Mamma Mia!

[kudoux]

I snuck into Mamma Mia after I saw Dark Knight and it took me a little while to get into it, but once I did I liked it. I thought it was done really cheesily, but it was entertaining. There were moments where I dunno if I was embarassed for the actors from the super cheese factor or it was just that they were doing something I hadn't seen them do (with it being Lilly Kane and Meryl Streep and Colin Firth, etc...), but a few moments I laughed really really loudly and was the only one in the theater laughing (it was a nearly empty theater anyway as it was a 10:15 showing, but still). I laughed like Mama at some scenes, and I think she'd like this movie alot.
I haven't seen the stage production of Mamma Mia, but I can only imagine the movie was extra over the top, but I can't be sure. I haven't seen the stage production of Hairspray but the movie still played like a musical, as if it were a stage production - with all the color and exaggeration that stage musicals can have - but put in a feature film, which is exactly what it was. For the Mamma Mia! movie it was kind of like a lot of the actors were just performing a musical at their own house, like they were playing around after having seen the musical. They didn't try to be serious with it - no, that's not quite right. They didn't- it's hard to explain, but it worked, I guess. I guess what I mean to say is that it kind of lacked a singular direction. I think there was maybe too many location changes and POV changes within each number. It made it kind of amateur-ish. I think that really must have been what it was, as the director is the same as that of the stage musical and I think she didn't know what to do with all the possibilities film allows.

Also, I heard such god awful reviews of Pierce Brosnan's singing and it wasn't that bad. No worse than anyone else's in the movie. I thought everyone's singing was average, for the most part.

I saw an interview with Lilly Kane and she and the interviewer were going on about when Meryl Streep sang The Winner Takes It All, and how great it was.

Here's the interview, there aren't anything I'd consider spoilers in the clip (I'd consider, for this movie, a spoiler of one of the big laughs a spoiler as the plot wasn't anything special), but you get to see a bit of Meryl Streep's scene.

Click to view

Now I like Meryl Streep alot, especially after she no longer reminded me of Mama. I really do like her alot. But I don't think that performance deserves so much adulation. To me it looked kind of like she didn't know what to do with herself, and just tried her best. When singing there's a tiny line to balance on between moving around too much and not enough. I know because no one in my Musical Theatre workshop class could ever get it right, including me. I do think she emoted through her voice well, though - where her voice cracked and such.

Musicals can be hard to pull off. Movie adaptations while trying to simultaniously ignore and uplay that it's a movie and not on stage (I told you it's hard to explain) is probably extra hard. And while I was entertained I wouldn't include this among the best movie adaptations or consider any of the performances special. But I liked it. I'd buy it on sale.