A hiatus from Olympics stuff (which has been pretty awesome, by the way).
Saturday: saw “Mamma Mia.” Fun movie to help one relax; don’t look for much in the way of brainwave activity. Meryl Streep was fun, overdramatic (it’s a musical) and has an adequate voice. Amanda Seyfried – previously Lily Kane, the murder victim of the “Veronica Mars” – plays the daughter trying to figure out who’s her dad before her wedding; she has quite a voice (and she might have quite a career; I mean, really, going from a corpse who haunted her friends in a tv series to being a ingenue in a musical movie? Talk about versatility!). Pierce Brosnan — umm, his singing voice wasn’t very good, but he made an effort for acting in the movie. Colin Firth – the stiff Brit who learns to be “spontaneous.” Stellan Skarsgard, the lone Swede actor in a movie using ABBA music (ABBA, after all, being a Swedish group) – had funny moments, but then had his own odd stiff moments (moments that didn’t seem to fit his character).
The movie was a musical – so it’s odd and strange, yet fun. It seems to take place in contemporaneous times, considering a reference to the Internet, but that just seems impossible, because Skarsgard’s character made references to the era of Flower Power and the disco references also feel weird, and Seyfried’s character is only 20 years old and unlikely to have parents from that era (perhaps if the show took place in the 1990’s and the actors were slightly younger, it’d might work; as it was, Firth was by appearances – and actually is – 10 years younger than Streep, Brosnan, Skarsgard, Christine Baranski, and Julie Walters to really be in the same generation with them; seriously – I even checked on imdb.com on that).
NY Times’ A.O. Scott’s review is pretty much accurate – it’s a train wreck, but an amusing one. Slate’s Dana Stevens notes that it’s a good kind of dorky. And, really, despite the quibbles, it was a fun movie. The cinematography made me want to visit Greece.
But, it did make me think that it’s hard to adapt a musical into a movie. Charles Isherwood makes some good observations about that. To me, some movie versions enhance the experience of the musical – making a thin plot or odd scenes make sense – like “Chicago” or “Sound of Music.” Then again, my experience of seeing musicals on stage isn’t exactly great, so who am I to say?
So, there’s this quibble out there that Christian Bale’s tough guy voice as Batman (as opposed to his almost normal sounding voice as Bruce Wayne) is a touch irritating. I kind of agree with that; but then again, Batman’s got to do something with his voice to sound intimidating. As I noted before, Kevin Conroy kind of got it right and borders on the best portrayer of Batman — but even he had this weird thing of sounding unnaturally kind and gentle tenor as Bruce vs. almost too deep as Batman – making one wonder who’s the “real” man – Bruce or Batman (and Bale’s Batman or Conroy’s might convince one to think that the man is Batman, not Bruce). It probably isn’t easy to find that right sound for this character.
Meanwhile, “The Dark Knight” isn’t quite going to knock “Titanic” off the record-breaking list. Apparently, among other things, “Titanic” had Leonardo DiCaprio to attract the teeny-boppers back in the day; teeny-boppers are theoretically not going to see the Batman v. the Joker. Well, I guess had the movie done a bit more Bruce Wayne and his (ridiculously tragic) love life, it wouldn’t have been that difficult to get more women out to see the flick. But, it’s hard to be a movie for all people (which, allegedly, “Titanic” was that movie; I can’t say I agree or disagree, since I didn’t quite like the movie; I’ll commit heresy and admit I thought it was okay – I liked Kate Winslet but I’m not a DiCaprio fan).
Something that is not a movie, but ought to be (or maybe some kind of stupid tv episode, like something out of “Tales from the Crypt” or something): article on CNN.com, via AP – apparently this guy really loved his UPS job, but this final favor that his co-worker did for him – doesn’t it seem just a tad bit much? Just a tad?
“Brooklyn to Hollywood.” Michael C. Martin, a screenwriter, after doing the day job as an MTA, whose mom still wants him to be a paralegal. Hmm. Well, some paralegals do get more pay than some MTA employees (but MTA employees probably have quite a union).
The passing of comedian and actor, Bernie Mac.
The passing of singer/songwriter/actor Isaac Hayes. “(Theme from) Shaft” and even “South Park” (where Hayes played Chef) won’t be the same.