Mamma Mia! (2008)

“Mamma Mia does it show again my, my just how much I’ve missed you?”

            I think any credibility I may have or think I have has just gone down the drain. My dignity is no longer intact. I must confess I have seen Mamma Mia! two times on Broadway and I saw the movie three times. Let me defend myself here when I first saw Mamma Mia! on Broadway I was eighteen and I was nineteen when I saw the show for a second time and the movie came out. And in all sincerest honesty I have not watch the movie since it came out on DVD five years ago because I absolutely killed it. I cannot even begin to tell you how embarrassed I was watching this again BY MYSELF!!!! Through the embarrassment I had a fabulous time watching Mamma Mia!.

            I am not going to go into too much detail in the summary because there is nothing to really go into detail about. Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried), her mother Donna (Meryl Streep), and her fiancé Sky (Dominic Cooper) live on a Greek island. Sophie never knew who her father was because her mother never told her about him. She would like to have her father at her wedding. Sophie tells her two best friends that when she was cleaning out some old junk she came across her mother’s old diary and found out she has three possible fathers! Sophie finds Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Harry Bright (Colin Firth), and Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgard) and sends them invitations to her wedding in the hopes that when she sees them she will be able to tell who her father is.

            Well that idea blows up in her face big time and she has no idea who her real father could be. Donna finds all three men together and she is not happy about seeing them.

            A whole bunch of other things happen in between and after but if you are brave enough or however you may feel up to seeing this you will see what happens.

            I think the cast was perfect acting wise but singing wise… that is a whole other story. As Cam said on Modern Family “Meryl Streep could play Batman and be perfect.” That is very true. I loved her as Donna. I liked seeing her in something comedic. Pierce Brosnan I cannot look at seriously anymore. All I can think when I see him in this movie is oh my god James Bond is singing! Now when I watch him in a Bond film I am ready for him to bust out singing an ABBA song! I think Amanda Seyfried was the only really professionally trained singer out of the cast. She trained to be an opera singer for a while. Dominic Cooper was not bad at all singing “Lay All Your Love on Me.” I just want to know who thought it was a good idea to let Christine Baranski sing. I loved her as Tonya but not when she sang. Julie Walters was hilarious I loved her so much. Same as Pierce Brosnan when I see Julie Walters in the Harry Potter movies as Mrs. Weasley I am ready for her to start singing.

            So I am sure it is obvious that I like ABBA. Do not judge me for this. They are so much more than “Dancing Queen.” That is not their best song by a long shot. Their songs are beautiful

and moving and complicated and heartbreaking and fantastic. I read somewhere that one of the guys in the group said that “Lay All Your Love On Me” is like a hymn. Go and listen to this song and the description is perfect. You can hear the pain and sadness in “The Winner Takes it All”, “One of Us”, and “Knowing Me Knowing You.” ABBA’s music is great and unfortunately too many people do not give the rest of their music a chance they just think of “Dancing Queen” and roll their eyes and shut their ears.

            Mamma Mia! the Broadway show was amazing. I would honestly go see it again. I liked the show a lot better because the singing is much better and there are more songs in it. Mamma Mia! the movie only takes the cake because it is obviously on location and not on a stage. I think when I saw this in the movies my friends and I were consistently the only ones under 70 in the theater! As I have said I have lost any credibility and any dignity I may have had by admitting I have seen Mamma Mia! and that I like watching it but everyone needs a guilty pleasure movie and this is one of them.

            And come on I own Xanadu and know that craptastic cheese by heart. I think I get a bit of a break on this one… no, I don’t because this is based on ABBA music?... eh whatever, that’s fine I can live with that.