Best Actress 2013: Meryl Streep, August: Osage County (for the win)

Now that we have a Best Actress 2012, who will be Best Actress 2013?  I'm positive Jennifer Lawrence will make another trip up to the Oscar stage in the near future (before she's 30, easy), will 2013 be a repeat winner?  Blame Katharine Hepburn for winning two Oscars back-to-back in her 60s.  Blame Harvey Weinstein. Blame a great Tony Award-winning role.  Blame the fact that it's being played by the most respected working actress today.  But, even with her third win just a year ago after a decades long drought, for the time being, I'm calling Meryl Streep for Best Actress 2013.  She plays Violet Weston in Tracy Letts' August: Osage County, the Oklahoman matriarch of a large drama-addled family who suffers from a prescription problem and must deal with her recently AWOL husband (Sam Shepard).  Letts also wrote Bug and Killer Joe.  This is John Wells' follow-up to The Company Men, but he's known primarily for the hit TV show ER, as well as the recent Shameless.  The cast includes Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis, Julianne Nicholson, Ewan McGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Abigail Breslin, Dermot Mulroney, Chris Cooper, and future Oscar-nominee Margo Martindale.  TWC will distribute the movie filmed this passed Fall in Oklahoma, as well as Nicole Kidman's Grace of Monaco.  Weinstein is producing along with Argonauts George Clooney and Grant Heslov.  Cinematography was by Adriano Goldman (Sin Nombre), editor is Oscar-winning Stephen Mirrione (Traffic, Babel), and production designer is David Gropman (Life of Pi, The Cider House Rules).

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