Glenn Close in The Lion in Winter

She didn’t win an Emmy for it, but if you’re a Glenn fan I’d say yes. Not quite as funny to the incomparable Kate version, but still worth a look.

She won a Golden Globe for it. (and shouted out hey Meryl I got one!)

Nothing really tops the original. The music alone is incomparable.

She's always been ragingly envious of Meryl.

I can barely make it through the original and gave up on the remake.

Glen close? I don’t know, I still can’t find it. I’m a bit embarrassed.

Kate Hepburn and Peter O’Toole have fabulous wit and badinage and flirtatious chemistry together.

However, Eleanor of Aquitaine was not only sophisticated and witty but also ruthless and powerful. There is a scene where Eleanor is staging an escape and coup against King Henry II. Katherine Hepburn gives a signal to a conspirator who calmly murders her guard (Eleanor is under house arrest) to be murdered. Eleanor with her sons will depose her husband. Seeing our Kate cold-bloodedly order an innocent man to be stabbed is shocking to say the least. Glenn is no problem. You can see her leading a revolt.

Also Peter O’Toole in the late sixties was in his thirties, slim, fair with a tenor speaking voice. Henry II is stocky, thick waisted, rough voiced and older. O’Toole needed lots of ageing makeup and padding and dropped and coarsened his smooth elegant voice. Patrick Stewart has the age, burly physique and booming voice built in. Much closer casting as to physical type. O’Toole is the better, more inventive actor.

The remake isn’t bad but not crucial viewing.

I don't think it stands up to the original. Hepburn and O'toole were very good together and I really liked the rest of the cast too. Especially Timothy Dalton and Anthony Hopkins. The original, had some small moments in it between Henry and Eleanor that I really appreciated. Also between Eleanor and Alice. Overall, I do think the original was better.

Meryl is posting all the negative reviews, envious of the fact that she was never believable in period dramas and was never offered the opportunity to play one of Hepburn's plum roles, the way Glenn did with this or Lange did with Long Day's Journey Into Night.