divide in America and refined his blunt tool approach . For better or worse.