Reel Thoughts: ABBA-cadabra!

If you don’t like ABBA, you have Australia to blame for their resurgent popularity. Would the Swedish pop group have had such a comeback without Toni Collette’s marriage-obsessed Muriel’s Wedding and the ABBA-riffic Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert? Why, even the Broadway posters for Mamma Mia! were a direct rip-off of Muriel's.

Of course, once it opened, Mamma Mia! became a worldwide sensation, easily one of the best “jukebox musicals” of all time. The reason it succeeds onstage, even in fickle Las Vegas where it has outlived about a half dozen other Broadway imports, is that the wafer-thin story is just framework enough to hang ABBA’s infectious hits. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel like a tired retread of what it’s celebrating, like All Shook Up did.

The film version is extremely exciting, mostly due to its all-star cast and spectacular Greek locations. Opened up and blown up on the big screen, some of what works on stage feels flat on film. The other problem is that now, you really get the chance to hear the lyrics, and it reminds you that English wasn’t really ABBA’s first language. No amount of song selling on Christine Baranski and Julie Walters’ parts will improve the inherent silliness of “Chiquitita”; and much as I adored Meryl Streep’s heartfelt rendition of “The Winner Takes It All”, after the fourth repetition of the same lyrics, you start to feel a little bad for her -- let the poor woman finish the song, already!

The story of Mamma Mia! takes place on a magically beautiful Greek Island where Donna (Streep) is running an inn and preparing for her daughter Sophie’s wedding. Sophie, played with charming sweetness by Amanda Seyfried, is determined to have her father give her away, despite never having met him or even knowing his name. Reading her Mom’s diary, she narrows it down to three men with whom Donna “dot, dot, dotted,” and Sophie invites them all to her wedding. Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård play the prospective papas, while Baranski and Walters play Donna’s best friends and former back-up singers (when they were “Donna and the Dynamos”).

The film is set to every ABBA song you’ve ever heard, and a few you haven’t. Donna and Sophie bond while confronting the past, and everyone finds love in one way or another. My favorite thing about the film and show is the way it focuses on the middle-aged women and their supportive friendship. The music may not always be equal to the quality of the people singing it (especially Streep), but everyone is clearly having a ball, and you will, too.

UPDATE: Mamma Mia! is now available on DVD and Blu-rayfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Out in Film: Phyllida Lloyd

Idol worship: Phyllida Lloyd, director.

- This week she makes her feature film debut with Mamma Mia!, the ABBA musical she steered to success in London, New York and worldwide.

- She is primarily known for her theatrical works in her native England, including a stint at the renowned Royal Shakespeare Company; in 2006, the Independent named her among the 100 most influential gay and lesbian people in Britain.

- Her first commercial success was the West End hit Six Degrees of Separation, followed by acclaimed productions of The Threepenny Opera, What the Butler Saw, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and many others.

- In addition to her theatrical works, she has also directed several operas, including award winning stagings of La Boheme, Medea and the world premiere of The Handmaid's Tale (based on the novel by Margaret Atwood).

- Her only previous film experience was a television version of the opera Gloriana, which won an International Emmy Award.

MD Poll: See That Girl, Watch That Scene ...

" ... Dig in the Dancing Queen". It may not be Friday night and the lights aren't particularly low, but Movie Dearest readers had their say, and they chose the young and sweet (but only seventeen) "Dancing Queen" as their favorite ABBA song. It was a close one too, with "The Winner Takes It All" almost, well, taking it all.

Mamma Mia! the movie opens today (it's already a hit overseas, and the soundtrack albumjust debuted in the top 10 on the Billboard charts), but before you make your way to the theater, check out the comments section below for the full rundown of this MD Poll, and click here to vote in the latest.

The Latest in Theaters: Batman Besides

Although The Dark Knight is shaping up to be the movie event of the summer (if not the year), there are a lot of other movies opening this weekend as well. Such as:

• Mamma Mia! Can you ask for anything better then Meryl Streep and an all-star cast (including the absolutely dreamy Dominic Cooper) in a sun-kissed movie musical complete with ABBA's biggest hits? I think not.
• Chad Allen returns as gay detective Donald Strachey for another mystery in On the Other Hand, Death. Co-starring, as a lesbian high school guidance counselor no less, is Margot Kidder.
• Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Kristin Chenoweth, Jane Lynch and Stanley Tucci are among the voices in the new animated comedy adventure Space Chimps, about ... well, chimps in space.
• In Transsiberian, Ben Kingsley, Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer are wrapped up in a mystery aboard the titular train ride from Russia to China.
• Writer/director Jacques Nolot stars as an aging gay gigolo faced with his own mortality when his wealthy benefactor dies in in the French import Before I Forget (watch the trailer here).
• And finally: if you find yourself in New York and looking for a good time this weekend, then how about the Sing Along Xanadu?

Visit Fandango - Search movie showtimes and buy tickets!

Women We Love: Meryl Streep

Object of our affection: Meryl Streep, actress.

- Where to begin? The consummate actress of stage, screen and television, she not only can do it all, but also do it with inherent class, unquestionable technique and unbridled honesty. And speaking of doing it all, she does just that -- passion, singing, drama, dancing, comedy -- in this week's Mamma Mia!, not to mention the upcoming Doubt and Julie & Julia.

