Iron Lady is worth a look. I just saw a preview screening.

[Kablooie]

Meryl Streep was fantastic, as usual, but the thing that struck me was how close the situation of Britain was to the U.S. now. High unemployment and debates about whether to spend or cut back. Then the decision to cut, (from Thatcher) and the violent rioting in the streets.

Talk of the rich getting richer and the poor becoming irrelevant.

Also she pushed for a flat tax. The exact same tax for everyone, poor or rich and her character was convinced it was the right thing to do. Sheesh.

Very good film.

It will be out December 30.

[truebrit71]

1. Pass. I lived through it. I don't need a Hollywood-ized version of it...

...Fuck Margaret Thatcher...

[Kablooie]

2. Understandable if you lived through it.

I only had a distant idea of what she was about.

The movie is interesting though in that she is presented as she is today, a doddering, feeble minded old lady who has hallucinations about her past.

The hallucinations become the story and they keep bringing you back to the present where she has no control over her life at all.

[canetoad]

3. Meryl Streep's performance?

How was it? I'll definitely see the film for Streep's acting.

[Kablooie]

4. Amazing. Probably her next Oscar.

[whathehell]

5. Does the movie go into how she handled the Irish Hunger Strikes in '81?

horrible woman, in my opinion.

[Kablooie]

6. Not really. It's just quick cliff notes summary of her primal ministery. (ministery?)

She comes off as an extreme conservative who places political values above human values.

You do get the feeling that she genuinely believes she is doing what is right and you admire her determination to push it through but she comes off as rather uncaring and driven.

And this is contrasted with her living as a helpless shell of a person today.

[whathehell]

7. Okay. Thanks for that information. n/t

[truebrit71]

8. ..not just your opinion...

...many, many, MANY people hate that fucking woman...

[whathehell]

9. Yes, I've heard that...I know she was a conservative, but what were

the particular reasons she was hated?

Did she try and destroy unions?

[truebrit71]

10. She didn't try to destroy unions, she succeeded in destroying unions...

..she also succeeded in destroying the coal mining industry and the British car industry (although to be fair most British cars at the time were fucking dreadful to begin with). She "privatised" (i.e. sold to the highest bidder) formerly nationalized industries, started a war against students, minorities and the poor...other than that she was a peach...

[whathehell]

11. Wow....I didn't know that!.

Are there really no unions in the UK anymore?.

I know that she and Reagan were tight, but I don't think even he was this

bad (or we might say as "successful&quot in his aims.

Terrible stuff...Sounds like what our fascist right wing is trying to do to us now.

[truebrit71]

12. No there are still unions in England, and they are much stronger than their US bretheren..

...but the ones she went after, specifically coal miners and auto workers are shadows of their former selves...

[graham4anything]

13. Streep great, movie so-so

Meryl Streep is great, movie not so

reminds me they should have used Elvis Costello's legendary song "Tramp the dirt down" as the end theme.

people should go to youtube and listen to the words of that song about Margaret.

[Kablooie]

14. Ah ha! I was right. She won.