Meryl Streep

It's easy to respect Meryl Streep.Admiration is no problem either .Sainthood, even, I wouldn't object to. But...to actually like her?The great triumph and delight of "Postcards from the Edge"is that finally, after all those years, all those iconographic performances, those accents, those costumes, that immense, frosty dignity, that unmeltable glacier of reserve ... Meryl Streep is likable.She giggles, she snickers, she flirts, she wisecracks. She's earthy, sexy, smart, cool, funky. She sings country-western.

You figure this would be old hat for Meryl Streep by now, given that she's been nominated for about a gazillion Oscars. But a clearly delighted Streep said hearing her name announced from the Oscars' stage was a near-surreal experience. "They call your name, and you go into like this white light," said a smiling, joking Streep. "I felt like a kid. " Noting that 29 years have passed since she won her last Oscar (for "Sophie's Choice"), Streep put the passing years into perspective.

The moviemakers try to turn The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger's trashy best-seller about the terrors of working for a media tyrant, into a film about the pursuit of excellence and self-knowledge. They put the material on lifts - and end up tripping into TV dramedy land. Once again an idealistic college grad, Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway), lucks into a job at the fashion bible, Runway magazine, when its editor, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), makes the snap decision to hire a nonfashionista as her second assistant.

The Oscars are serious — important people making important, relevant, thought-provoking movies about race, marital relations, horses and Owen Wilson seeing dead Parisians. The dresses and jewelry are beyond fancy. The tuxes are bespoke. Sidney Poitier and Steven Spielberg are usually there. Serious stuff. Except this year, Melissa McCarthy is nominated for s---ting in a sink. Nothing against McCarthy; she's hilarious. But in honor of her garnering the rare Oscar-considers-a-comedy-a-real-film nomination, we decided to do our annual Oscar predictions panel a bit differently.

"Music of the Heart," the real-life story of an inner-city violin teacher struggling against an unfeeling bureaucracy to keep her program going, is the sort of tear-inducing feel-gooder that only a curmudgeon could find fault with.Permit me just a few curmudgeonly moments.But first, the essentials of the plot. Newly divorced Roberta Guaspari (Meryl Streep), desperate to find a way to support herself and her two boys, persuades an inner-city principal (Angela Bassett, believably strong-willed but compassionate)

The problem with Doubt is its dramatic certainty. From the start of this sadly familiar and stagy tale, set in a Bronx church and Catholic school in 1964, the headmistress, a stern disciplinarian named Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), suspects her priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), of sexual misconduct. After Sister Aloysius persuades the naive Sister James (Amy Adams) to alert her to signs of unspeakable acts, the younger nun witnesses behavior she thinks raises questions.

WASHINGTON -- Meryl Streep smiles and blushes and waves her hand nonchalantly. Acting, she insists, is something she just does, not something that taxes her or something she struggles with. She almost makes it sound easy. But those of us who have watched her on-screen for the past 25 years know better. Nothing so good can, if there is any justice in the world, be so simple. "This is why I've never been able to teach anything," Streep says in mock exasperation when asked what she has drawn on in bringing so many memorable characters to the screen.

Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. That much we know. But what about the special evil that lurks at the heart of happy families?Such is the central premise of "One True Thing," Carl Franklin's sympathetic if by-the-numbers adaptation of the Anna Quindlen novel. An unremarkable story of family dysfunction, catharsis and healing, "One True Thing" is dragged from a fatal pool of treacle by Meryl Streep and Renee Zellweger, both of whom turn in brave, unsentimental performances.As a mainstream domestic melodrama, "One True Thing" takes material usually reserved for the Lifetime channel and network movies of the week and gives it a slightly more sophisticated gloss; when tears are shed -- and they will be shed -- at least filmgoers won't hate themselves in the morning.

After she'd had a brief incandescent run in the theater and done some TV movies, Meryl Streep got her first film role: two brief scenes in Julia, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda. Her second was The Deer Hunter, in which she played a war bride and fresh-faced beauty - so green, in fact, that some thought they had merely found a woman who resembled the character and cast her. The film generated the first of her 14 Oscar nominations. Now 30 years later, Streep's oldest daughter, Mamie Gummer, after only two professional plays, has her first role of consequence in a film starring Vanessa Redgrave (Evening)

In case we hadn't noticed, Glamour points out this month that Hollywood's "most desirable women are over 35 and acting their age."The hot celluloid ladies include Ellen Barkin, 40; Meryl Streep, 46; Susan Sarandon, 49; and Michelle Pfeiffer, 38.That's great news for all of us who aren't getting any younger. However, the fact still remains that those actresses will never be paired with a sweet young thang the way older male actors are. Robert Redford, 58, can offer 33-year-old Demi Moore an indecent proposal, but when will we see Meryl Streep get busy with, say, 34-year-old Michael J. Fox?