- She currently reigns as the all-time Academy Award nominated champ -- 14 times; along with two wins for Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie's Choice, she has been nominated for The Deer Hunter, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Silkwood, Out of Africa, Ironweed, A Cry in the Dark, Postcards from the Edge, The Bridges of Madison County, One True Thing, Music of the Heart, Adaptation and The Devil Wears Prada.

- And it's not just Oscars -- she has 21 Golden Globe nominations (second only to Jack Lemmon); in addition to most of the above, she has been recognized for She-Devil, Death Becomes Her, The River Wild, Marvin's Room, The Hours and The Manchurian Candidate. Her six Globe wins include her performance in the epic television masterpiece Angels in America ...

- ... Which also won her her second Emmy; her first was for the classic mini-series Holocaust. She was also nominated for First Do No Harm. Other awards crowding her mantel include those from the American Film Institute (Lifetime Achievement Award), BAFTA, Cannes, the César Awards, Outfest, the National Board of Review, the People's Choice Awards, the Satellite Awards, the Screen Actors Guild and numerous critics groups.

- In addition to such other films as Julia (her film debut), Manhattan, The Seduction of Joe Tynan, Plenty, Heartburn, Defending Your Life, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, A Prairie Home Companion, Rendition and Lions for Lambs, her work on the stage includes her Tony Award nominated turn in A Memory of Two Mondays / 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, plus The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull and Mother Courage and Her Children. Told you could do it all.

Reverend's Report from Outfest: Mamma Mia!

The must-attend events of day 2 of Outfest 2008 were the back-to-back screenings Thursday night of the film version of Mamma Mia! (opening in theaters July 18). Both screenings packed the Directors Guild theater, and I was there to testify that there's nothing quite like watching an ABBA-inspired musical with 500+ gay boys. The temptation to turn the screening into a sing-along was high but most restrained themselves until the final credits, when Meryl Streep actually encourages the audience to join her, Christine Baranski and Julie Walters in singing "Dancing Queen."

I should confess that I'm no fan of the stage version of Mamma Mia! I saw the original Broadway production and felt ripped off by the jukebox musical's strained, flimsy plot ... and I hadn't even paid for the $100 tickets! However, the movie's cast, trailer and more affordable ticket prices had me looking forward to it.

In a couple of ways, the film is an improvement over the stage version. The plot, centering on a young woman's plan to identify her unknown father out of three candidates she has invited to her wedding on a Greek island, is still strained and flimsy but the screenplay (adapted by Catherine Johnson, who wrote the theatrical book) wisely pares it down to the barest of essentials. The movie's lean, 108-minute running time is definitely preferable to the stage version's 2½ hours. Additionally, the actual Greek locations in the film are breathtaking.

The film's big-name cast is a mixed bag. La Meryl is, as always, fabulous as Donna. She looks great, sings and dances very well, and obviously had a lot of fun. While the story's serious moments are few and far between, Streep invests them with her trademark emotional authenticity. The lovely Amanda Seyfried, who plays Donna's "bastard" daughter Sophie, gives a breakthrough performance. Their wedding-day duet, "Slipping Through My Fingers", is the movie's highlight.

As Donna's former band mates, Baranski is wonderful (especially singing "Does Your Mother Know" to a beach full of hot, shirtless young men) but Walters mugs shamelessly and can't really sing or dance. Her rendition of "Take a Chance on Me" stops the show all right, but not in a good way.

The men -- Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, Colin Firth and Dominic Cooper -- fare a little better, both in terms of their performances and their singing. Firth, in particular, reveals a lovely singing voice. Brosnan's singing voice is odd, often sounding like he is in pain and threatening to become more of a bellow, but he can't be faulted for the earnestness he brings to his songs.

Mamma Mia!, the movie, is weakest in the technical department. The stage version's original director, Phyllida Lloyd, was employed to direct the film and she does so with a relentlessly heavy hand. She either encouraged or allowed nearly every line of every song to be illustrated as graphically as possible with gestures and facial expressions. The cinematography and editing, especially of the dance numbers, are downright awful (with the exception of "Voulez -Vous"), most likely due to Lloyd's apparent inexperience.

While most in attendance clearly enjoyed the screening and applauded vigorously at the end, I didn't share their enthusiasm. It wasn't painful to sit through (although my partner, an ABBA devotee, strongly disagrees) but ends up being a merely OK entry in the growing number of modern movie musicals.

UPDATE: Mamma Mia! is now available on DVD and Blu-rayfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

MD Poll: ABBA-licious Movie Music

The inherently danceable songs of ABBA survived the death of disco, stood the test of time, and even provided a few memorable moments in movie music.

Who could forget Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths pulling of an impressive recreation of "Waterloo" in Muriel's Wedding? Or how about Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce lip-synching it up to "Mamma Mia" in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (which also included Terence Stamp's classic retort, "No more f***ing ABBA"). And before all that: ABBA: The Movie.

Which leads us to Mamma Mia! the movie, as in the movie version of the international stage sensation, in theaters July 18. And, as the soundtrack albumis about to be released next Tuesday, our anticipation of the likes of Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth warbling the ABBA catalog of hits grows (no need to wait for Amanda Seyfried though ... you can hear -- and see -- her "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" right here).

In the meantime, brush up on your Anni-Frid/Benny/ Björn/Agnetha and pick your favorite ABBA song in this week's MD Poll, located in the sidebar at right. Check back in two weeks (the day Mamma Mia! hits theaters) for the results.

And for more Mamma Mia! fun, visit the movie's official website and MySpace page.

UPDATE: This poll is now closed; click here for the results, and click here to vote in the latest MD Poll.