mitchy: (Pirates go squee)
posted by [personal profile] mitchy at 11:24pm on 15/02/2009 under
I got the DVD of the movie for my birthday from the girls at work and today I watched it. And watched it. And watched it.

It wuz lovely!

First, I just watched the movie. Gods, the scenery was amazing - I now want to travel to the Greek islands and live there :P I agree with the director who said MM had one huge advantage over most musicals transferring to film in that the setting was already in the story, this paradisical island in the med. No problems about opening up the show for film here!

Actors - Meryl Streep was amazing. Seriously, she nailed The Winner Takes It All which is my all time favourite song ever, so I don't say that lightly. And her version of Slipping Through My Fingers made me sniffle. Amanda Seyfried was a joy, an absolute joy, with a perfect voice for the role and the acting chops to sell it. (I realised, on checking her IMDB profile, that she was also in an episode of SVU I watched recently that I remember thinking "Wow, this girl is good". She really is, I'm going to be watching out for her in the future). Christine Baranski, who I adore and wished she'd had a bigger role in Chicago, and Julie Walters were so perfectly cast; their chemistry with Streep turned some scenes from "enjoyable" to "sheer delight". The men, ahh the men. First of all, let me say Brosnan's singing was nowhere near as bad as I was led to believe, in fact it's more than decent and his rendition of When All Is Said And Done was wonderful. Colin Firth also has real singing chops, although we'll draw a discreet veil over his dancing :) Stellan Skarsgard? Oh dear, oh deary deary me. He was the one real bum note (in every sense) for me, but I'll give him props for throwing himself into it wholeheartedly. Dominic Cooper is another young guy I'll want to watch out for - and he's gorgeous, which is an added bonus :D

If you've seen the stage show, the movie offers few surprises, sticking pretty closely the plot. They did cut songs, however; no Knowing Me, Knowing You, no Name of the Game and Thank You For the Music was used in the closing credits. They added When All Is Said and Done. I didn't feel the lack of the songs, to be honest, although I thought on stage KNKY was a rather key point but I can see why they cut it - the movie's at 2 hours long as it is. And as I've said, Brosnan's rendition of WAISAD was a highlight.

Have I mentioned the gorgeous scenery? Dear gods, lemme mention it again. [livejournal.com profile] jenni411, we DO have Greece on our List of Places We're Vistiing When We Win The Lottery And Do Our World Tour, right? What was boggling though, and a real delight to watch again with that knowledge, was that the taverna and courtyard buildings were all sets on a soundstage, the 007 soundstage at Pinewood, ironically. This was due to practical considerations - shooting in the blazing summer heat of Greece, especially energetic and complicated dance numbers, really wasn't a good idea. However, you really don't notice it on the first watch and even on the second with the director's commentary pointing out the switch from Greece to studio, I was doing double takes.

So after I'd watched the movie, I watched allllll the extras, which were fun and trivia filled enough for my lil' trivia lovin' soul to be satisfied. I then spotted the "Director's Commentary" option which, all hail, came with subtitles so I watched the movie again with the commentary switched on. Blissful :)

I shall now go to bed singing Abba tunes :) If you like a feel good movie and Abba doesn't send you screaming from the room, give Mamma Mia a try. If nothing else, it's a beautiful taste of summer and a hellava lot of fun :)
Mood:: 'bouncy' bouncy

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