When Casey Wilson joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live," she became the first Not Ready For Prime-Time Player who was born in the 1980s. Here's are the movie comedies that meant the most to this member of Generation Y. "Clue" (1985): How nostalgic — a movie based not on a video game, but on the murder-mystery board game peopled with archetypal characters (Colonel Mustard, Reverend Green, Miss Scarlet) and peppered with old-fashioned weapons (rope, revolver, candlestick)

University of Maryland Baltimore County President Freeman A. Hrabowski III added an honorary degree from Harvard to his list of awards on Thursday morning, hailing it as recognition of his university's profound strides in the academic world. "The respect our colleagues at Harvard have for UMBC as a research university is clear," he said. In bestowing the degree, Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust praised Hrabowski as "a galvanic force in his university's ascent." Among those who shared the honor and the stage with Hrabowski?

Avatar . ( 3 STARS) $68.4 million $352.1 million 3 weeks Rated : PG-13 Running time : 2:40 What it's about : A paraplegic ex-Marine (Sam Worthington, above) controls the body of an "avatar," a body of a creature on another planet, and gets caught up in a struggle between the humans and the natives. Our take : James Cameron has delivered the most-anticipated blend of live-action and motion-capture animation to date, but the story's simplistic.

"It's Complicated" isn't: It's pretty simple. It's simply a good time, a relatively adult and easygoing conveyance for three ace performers of a certain age, working through a few comic machinations created by writer-director Nancy Meyers. Her earlier romantic comedy, "Something's Gotta Give," offered a similar payout. You like that one, you'll like this one. The fun isn't related to directorial finesse; if anything, that earlier Meyers film starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson was better-tooled than "It's Complicated," which has an oddly jumpy editing rhythm, offering five abrupt separate shots when one or two would do. And yet, this tale of a Santa Barbara, Calif.

TODAY DAVY KNOWLES & BACK DOOR SLAM: Davy Knowles is a Brit with an American-sized case of the blues. Hear live renditions of popular Back Door Slam singles "Heavy on My Mind" and "Come Home" when he and the band perform at Recher Theatre, 512 York Road. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. Go to rechertheatre.com. OTTOBAR'S THANKSGIVING POTLUCK: Music fans living the rock lifestyle in Baltimore pack Thanksgiving leftovers to share with friends at The Ottobar, 2549 N. Howard St. DJs Dave Tedder and Tonie Joy spin acid rock, punk, metal and rock beginning at 9 p.m. This 21-and-older event is free.

Inglourious Basterds * 1/2 ( 1 1/2 STARS) $38 million $38 million 1 week Rated: R Running time: 2:33 What it's about: A band of Jewish-American commandos (including Brad Pitt, above) bedevil the German army, and a French Jew seeks justice for the Nazi slaughter of her family. Our take: It's so hollow and protracted that it transforms mayhem into monotony. District 9 ** ( 2 STARS) $18.2 million $72.8 million 2 weeks Rated: R Running time: 1:52 What it's about: A government agent comes to the aid of an alien race (above)

THE QUESTION What is your favorite Meryl Streep film and why? The Academy Award-winning actress stars in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, which opened in theaters this month. And today, her next movie - The Devil Wears Prada - opens nationwide. WHAT YOU SAY I find it impossible to pinpoint a single film in which she starred since she adapts herself and excels in every role that she portrays. FREDA GARELICK, BALTIMORE Because I enjoy impersonations and accents, my favorite Meryl Streep role is Francesca in The Bridges of Madison County.

Start preparing for those summer road trips now. And don't forget to include some literacy games for the backseat. Check out these books and audiotapes.Books:"Travel Time! My First Backseat Book" (ages 3 to 5); Rand McNally & Company, 1997"Alphabet Travels" (age 2 and up); Rand McNally & Company, 1997Audiotapes:"Madeline" by Ludwig Bemelmans. Picture book and cassette (Puffin)"The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams, read by Meryl Streep (Rabbit Ears/S&S)Scholastic Parent and Child MagazinePub Date: 5/12/99