The Oscar nominations will be announced in about a half hour, but The Post has already been nominated for a bunch of other awards. Golden Globes! National Board of Review! Your Mom’s Friend Trish’s Fave Movies of December!
The Post is a feel good movie. Watching the U.S. executive branch being held accountable by the press, with actual consequences is a feeling we all—at least sane, non-racists—can embrace right now. It’s a film of the late 60s/early 70s, but it’s a movie for today.
Nixon’s government is bad, and Katharine Graham was woman forced into a position of leadership as publisher at the Washington Post during the Pentagon Paper crisis, a role she gingerly took on. There are a lot of blustering dudes around, and Spielberg knocks you over the head with it at times (Did you notice Katharine Graham was the only woman in this scene? How about this scene? What about now?). While the script and the photography were not subtle, Meryl Streep made it all a delight.
For Your Consideration
Costume designer Ann Roth is getting the “for your consideration” treatment for her work on The Post. Roth is legit, as credited costume designer on The Hours, Cold Mountain, and The English Patient, the movie for which she won an Oscar.
Doing some internet sleuthing, i.e. a quick Google search, she is not really in contention for getting a nomination, and I am incensed. While the threads in The Post aren’t anywhere near the KA-BLAM! of a movie like Beauty and the Beast, Roth’s costume design is flawless and does what it’s supposed to do: transport you.
Forget the bad suits and David Cross’s wig. The reason this movie deserves an Oscar nomination is because of how Roth dressed the ladies.
I’m Always Here for a Caftan
For a long stretch of the movie, Meryl Streep isn’t just Katharine Graham; she is Katharine Graham in a caftan. This white and gold caftan becomes its own character. The men are all stuffy and rumpled, and Queen Katharine rules. Graham finally finds her voice and overrules the nattering nabobs around her, giving WaPo editor, Ben Bradlee, the final okay to publish the stolen papers. In. A. Caftan. It’s glorious.
The Pussy Bow
Melania Trump cannot ruin the pussy bow for me. It’s my favorite blouse. I might have been born at the wrong time. I would have been an amazing business lady doing business in the 1973 pussy bow top. As I type this, I’m wearing leggings, no bra, and a fleece vest. I’m ashamed.
Glamorous Sleepwear
You never know when the firemen might show up, so you better look good while you sleep. I love luxury sleepwear. The silks! Katharine and her daughter, Lally, know that the hours of 10 PM to 7 AM still offer you a chance to look phenom. Ann Roth needs to create a private line of sleepwear for Nordstrom—that I can also find for a steep discount at TJ Maxx.
A Few Random Thoughts…
**Matthew Rhys plays Daniel Ellsburg, the Rand Corporation employee who leaks the Pentagon Papers. Having no idea he was in this, I yelled out, “It’s Phillip!” I had the same reaction to seeing Kelly AuCoin. “Pastor Tim!”
***Phillip Casnof is a reporter for WaPo. To me, he will always be Elkanah Bent from North and South. Some of y’all keep telling me to watch some BBC-esque show of the same name, but there will only be one version of that miniseries to me. And that’s the one starring Patrick Swayze.
**A random comment about printing. I work in print and seeing the linotype machine work that lead and those offset presses churn out all those printed paper was like a symphony to me. The print room that rumbled the building in downtown DC moved out in 1999. The current WaPo print facility is in College Park MD, with 8 Mitsubishi rollfed presses. And they give tours!
